With a temperature of 76 degrees at 8 pm, the sun was setting on the west side of Manhattan Island while the nightlife was picking up at the South Street Seaport on the east side. The Watermark Bar is set on a pier over the East River with a view of all three bridges that connect Manhattan and Brooklyn. As harbor cruise ships, water taxis and speed boats navigated the river, NOLAFUNK was underway in NYC, and it was almost time for The Revivalists to take the stage.
The Revivalists are a seven piece band out of New Orleans, throwing down funk and rock rhythms, creating an almost spiritual fusion of harmonies, horns and raising-a-little-hell vocals. Not a band to concern themselves with conforming to their own mold, The Revivalists are a free-form life force, ever creating and ever changing.
Why bother to slowly set the mood when pumping the crowd from the first song is such a better option. As David Shaw’s distinctive vocals began the set with “Stand Up,” the rest of the band immediately kicked into high gear as they drew the crowd into the music. Full of energy, and frenetic at times, Shaw is a mesmerizing frontman, with arms in constant motion and hair that moves to its own tempo.
I just didn't have it in me to write about the date this year. I wrote this post last year and nothing much has changed since. The new World Trade Center is now the tallest building in the City, but over 3000 people are still gone. It's easy to be out of sight, out of mind... just don't be that way today.
September 11, 2012
Eleven years ago today, nearly 3000 people woke up and went about their morning. They would not go to sleep that night.
They say time heals all wounds...but maybe it doesn't. Ask most people in the NYC area about September 11, 2001 and you will still see eyes well up with tears as they try to explain what being in, or around the city was like for them in the first few months after.
I watched on TV as the second plane hit. I had a doctor's appointment at 10:15 that morning, not long after the first tower fell. As I drove up the hill in town, I knew I would see the skyline of Manhattan. What I saw was more smoke than I had ever seen in my life. And where there were two towers, there now was one. But not for long.
We all know what happened in the next few days, but unless you were here...you couldn't feel the desperation, you couldn't smell the towers burn, you couldn't taste the fear. The fear of what had happened, what could happen and what we didn't know about what happened. And I was 10 miles outside of the city. For friends and family in the city, it was almost unbearable. Very few people who lived in New Jersey made it home that night...everything was closed down. Everyone who worked in the city walked with friends and co-workers over the East River to Brooklyn or Queens to find a bed wherever they could. Thousands and thousands walking in silence, some still covered in ash...walking to a place called normal.
That place no longer existed.
On the six month anniversary of the attack, two banks of lights were set up near the site of the World Trade Center. From dusk to dawn, they sent beams of light from the ground into the night sky. The blue lights gave an eerie, ghost-like appearance of the fallen towers.
I was in the city that night. As I left Manhattan and came out on the Jersey side, I was able to see the Tribute in Lights. To me it looked like it was a pathway for all the souls lost on that day, to find their way to heaven.
I still try to see it every year and I still feel the same way. It takes your breath away.
In trying to decide on a song for today, I was thinking about the Tribute in Lights and about the families and friends of those who lost loved ones. What do they think of when they see those two beams pointed towards the stars...what do they think of when they look at the sky every night since 9/11?
This is the song I chose. Grace Potter and the Nocturnals "Stars"
Please read the lyrics as you listen to the song and remember...
Eleven years ago today, nearly 3000 people woke up and went about their morning. They would not go to sleep that night.
They say time heals all wounds...but maybe it doesn't. Ask most people in the NYC area about September 11, 2001 and you will still see eyes well up with tears as they try to explain what being in, or around the city was like for them in the first few months after.
I watched on TV as the second plane hit. I had a doctor's appointment at 10:15 that morning, not long after the first tower fell. As I drove up the hill in town, I knew I would see the skyline of Manhattan. What I saw was more smoke than I had ever seen in my life. And where there were two towers, there now was one. But not for long.
We all know what happened in the next few days, but unless you were here...you couldn't feel the desperation, you couldn't smell the towers burn, you couldn't taste the fear. The fear of what had happened, what could happen and what we didn't know about what happened. And I was 10 miles outside of the city. For friends and family in the city, it was almost unbearable. Very few people who lived in New Jersey made it home that night...everything was closed down. Everyone who worked in the city walked with friends and co-workers over the East River to Brooklyn or Queens to find a bed wherever they could. Thousands and thousands walking in silence, some still covered in ash...walking to a place called normal.
That place no longer existed.
On the six month anniversary of the attack, two banks of lights were set up near the site of the World Trade Center. From dusk to dawn, they sent beams of light from the ground into the night sky. The blue lights gave an eerie, ghost-like appearance of the fallen towers.
I was in the city that night. As I left Manhattan and came out on the Jersey side, I was able to see the Tribute in Lights. To me it looked like it was a pathway for all the souls lost on that day, to find their way to heaven.
I still try to see it every year and I still feel the same way. It takes your breath away.
In trying to decide on a song for today, I was thinking about the Tribute in Lights and about the families and friends of those who lost loved ones. What do they think of when they see those two beams pointed towards the stars...what do they think of when they look at the sky every night since 9/11?
This is the song I chose. Grace Potter and the Nocturnals "Stars"
Please read the lyrics as you listen to the song and remember...
