Concert for Bangladesh Ending

Anonymous - Special to Boatman News Service and Associated Content

August 1, 1971. Madison Square Garden in New York. My friend and I and 20,000 other believers in the middle of The Concert for Bangladesh. Royalty of rock entertainment and a social cause to help our brothers and sisters a world away. Seems like a million years ago today.

George Harrison had begun with "My Sweet Lord" and put emotion in flight. We wanted more and more. Play a song for me. I ain't sleepy and there ain't no place I'm going to. He was here.

I think I'm pretty much in order with this. Leon Russell added his vocal signature to this musical document with his delivered drawled warning to "Beware of Darkness". In one of the evening's highlight performances, he was terrific. His presence was as attractively erie as ever. His voice to me always was a sound from another world, getting closer. It was very close this night.

Leon and George did some real rock n roll numbers between George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with Eric Clapton, and "Here Comes The Sun". If you know these songs you know what I'm saying now. The beauty of what we were feeling went beyond the actual words and music. Throughout the show that evening my friend and I exchanged many looks of astonishment. I can still feel her grip on my arm during "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". She had to hang on to not float away.

Everybody loved it. We were all just eatin' it up. The applause and songs were interwoven. Each song was a happening. Each moment a gift.

This was becoming a spiritual experience for me. I don't think I was alone. We could feel it. Very unlike as youngsters in church with no connection to the message or the Latin. Adrift, without any nourishment. Yet to know my need. Awakened later to my soul's hunger. Right here, and right now, at this moment time, was a message in my language. I related to this.

Dylan is here.