Crawdaddy! The Magazine of Rock

Originally published in The Guardian, 21 July 1992

Thunderous mantra-grooves and jagged fanfares of atonal brass boom across the parched grass of New York’s Central Park, though it could equally well be Monterey or Marrakesh. Dancing women in gauzy veils spin across the stage, whirling in front of drummers in purple and gold kaftans, brushing the sawing elbows of turbaned violinists. A motionless figure in a wheelchair bends over the piano, plonking out a star map of unearthly chords.

The crowd bakes beatifically in the afternoon sun, delighted that the forecast—­clouds, rain, wind—has proved libelously incorrect. There are couples with kids, Agassi-coiffed youths with back-to-front baseball caps, greasy metal heads in Bermuda shorts and Nirvana t-shirts. They’re stuffing themselves with hotdogs, frozen yogurt, and lukewarm Miller Lite. Even the fat, sweating city cops indolently guarding the crash-barriers are nodding cautiously to that extraterrestrial beat. On Independence Day, in the middle of the planet’s foremost urban jungle, everybody is on the verge of total bliss out. It’s all because of the cosmic bebopper, Sun Ra.

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