Emily and I went to the Alice Radio Now & Zen Concert in Golden Gate Park today.

Barenaked Ladies, the original headlining band, cancelled last week, as their families didn't want them flying from Toronto to San Francisco, and so they pledged $25,000 to the Red Cross instead. In a rush to find replacement bands (Stereophonic cancelled for similar reasons earlier in the week), Alice managed to sign up Alanis Morissette and Melissa Ethridge to headline the show with a week's notice.

The show itself was great. Despite miserable parking conditions and an admission/security check line over a thousand people long, we still managed to get near the stage just as Stomp started their opening act. The morning was overcast (this is Golden Gate Park, after all), but instead of burning off, the fog grew more dense, and the arena got colder through the day until 4 or so, when the fog finally started to dissipate, and brief breaks of sunlight caused the affected part of the crowd to cheer, much to the probable confusion of whichever band happened to be on stage at the time.

rather than go through a play-by-play of the bands, I just thought I'd share one poignant moment. While the Now & Zen show is an annual event (this is its third year), and plans were naturally made far in advance of 9-11, it was rebranded as "Now & Zen, a day of healing in the park, a charity event for the Red Cross," and went so far as to get an official recognition from Mayor Willie Brown.

Red, white, and blue were the colors of the day. Flags abounded, and spirits were high. By the time Alanis took the stage around 4, everyone was in a good mood and was hyped to see the artist that enticed most of them to come out in the first place.

Alanis was vivacious, and very energetic (I think Cher could learn a few things about love-of-hair from Alanis), and she even played two songs, "The Man," and (argh... I forgot the other one. Anyone?), that she'd never yet played in public. Towards the end of her set the crowds were thinning, and so Em and I ventured forward from our spot on the hill to get a closer vantage point for her last song or two.

Getting right up near the sound booth, we waited for the last song, which I simply assumed (among other things, by the fact that she hadn't played much, if anything, else from 'Supposed former Infatuation Junkie') would be 'Thank You.' It caught me completely unprepared when the first four notes I heard went like this.

I suppose I'm being melodramatic when I say that those four notes threw me, but the song they belonged to is "Uninvited," which instantly struck a chord from the terrorism angle. A stronger sentiment and a clearer implied meaning was scarcely heard that day. After those four notes she stopped the band. The original set list included Uninvited, following up with Thank You as the closer, but they were running over 'curfew' and could only play one song and, quite rightly, Alanis saw that closing with anything other than 'Thank You' wouldn't be right, especially if the final piece was 'Uninvited.' For just a moment I felt my own internal dichotomy, the struggle between peace and vengeance, take external form. I'm only writing about it because I felt, whether it was good or bad, it was powerful.

Anyhow, that was my moment of Zen. We had a nice (though cold) day in the park, listened to some fine music (including Slappy!), had good company, and I finally got to see Alanis (though the bitter tale of how I missed seeing her at the onset of her stardom is a story for another day).

Did anyone else have a moment of Zen last week?