Last night (16 December), I drove up to Julie's apartment. There, she and I got into her vehicle and we went to 560 Music Center in University City. This facility hosted the annual Holiday Concert of BandTogether, a Metro St. Louis volunteer music organization.
After parking in a nearby garage, Julie and I walked through a light rain to 560 Music Center. We first went into the Pillsbury Theater for a pre-show featuring the band's 12-person color guard performing a routine.
Following the pre-show, the audience made its way to the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall for the concert, whose theme was "You Better Sleigh!" They performed five selections in the first act, including instrumental versions of "Santa Baby" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain." Julie and I attended last year's concert, and we were really enjoying this year's show.
A 15-minute intermission followed, which included another show in the Pillsbury Theater by the color guard. They danced and twirled flags to the Christmas song "Underneath the Tree." They did quite a beautiful job.
It was then back to the Concert Hall for the rest of the concert. The band performed five more selections, including "Laughing All the Way (For all who love snow...)" and "All is Calm," based on the classics "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night," respectively. The house lights were brought down for the latter number, and audience members lit electric candles (or in Julie and my case, our cellphone lights) during the performance.
Prior to the final number, "Choose Joy," the conductor expressed his thanks to all who supported BandTogether in the past year. He also paid tribute to his mother, who passed away just days before, and it was hard for him to keep from tearing up as he talked about his mother. Julie and I agreed this was an honest gesture on his part.
The band performed an encore number, "Sleigh Ride," before the concert finally ended. Julie and I walked out happy, as did everyone else in attendance.
After walking back to the garage and getting back into her vehicle, Julie and I headed back to her apartment. I stayed around with Julie and her apartment mate Joan, who was nursing some soreness and had passed on going to the concert. I enjoyed a mug of hot chocolate as we watched a few YouTube videos projected onto their large screen TV. We saw several videos from Six13, a New York-based Jewish a capella group who did song parodies tied to Hanukkah, which just ended the previously Thursday. They did songs based on "West Side Story," "Hamilton," and "Star Wars," as well as music by Billy Joel. We agreed Six13 did a terrific job on these Holiday-themed songs.
After that, we saw an 60th anniversary special episode of "Doctor Who" on Disney+. Julie is a big fan of the series and recently went to "Doctor Who" themed First Friday at the Saint Louis Science Center. In this episode we saw, Doctor Who and his assistant went back to 1925 London to take on the Toymaker, who was trying to turn an early experiment in TV transmission into a present-day torment for the world. I found it very entertaining; however, I was also really tired. With that, I called it a night and drove home, stopping on the way home at White Castle for some sliders.
When I got home, I found that my mailbox had been knocked a bit off base and its front hatch removed from the box. I didn't understand what could have happened. This afternoon, I called the police who came out to have a look. The officer noticed a scar on one side of the mailbox which I had not seen before. This officer believed some drunk motorist hit the mailbox last night before I got home. He also found the front hatch and reattached it to the mailbox. The officer said he would look elsewhere in the subdivision, but thought it was an isolated case. I was glad to know that and thanked the officer for coming for a look.
Later.
Websites of Entities Mentioned in this Post:
560 Music Center: E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall | 560 Music Center | Washington University in St. Louis (wustl.edu)
BandTogether: BandTogether – St. Louis' LGBT+ Band and Colorguard since 1997 (bandtogetherstl.com)
Six13: Six13 | Being Jewish never sounded quite like this
Doctor Who: Doctor Who | Home
White Castle: Home - White Castle
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