James Taylor and Carole King

Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing two iconic singers perform together at Madison Square Garden. Holy crapola, what a show! In all my years of going to shows, I'm not sure I ever felt such love in a performance. The two of them were just awesome and so full of life and memories of their years singing and writing together. You could tell that the conviction in their performance was so true and deep. That's one of my very favorite parts of seeing live music because the heart in that kind of soul that comes out is like this special shared gift between the audience and artist. These days, I've found it tough to find that connection with new artists but that surely wasn't a problem with James Taylor and Carole King. It also didn't hurt that we had incredible seats, thanks to a contact of Allison's. :) For some reason, my camera doesn't like taking good photos with zoom, but I got a couple that I really liked, including this adorable one of James on the harmonica:

The stage slowly spun around the whole show so everyone was able to get a nice clear shot of them several times.

They played a ton of the obvious favorites but the encore was by far my favorite. So moving and beautiful. They did 'You Can Close Your Eyes' and I'm not sure there was a dry eye in the house. I love this part of the lyrics so much:

It won't be long before another day
We're gonna have a good time
And no one's gonna take that time away
You can stay as long as you like

So close your eyes
You can close your eyes, it's all right
I don't know no love songs
And I can't sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song when I'm gone

It's such a beautiful song already but watching them perform it together was incredibly moving. Its simplicity makes you have an oddly powerful reverence for love and the power of it. It was a joy to watch them sing this and I'm so very glad I got to experience it. I'm telling you, I'll forever appreciate and value the effect that music has on the heart and soul. What a good night!