Been There!

The Moment: The Reverend Al Green performs at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee on September 21, 2003.

By Brighid Mooney

Interviewer: "Do you believe in the supernatural?"

Elvis Costello: "Er ... I once saw Al Green. That was pretty close to it."

The Ryman Auditorium, located in the heart of downtown Nashville, was once a religious revival house, and not much has changed in the years that have followed. Even after a stint housing the Grand Ole Opry and later serving as one of Nashville's premier music venues for everything from country, gospel, jazz, bluegrass, classical and rock and roll, it still features stained-glass windows and an interior replete with row after row of wooden pews. The Ryman Auditorium so undeniably resembles a church, from the inside out; an ambiance which made it a uniquely appropriate venue to host The Reverend Al Green on that Sunday evening in the fall of 2003.

I traveled to Nashville for a chance to see the master, and he did not disappoint. Even at nearly 60 years old, he still had it, just as he assured us at the beginning of the show. He played several of his older songs including "Let's Get Married," "Everything Is Gonna Be All Right" and "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," introducing them decade by decade, with lines like "now we're gonna go to 1974..." During all of this, he handed out dozens upon dozens of red roses to ecstatic women, who were all being driven into an amusing frenzy. At one point he left the stage and started walking through the audience, but such an intimidating number of the crowd practically lunged at him as he did that security started to get edgy and he quickly returned to the safety of the stage.

His ability to reach into the heart of an audience, person by person, was on full display that night, and nowhere was it more evident than in the case of a middle-aged man seated a few rows ahead of me. Dressed in a suit and tie with a stiff handkerchief in the front pocket, he looked like a cross between a TV anchorman and an uncomfortable politician, with hair that didn't move and a completely harsh look frozen on his face. He sat very still and stoic throughout the concert, until the third song, when he suddenly leapt out of his pew, ran down to the front of the stage, threw one arm in the air and started to do his very singular version of a white man's groove. Never in my life have I witnessed a more unnatural sight. Once the song was over, he returned to his seat and watched the rest of the show without emotion.

But none of this derailed the Reverend, resplendent in a glowing white suit, who lived up to his title by preaching us the word of God between each song. The most affecting part of the whole experience for me though was the audience. I've never been in that kind of an atmosphere, so much like a Southern Baptist revival set to 70s soul, with "praise God" ringing in the air and a sea of hands raised in religious fervor. For some, this was an unmistakably spiritual experience. At the same time, the effect he managed to incite in the women in the audience was nothing short of astoundingly sexual. One overwhelmed woman even had to be led away by security after she raided the stage for the fourth time to steal another hug off the Reverend. It was such an absurd, chaotic marriage of religious and sexual ecstasy, all happening inside stained glass walls with a ferocious storm raging just outside. It could only be Al Green, and it could only be the Ryman.

On the drive back the rain was so bad that visibility was down to just a few feet and I was sure that we were going to die before we made it home. Obviously I didn't die, but if I had, at least I felt pretty safe in the knowledge that my soul had just been saved by the Prince of Love, the Reverend Al Green.

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