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Stanford University Live presents Youssou N'Dour et Super Étoile
Bing Concert Hall
Stanford University, 327 Lasuen St, Stanford, CA 94305-5005 USA
7:30 PM, Wednesday, August 9, 2017
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[7:40 PM lights down, announcements from Chris Lorway, band out (both guitarists starting on acoustics), Babacar Faye whopps up the crowd and calls on Youssou N'Dour]
[8:55 PM lights down, announcements, band out]
Busy work day, then long slog on BART to Union City and DB Express bus across to Palo Alto in order to meet Ting for dinner at Umami Burger. Tonight we went vegan, splitting an Impossible Burger. Yum! And since it was still kind of early once we finished, we strolled a few blocks over to Classico Gelato so I could savor a small bowl of Coppa Mista. Mmmmmn, heavenly!
We drove up Palm Drive and parked between Bing Hall and the Biz School quad, then walked in to Bing to take our seats a few minutes before the show started. Chris Lorway came out soon for opening announcements, and after a brief pause, it was time for Youssou N'Dour et Super Étoile to sweep us away.
Although Babacar and Youssou both commented to the audience that we were welcome to get up and dance, the typically staid Stanford crowd took awhile – four or five songs? – to get hip to the groovy mbalax beat. It's way more fun to get up and dance for real than to sit still and try to keep the dancing confined inside my head.
Hampered by my inability to understand Wolof, I probably wouldn't have gotten more than a third of the tunes right in the setlist, except that Ting was smart enough to get a picture of it after the show. I'm reasonably certain that the list above is faithful to what was played tonight!
I was worried that the fire alarm would have caused the band to cut short their performance, but it appears that we simply got two sets instead of a single long one. Works for me!
The Zimbabwean band, Mokoomba played a free after-show party in the lobby, but after listening to a minute or two, we decided to head home instead of staying to listen or dance. Must be getting old, eh?
Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!