Dr Kelly Fleming

I’ve always admired Joan Baez. Not only her music but particularly her hands on involvement with civil rights.

To see Joan Baez in concert was a dream come true.

There was a lot of planning that went into attending the concert due to my disabilities. Four months in fact to arrange seating, interpreter, explaining the issue of lights from the stage. What I did not know was that Joan herself played an integral role in making her farewell concert in Toronto accessible to my needs.

Due to where I had to park for accessible parking, I was bright in through the back entrance of the concert hall. I was so excited when I saw Joan’s bus parked nearby. Yes star-struck.

The concert was awesome. They showed me her song line up. I couldn’t really see her, due to my limited vision (I was seated in the closet box seat to the stage). I couldn’t understand the words she said, although I did have an interpreter for when she spoke and he did his best to sign her songs. With the help of the song line up, I was able to identify the music to each song.

Shortly after the concert started, a security guard that was standing nearby me realised the lights were reflecting off Joan’s guitar and the PSW assisting me kept shielding my eyes to prevent seizures.

Someone went to the stage and I saw her bend forward for a minute and without missing a beat of the song she was singing, she literally rearranged the layout on the stage so the lights wouldn’t reflect on my direction.

It was phenomenal. The concert was amazing.

Little did I know that there was an amazing surprise set up for me after the concert.

I had an escort from when I arrived at the doors until I left because of where I was parked.

I came down the long hall after the concert and I saw the exit to leave blocked by security guards and a small group of people near them, so I moved towards the wall to wait my turn to leave.

My original escort wasn’t with me, but another young fella was escorting me.

As I was waiting next to the wall, the original escort came over to me and gestured “come this way”.

I figured he was just going to take me through the security guards. I was genuinely surprised when instead, he took me directly to Joan Baez.

I was in shock. She came directly over to me, put her hand on my shoulder and hugged me.

The next 10 to 20 minutes flew by and I have no recollection of what we talked about except to tell her that it was a dream come true.

After meeting her, I was escorted to my vehicle and as I was getting in, someone rushed over from her bus with 2 dozen peach roses and said “these are from Joan.”

I was stunned.

I will never forget this concert, particularly meeting Joan. She is the most down to earth person and sincerely cares about other people.