July 12th , 2008

The dark passageway through which I passed held no clue to the vastness of space that it emptied into. The evening was just beginning and the cachak-cachak of a thousand plastic cups being crushed under heavy feet into the sticky, beer sprayed floor provided a steady static. A vast cloud of smoke hung low over the swarm of people beelined to the front of the hall. It certainly smelt like the fog over a sea of weed. Maybe it was my imagination because I had come in restless, excited and a tad wired after a long day at the lab but it was a little relaxing.. I got there twenty five minutes early, held my breath as I pushed my way through the bottleneck at security hoping they wouldn't discover my camera - I knew I had to record this, it all seemed too surreal already.

There were galleries at the two flanks of the stage. I would be right at the front when the concert began but until then I wanted to sit for a bit, perhaps figure out what my agenda for the rest of the evening would be. And so, I plonked myself on the first step, rummaged through my bag for the schedule - but seeing a blur, I realised I was too wound up with excitement - with the absolute momentousness of what was to come to be able to think anything after it.

To my right was a beautiful african woman in dreads, immaculate white teeth and high cheek bones. I caught her eye and smiled and blurted out something about how big this place was. She smiled back disarmingly and we began to talk about this and that. She was 50. In the dim light I didn't notice the stray gray roots in her dreads. We talked about Jazz and what we were to witness. She'd been going to these festivals religiously since she was 20 - Perugia, Montreux, Gent - she rattled off the times when she heard some of the greats. Apparently she was Surinamese but had lived in the Netherlands since her girlhood. We talked about this and that and she gave me suggestions about whom to watch. I had to blurt out that it was my first time and how excited I was to be here - she looked at me so maternally and said, ' it's always beautiful to be part of something so much bigger than us - music you know, I mean, not just a festival - We are as important as the musician - our energy matters , so you must let go and just open yourself out to it '

I'm not sure I understood at that point what she meant. But I nodded anyway. And just then the curtains began to draw. She leaped up and tugged on my sleeve. 'Come, come' , she said. 'Yes', I told her, 'I want to go right up front, as close to the stage' She laughed and said.' Yes, yes, We must go in front, no point listening to music like this, sitting, we must be able to move' . When she stood up, her six feet, lean frame came as a surprise. But it also meant she couldn't weave in and out of the crowd like me. She was thoughtful, quickly realising that I wouldn't be able to see, even though we were quite up ahead in the crowd, spoke in quickfire dutch to a couple of giant dutchmen standing in front of us, to let me go ahead while she stood back. Just then He walked onto the stage, softly whispered into the mic, a very humble 'I am happy to be here' before picking up his guitar. He turned to his band , with a 'Here we go, 1, 2, 3' began the familiar strains of 'Graceland'.

It was what Oprah would call ' a full circle moment ' . It was the most profound culmination of a lifelong connection to a man's music. A connection that began the day my dad first held me, the day he softly strummed those tunes on his guitar to soothe my tears , a connection that was cemented over all the years that followed.

And it was all mine. As I stood there amidst a sea of strangers - swallowed up by the crowd, now thoroughly separated from the only person I had exchanged a few words with, I was careless and for the first time in my life, I was never happier that I was alone. I didn't want to share this with anyone else. I was free to feel , free to cry, free to dance like there was no tomorrow, free to sing along at the top of my voice and not feel guilty about making it all about me , not feel self-conscious and inhibited.

There I was, in a dark hall, standing fifteen metres away from my favourite poet, and I couldn't believe my fortune. In my last two years in Europe. I have done many things I thought I would have to wait half a lifetime to do. And each time I find myself standing in the midst of one of my dreams, I am immediately overwhelmed and for a moment all I feel is gratitude. I say a little thank you to the man above and then let myself take it all in. No one event epitomizes that more than the evening of July the 12th.

Paul Simon was singing. I don't remember too much of anything else. Just a euphoria...

" And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying "

He went on to sing a lot of songs from 'Graceland' - peppered with ones from his Simon and Garfunkel days. (like a beautiful rendition of Mrs. Robinson - which the whole crowd heartily joined in on the the cacoocachoo) . His old, knobbly hands strumming the guitar effortlessly. His pale skin and sunken cheeks visibly despite the shadow of his hat and the slightly protruding belly , awkward on his 5 foot 1 inch frame, betraying his 67 years but his voice, amazingly, unchanged - his quiet, understated presence, nonetheless felt.

He didn't try to do outrageous things to his music, or infuse it with anything alien just because the venue was a Jazz festival. He stuck to the essence of it . And yet, he did very interesting things with the arrangement, and slipped in some very cool improvisation, that sat so naturally that you could easily think it was part of the original, unless you knew his music well. It was something I found entirely unexpected because somehow I suppose I've always been so moved by his words that I almost forget he is equally a musician.

There was a point when he had the audience keep time in a sort of flamenco style with clapping, to his guitar playing. Let me tell you, it was some complex clapping. Yet, it wasn't any attempt at showmanship. He just began to clap a certain way and the audience followed - if they hadn't, I doubt he would have done anything different, or said anything as vulgar as ' come on, let me hear you rotterdam' . Come to think of it, he said barely a word and yet it was filled with character. There were all kinds of crazy instruments, some of which I've never seen - Like a chappie that wore an armour-like vest with metallic shards that you had to scrape up and down to produce a percussion-like effect. Everyone in the audience looked as befuddled by it as I felt. And yet it all felt perfectly natural. It fit.

What was supposed to be an hour's showcase ended up as a two-and a half hour concert , the last half hour of which was heralded by the most thunderous, heartfelt, unanimous encore ever sounded by an audience that I've heard. There was feet stamping, hooting, wolf whistling, and rapturous applause for ten intense minutes before they returned and began with one of my favourites. The Boxer - it's my dad's song. And I wished he could have been there.

As the last strains faded and the bows were taken - I screamed impetuously ' Woo hoo... Thank You ' rather impulsively in the general direction of the stage. I don't know what I was thinking. Ok, clearly it was un-thought out. Doubt He heard it anyway but there were plenty of people that did. And when they turned around to look and saw this brown, chubby, short girl , grinning wide, cheeks aflush, completely unaware of what she just did, applauding with all her might and it made them all laugh.

"But it's alright, it's all right, I have lived so long and so well"

And on that note, with lingering smiles and soft sighs, we left.