This week I had the great good fortune to take in not just one but two outdoor concerts. We’d had tickets for some time to see Crosby, Stills and Nash as part of the Britt Festival‘s summer concert series. But yesterday afternoon I learned that a friend had an extra ticket to the final performance in the series for last night — for An Evening with James Taylor. I’ve enjoyed his music from day one, so it was a no-brainer to jump at the chance to go (and Harry was tied up attending the high school football game, so I didn’t feel guilty about going without him). The other concerts we’ve seen through the Britt this summer have been at its venue in Jacksonville, but these two this week were both at the Lithia Motors Amphitheater on the grounds of the Jackson County Expo Park, just a few miles from our house. In fact, there have been evenings this summer when we could sit on our patio and pick up a little music wafting from that direction. While it seats 5,800 (about 2,000 in reserve seats and the rest in lawn seating) — 3,000 more than the Jacksonville site — and has better sight lines (no trees or light towers in the way), aesthetically and acoustically it has some challenges. First, it sits no more than perhaps 100 yards from Interstate 5. Tuesday night Stephen Stills speculated that he could use his 5-wood from the stage to drive right over it. Three miles in the other direction is the municipal airport, but at least the flight pattern is not directly overhead, and few commercial flights go out in the evening. We found that the competing noise from those transportation corridors wasn’t terribly distracting or overwhelming, but the designers of the amphitheater could have improved the acoustics with a better choice of materials. The ample, wide bowl is backed by concrete block walls which bounce sound back very efficiently (NOT a good thing!). David Crosby gave a few “construction notes” as he wryly pointed out the “other band” that was playing just a second or two behind them from the back of the place. His solution? “You could throw some blankets up over those walls or something!” Nevertheless, it didn’t take long to just settle in and enjoy the tunes. Unfortunately, there were a LOT of empty seats and open lawn area for C, S & N, which I’m sure didn’t help the sound difficulties. While Crosby and Graham Nash still seem to be able to hit their notes crisply and with power, Stephen Stills’ voice took a long time to warm up and certainly hasn’t the range or strength it used to. I’ve always loved the harmonies this group wove together, and they were still able to do so — “Guinnevere”  still has that mystical/magical quality. Especially later in the evening — perhaps part of that as the sound crew adjusted to the conditions of the site – their voices seemed to meld more solidly together in both their old hits and some new covers they performed. They spoke of potential plans to put together an album of such pieces (by the Stones, Bob Dylan, James Taylor and others), and it was nice to get a mix of the oldies with some new and underplayed stuff. And I must say that whatever Stills may have lost vocally has not affected his guitar-playing talents in the least. He was simply awesome all night long. By the end of the two-hour concert, with the crowd on its feet, he and his bandmates had delivered on their promise to present us a “fiery ball of rock and roll.”   I’ll share my impressions of James Taylor and his band tomorrow. –Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader