This performance took place August 22, 2023.
So where’s your happy place? I have a few: the beach, Elks hot tub, tennis court, Sunday night football with my girlfriend.
But number one for me is sitting alone in a crowded theater, watching and listening to wonderful musicians do their thing for a few hours: no distractions, cell phones, or conversation.
For a short but engaging 85 minutes, during the Judy Collins concert at the Clark Center in Arroyo Grande on a late summer school night, I got the feeling my fellow concertgoers had found theirs too.
Collins may no longer be a household name in the entertainment business, but for seasoned folk music lovers, she’s legendary, with a six-decade career of recording and performing. The packed Forbes Hall was buzzing and enthusiastic when she made her entrance promptly at 7:30 pm.
Collins spoke haltingly but eloquently between songs, telling many stories . . .”
Ambling slowly on stage in a long blue dress and boot heels, the 84-years-young Collins introduced her piano/maestro and a young, talented string quartet, then jumped straight into “Mountain Girl” from her recent well-received bluegrass album, Winter Stories.
Nobody really knew what kind of performance to expect from a musician with such a long and storied career. Collins came from the early 1960s folk movement of Seeger, Dylan, Baez, et al but the evening, sans her guitar and keyboards, focused on her 1967 album Wildflowers.
Of course, she got many smiles and cheers for her rendition of the classic “Both Sides Now,” written by Joni Mitchell. While a prolific songwriter, Collins is best known for that song, “Chelsea Morning” (another Mitchell tune), and “Send in the Clowns,” a haunting but lovely Sondheim ballad she famously recorded on her most successful album, Judith, in 1975.
Collins spoke haltingly but eloquently between songs, telling many stories about her songwriting relationship with Leonard Cohen, even quipping about her canceled show in Ojai two days before due to the first tropical storm to hit So Cal since 1939, the year she was born.
It’s always a tricky call for performers to pick a setlist and decide how much to speak or play. Collins was a trooper—standing for the entire show—but with such limited time I would have preferred more offerings than her 12-song set, and more variety in her storytelling. Like her complicated relationship with Stephen Stills, who wrote the classic “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” about Collins, or her folk artist compadre Mitchell.
At show’s end, the woman next to me felt certain that Collins would return with an encore of her classic “Amazing Grace” cover, but it was not to be.
Like always, the Clark Center puts on wonderfully diverse performances with friendly staff, pitch perfect sound, and comfortable seating.”
It goes to the performer/audience conundrum, especially nostalgia acts: do I play what I want to or what people expect? But that’s a column for another day.
Like always, the Clark Center puts on wonderfully diverse performances with friendly staff, pitch perfect sound, and comfortable seating. Their 2023-24 season promises to be a good one with Don McLean, Thompson Square, and several tribute concerts lined up.
The bottom line is many entertainment venues have yet to get their mojo back post-COVID, but the 615-seat Arroyo Grande theater is certainly NOT one of them.
:: Colin Jones