Drive into Five Corners in Vineyard Haven from any direction and one is confronted with a hodgepodge of commerce and signage, and a confusing array of asphalt options.

Twenty years ago on May 17, joyous Massachusetts gay and lesbian couples began marrying shortly after midnight.

Something happened to Carly Simon the moment she stepped onstage at the Chilmark concert. The performance she worried so about was riveting; the crowds she expected to be rowdy welcomed her warmly.

Backstage, she had mingled among the carefully screened (and tagged) collection of people, accepting hugs of encouragement, words of support.

“There was so much paranoia before the event, about what might happen, what it might turn into that I was really quite scared,” she recalled some days later.

It was impossible to not be moved by what took place on the floor of the Boston Garden last week.