Music, Music, Music: Andrea Bocelli

Last night my wife and I went to see Andrea Bocelli, the great opera tenor, at the San Jose Arena. Funny, the San Jose Arena is where the San Jose Sharks play hockey, but they can defrost the floor and rearrange some chairs, and voila! The hockey rink becomes an opera house. Sort of. In any case, the arena is a very large place where professional tennis matches are held, and famous orchestras and singers perform, in addition to hockey.

Bocelli was backed by a great orchestra and had two other opera singers perform with him, a man and a young woman. All three had incredible voices. The music and singing ignited the soul and sent it soaring.

Andrea Bocelli was recently one of the music tutors on "American Idol," but the performances last night made "American Idol" seem quite juvenile by comparison. Idol runner-up Katherine McPhee sang with Bocelli for three songs, in Italian. She was very nervous, though she has great natural, if untrained, talent. She was sharp on the first song and flat on the second, and I now know what the Idol judges were talking about when they describe a performance as "pitchy."

The music was wonderful, and because it is such a healing force for the human soul, it is no real surprise the Islam forbids it. We have so much to lose, including music, if this evil ideology ever becomes the dominant force in the world. Enjoy your freedoms, music, your dogs and cats, your religion - they will all be gone if we do not defeat or at the very least, contain Islam to its sandlot in the Middle East.

Never take the good things in life for granted.