It was after seven when we got to Booker T. Washington Park at 400 N. High Ave. in Oklahoma City. We—that being myself, a friend, and, of course, my dog Sean—braved the high humidity and hungry mosquitos to see DeadCenter’s exclusive offering, a screening of Questlove’s first documentary Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).
A film about the mostly-forgotten soul festival that took place in Harlem back in summer 1969, it was to start around 9:30 or so, so that gave us a couple of hours to make sure we got a good spot on the moist lawn, have a little leftover food and walk around the still-lighted park to see what was going on that night, especially at the stage way back behind us where music appeared to be coming from.