Wow. Maybe they should hold all the Arts and Ideas concerts in the rain.
At 6 p.m., the night seemed bright. It had rained heavily in the morning, but cleared completely by the time the Arts and Ideas festival began for the day around 1 p.m.
The sun shone brightly right up until the moment the Cuban pop duo Ibeyi started performing on the New Haven Green for what was perhaps the most eagerly awaited outdoor show of Arts and Ideas 2015.
Ibeyi had barely begun their opening number when it didn’t just rain — as it had steadily on the previous night’s Green attraction, Kurt Elling and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra — but positively downpoured. The deluge was so sudden and prolonged that food tents shook, hundreds ran for shelter, and the stage crew rushed to cover Ibeyi’s keyboards and microphones with heavy tarps.
But before that happened, Ibeyi was gamely trying to play and the crowd was hoping to stay. As the rains began to threaten their just-started set, Ibeyi’s Lisa-Kaindé Díaz walked to the front of the stage and exclaimed “I want to get wet with you!”
A few minutes later, festival director Mary Lou Aleskie was assuring the drenched, still-being-rained-upon crowd that “we’re going to wait until it’s safe to put the electric back on. Then we’ll party!”
Shut down a concert by Angelique Kidjo? The festival darling making her third summer A&I appearance, her first after being given the festival’s Visionary Leadership Award this past March? Pull the plug on one of the most energetic, most uplifiting and inspirational acts the festival has ever brought to New Haven? Cut short the Connecticut debut of the fast-rising 20-year-old twin Diaz sisters of Ibeyi? That wasn’t going to happen.
So the twins returned, shaking off the raindrops and regaining momentum for a uniformly rhythmic and harmonious yet rather diverse set of neo-Afro-pop. Their sound is an ingenious mix of traditional percussion (cajón and batá drums), keyboards, samples, and vocal harmonies, finding the fine edge of world music and emo.
Before their last song, Ibeyi thanked everyone — “the festival ... Angelique…” and especially the audience: “Thank you for coming. Thank you for staying.” Kidjo had suggested Ibeyi herself as an ideal companion act for Sunday night’s show, and was a scheduling coup for the festival, since they only released their first album in February and have only been touring the United States since the spring.
Was Ibeyi tempting fate by doing their watery hit song “River” twice in their short set? It was wet enough already, thanks. It continued to rain throughout the night, but the torrential burst that began the storm was not repeated; there was just a steady drizzle that was easily manageable if your attention was focused on the festival and not skyward.
Headliner Angelique Kidjo burst out onstage as if nothing had happened to dampen the proceedings. She was radiant in a heavily patterned floor-length purple dress, which she worked and danced in as her first number went from a gentle vocal, to a tell, to a scream, to a mad percussive instrumental jam.
Angelique Kidjo’s songs have elements of folk, R&B, drum-n-bass, rock ‘n’ roll, and of course all those complex African rhythms. The rat-a-tat beats propelled Kidjo wildly about the stage. She has a remarkable voice. She’s a tremendous dancer. She’s also an impassioned orator, a longtime activist for women’s education issues, and an ambassador for UNICEF and for the Peace and Security program of the African Union.
On the Green, Kidjo sang empowerment anthems for women. She sang about children. She covered Bob Marley. The last half-dozen songs of her set all seemed like showstopper finales, but then up would come another one. You really expected her to end the show after inviting dozens of people from the crowd up onstage to dance with her. This multiracial, multigeneration, multistyled assemblage of humanity kicked up their heels and shook their booties with joyous abandon, while thousands whooped and cheered.
At the end of her main set, the band indulged in a slamming-drum backing-band instrumental meltdown, but this wasn’t one of those fill-in segments where the star goes backstage to take a break. Kidjo was right there at the back of the stage with the band, digging the groves as her bandmates (most of them brought in from New York and Boston) took center stage. Then there was more Kidjo, more Ibeyi (the twins helping lead a singalong), more crowd interactions, more inspirational speeches, more intoxicating dancing.
The rain delay had barely lasted 15 minutes, but the concert went on until 10 p.m., an hour past its scheduled time. It’s clear that Angelique Kidjo could’ve gone on for hours more. And you don’t even have to add the phrase “weather permitting.”
This was a great concert and I'm glad I and my friends stuck through the downpour. But A&I needs to do a better job coping with the fact that sometimes it rains in June. If the deluge had continued for 45, rather than 15, minutes I suspect most folks would have left.