Returning to the Scene of the Marriage

Several months ago, Nan bought tickets to a Gipsy Kings (yes, that’s how they spell their name) concert at Powell Symphony Hall.  She bought them for the evening of June 5th, our 33rd wedding anniversary.  The date was purely a coincidence; June 5th was the only night they were in St. Louis.  Nan is a Gipsy Kings fan.  I’m not, particularly.  I don’t dislike them, I find their music enjoyable, but I don’t feel about them the way I feel about Led Zeppelin, Dread Zeppelin, or John Prine. 

We had planned to have a pre-concert dinner at Vito’s, a good restaurant convenient to Powell Hall, but bad planning on my part and scarcity of parking caused us to seek dinner someplace closer to the venue.  We walked down Grand Avenue, looking for alternatives, and settled on a place called Wm. Shakespeare’s Gastropub.  Since we like both gastronomy and pubs, we decided to give it a try.  I had a snort of Jameson’s and excellent fish and chips, and Nan had a serviceable curry.  It wasn’t until we paid our bill and walked across the street that we realized we’d been dining in the Old University Club building.  We were married in this building, 33 years ago to the day.

We were married at Seminex, the Concordia Seminary in Exile.  In 1976, Seminex occupied the top floors of the Old University Club building on Grand Avenue.  Our officiant was Father John Damm, the founding academic dean of Seminex and an old friend of Nan’s family.  Nan grew up calling him ”Uncle John.”  We were married on the 10th floor and had our reception on the top floor.  We were amused that we were oblivious to where we were having supper.  We never fail to point the building out when we’re with friends.

We finished our walk to Powell Hall and found our seats, third row center.  The King’s percussion gear was extensive.

The Gipsy Kings are an amalgam of two families backed by two drummers, a keyboardist and a bass player.  They were introduced as some of France’s most popular musicians.  I had no idea they originated in France, I assumed they were Spanish or Latin-American.  Turns out, they were born in France, but their parents were Catalonian.  They’re credited with introducing Rumba Catalana to a worldwide audience.

The introduction of the Kings was the last English we heard from the stage that night.  Being monolingual, Nan and I couldn’t understand a word the Kings were singing.  It could have been, “Spam-Spam-Spam-Spam-Spam-Baked-Beans-and-Spam” for all we knew.  The sound system wasn’t doing a very good job of projecting the vocals, but it didn’t seem to matter, those who understood the words were singing along from memory.  During the last couple of numbers, fans poured down the aisles to gyrate in front of the stage.

The Gipsy Kings put on one hell of a show.  I may not be a fan of their recordings, but I loved seeing their performance.

- Poppa