I hate it.
Not the Hollywood Bowl part, the "going to it" part.
When I first went, I drove, and parked in the Hell that is known as the Odin Street Lot. Stacked parking. You're not getting out until the people parked in front of you decide to leave. (Or, putting it a little more correctly: you're not getting out until the idiots in front of you decide to stop drinking, figure out which one of them is sober enough to drive, find their keys, and load their asses into the car.)
Things temporarily improved when I discovered the Pasadena Park & Ride. Free parking and a direct bus. But as the Park & Ride became more popular, they couldn't keep up with demand, and the last time I went to the Bowl (which I was pretty sure would be the LAST TIME I went to the Bowl), I waited for over an hour until I got on a bus. At which point, it got us to the Bowl just in time to drop us off at an entrance so crowded with bus drop-offs, the security staff directed us to hike up to the top of the Bowl if we wanted any hope of getting through the metal detectors before the concert started. By the time I got in, my friends had already eaten and I was minutes away from missing the start of the concert.
(I mentally cursed whoever approved the Environmental Impact Report for this thing with inadequate facilities for getting people in and out of there. Yes, I know, the Bowl probably predated EIRs. The Bowl is probably why we have EIRs.)
So, to sum up: fun experience once you get there; but I'd kind of sworn it off as not worth the effort.
Enter Gina and Lorri.
Now, I've known Gina for some time. She came to the court a few years after I did. Liked her from the start. I mean, she was smart and fun and had worked in theatre. (In New York! At places I'd heard of!) I had gone right from high school to college to law school to clerking to a law firm to the court. Gina had LIFE before she came here; she had stories and I always wanted to hear them.
Gina is married to Lorri, who -- I eventually learned -- is famous in certain circles, what 'cause she's the CEO of the LA LGBT Center. (She even has a wikipedia entry!) Gina and Lorri came to one of my birthday parties, and one of my theatre critic friends pulled me aside and asked, with a little bit of awe in his voice, what Lorri Jean was doing at MY party. (Um? I'm a token straight friend?) I'm pretty sure there are about a zillion people who know Gina as "Lorri's wife." In my world, Lorri is Gina's wife.
And before I actually met Lorri, the one thing I REALLY new about Gina and Lorri, as a couple, is that they travel. They travel WELL. They stay in great places and see cool things and have great experiences and drink very good wines. They LIVE.
And they have a box at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Squee.)
Calendars were checked and cross-checked and I got invited to join them in their box on Sunday. It was something of a World Music night -- and I had, like, zero familiarity with anyone on the program. But that's not the point of the experience -- it's the box and the dinner and the good wine and the companionship and the concert under the stars and the valet parking....
Holy crap, they have valet parking.
I met them at their house, so we could all pile in one car and take advantage of the Bestest Way To Get The Bowl. It was a six-person box. We were joined by their college-kid nephew and a couple who had recently moved to L.A. and had never been to the Bowl before. (Sorry guys; it won't be this good next time.) As Lorri drove over, we chatted about, well, about how we all just LIKE flying Business Class. I haven't looked at anyone's tax return here, but I'm pretty sure that nobody in that car made the kind of money that lets you live a First Class lifestyle on a daily basis; but we've all been lucky enough to experience it from time to time, and we were all just happy and grateful that we were going to do it again for an evening.
So we dropped the car with the valet, got escorted through the no-damn-line at Security, and were seated in Lorri's lovely dead-center box. Staff came by with our pre-ordered picnic boxes; Lorri and Gina started opening wine; and (I am not making this up) the clouds parted and an actual sunbeam warmed our box.
"Warm" was actually the word I kept thinking of all night. (Even though it got a bit brisk, and I had to dig into my bag of Many Warm Layers.) But Gina and Lorri were such warm hosts, and brought together this diverse group of six people for such a friendly, happy evening.
I turned my chair around (so Gina was behind me) and it was time for the music. There were four acts in the concert -- two opening acts and two headliners. (At least, that was what I inferred from the size of the fonts their names appeared in.) The first wasn't too impressive, but only did about three songs. Gina leaned forward and whispered something about how the discordant screaming wasn't working for her, and I appreciated having my host's permission to not dig this. The second act didn't have a vocalist; I decided this was a good time for a bathroom break, and when I got back I was pretty sure they were playing the same song they'd started with. Things picked up for the third act, Little Dragon, which the program tells me is a Swedish Electro-Pop band, which played some good music and I caught myself bobbing my head to the rhythm. Fourth act was someone called Flying Lotus, a ... fuck if I know. I've read the program description a half dozen times and I'm no closer to figuring how the hell to describe Flying Lotus. They passed out 3D glasses and we went on an interdimensional audio-visual journey that had something to do with death and the afterlife. (Gina remembered that I don't have much depth perception, and I didn't here. I missed a bunch of the effects which left people around me gasping, but I'm happy to report that the slowly-spinning spaceship looked like it was Coming Right At Me.) Somewhere in Little Dragon's performance, I had put in my earplugs, because the bass was making my strenum vibrate. But partway through Flying Lotus, I took my earplugs out. It was still loud, but--
--OK, this was the first time I'd put in earplugs at a concert, so I didn't really know what to expect. They help with the loud. When you're wearing earplugs, you can still hear all the music, but it sounds distant. And I was intrigued enough by what Flying Lotus was putting down that I wanted to be more present for it, so I yanked the earplugs.
It looked fantastic. Musically, it was kind of hit-and-miss for me, but I came to the conclusion that it was art more than music, and I could appreciate that it was QUALITY, even if it wasn't necessarily my thing. And I gotta say, the circumstances made it so much easier for me to just open myself up to this bizarre thing. I was comfortable; surrounded by nice people; tasty food having been eaten; slightly buzzed from the wine; not in any way worried about if I was going to make the bus or have to wait hours to free my car -- it was just pleasant and peaceful and why WOULDN'T I dig the weird shit going on on stage?
And when it ended, we left the Bowl in record time, got back to Gina and Lorri's place, and said our goodbyes to each other, and our perfect little Hollywood Bowl evening.
And I was a little tired so I sang out loud to the "Hamilton" cast recording all the way home. And that seemed right, too.
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