Sep 14, 2014

John Legend at Ravinia on June 16, 2014

John Legend proved to live up to the hype AND his last name.  A true legend he was.  We were lucky to secure pavilion seats through my friend Kristin.  Being inside was incredibly fabulous because you wanted to be as close to this intimate experience as possible.  He performed with a string quartet and about ten lucky (deep pocketed?) fans had seats on stage right behind the quartet.  His charisma was unparalleled as he entertained the audience with stories of his humble beginnings in NY and his help from Kanye West who got him his first big break.  He even demonstrated how he writes songs by singing gibberish to the melody that he had written and then coming up with lyrics.  All I know is that I could barely speak (gibberish or otherwise) and was spellbound during his performance.  I wanted him to have "All of Me" sometime during the second or third song.  I went with my girlfriends which really is the way to go unless you are wanting to be romantic with your husband or sig other.  In my opinion, you will forget all about your husband or sig other within 5 minutes of the show anyway so you really can't lose.  One friend, who typically likes larger more muscular men, completely deleted this requirement from her laundry list by the second chorus of the 1st song: "I think I like more slight and shorter men now…" Legend not being particularly burly.  Another friend started crying during his cover of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" due to its shear perfect execution of the emotion and meaning of the song.  We were (and remain) in love with JL.

If you are a Springsteen fan or not, you will love this version of "Dancing in the Dark" maybe for some of you, more than the original.  It is such an amazing arrangement, so beautiful with the string instruments and piano accompaniment.  I dare you not to cry.

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