Papelbon and emcee Mike O'Malley kiss and make up.
(Photo: Tamara Wieder)
It rained. Hard. Lightning was in the forecast. And, as the
Globe so sagely put it, “electric guitars and standing water do not mix
well.” But while a baseball game cannot be moved indoors, a concert can.
So, after the Gentlemen and the Click 5 risked shocking
consequences by playing a couple quick sets outside, the second annual Hot Stove Cool Music: The Fenway
Sessions shut it down, set up stage in the big concourse under right field,
and began anew with an intimate half-house setting.
The rain-sodden fans, who’d paid as much as $100 a ticket
didn’t seem to mind. For one thing, they were that much closer to the beer and
Fenway Franks. And, of course, it was for charity.
The only real drawbacks were the suddenly diminished
sightlines — Hey, I think I saw Kay Hanley’s
tattoo! Is that the sheen of Terry
Francona’s bald pate? — and the torrential rain coming down between the
bleachers and the grandstand, accreting in puddles underfoot.
But the delay and relocation also had a couple unintended
consequences. American Idol songbird Ayla Brown did
not perform — thanks, the rumor went, to good ol’ Massachusetts blue laws. ("Be
it hereby decreed that basketball
playing aspiring pop stars under the age of 18 shall not be permitted to
perform on stage past the hour of 9 o’clock in the eventide!") And James Taylor, after having had fun with a lengthy soundcheck, played a blink-and-you-missed-it set. (Did he not like the smallish venue?) No matter. If Howie Day happened to be a bit of a
snoozefest if you weren’t an adolescent girl, Cowboy Mouth soon had the crowd in the
palms of their hands.
Backstage was an interesting scene, a collision of rock and
jock worlds that was amusing to behold. Jonathan
Papelbon, in a sharp suit, fresh off the plane from the All-Star Game, obliged
fans who wanted autographs and cell-phone photos. Lenny
DiNardo watched the onstage action from behind a curtain in the corner. Gabe
Kapler and his wife Lisa sneaked outside for some alone time in the seats near
the damp outfield grass. Meanwhile, Red Sox chairman Tom Werner and Executive VP
Charles Steinberg commingled with the likes of the Dents’ Jen D’Angora, Fenway Recordings honcho Mark Kates, and Juliana Hatfield.
The unseen presence, of course, was Peter
Gammons. This whole shebang is his baby, and he was on everyone’s minds as performer
after performer shouted out their well wishes.
By the time Buffalo Tom
took the stage with a young man named Theo Epstein augmenting them on guitar, the
night had reached an apotheosis. They tore through an excoriating “Taillights
Fade” and Neil Young’s “Powderfinger,” before being joined by a motley crew of
the night’s musicians for righteous “Rockin’ in the Free World.”
It was loud enough. Gammons must’ve heard it.