I Do Stuff…

Gallery of the blizzard.

Long before the Skins season began, Nancy and I got tickets to two games.  Nancy picked the Bronco’s game which turned out fantastic.  We arrived with plenty of time to tailgate and the weather was perfect all afternoon.  It was a rather warm winter day.  I wanted to see a division game and the obvious choice, Cowboys was taken so I picked the Giants.  Without looking at the date it turned out to be a Monday Night game.  I was so looking forward to it, even being a night game on a work night.

I couldn’t wait to leave work early and cook some good food in the freezing cold.  The weather had other plans by game night for the entire Washington area.  Mother nature on Saturday blanketed the area in an average 20+ inches of snow.  Approximately 25 million pounds of snowed had to removed from the stadium alone.  The entire region was trapped in a day long blizzard that was just crazy.  For nearly 24 hours, it snowed constantly and was great.

Come game day the parking lots where nearly cleared, but not completely.  In fact two whole lots where never plowed and those ticket holds were funneled into other lots.  This caused a huge backup of traffic.  Matt and I got off the beltway around 7pm.  This was nearly 1:30 hours before kick off and a time I thought was sufficient to make it into the stadium.  Parking proved to be a nightmare taking nearly 2 hours before we parked the truck.  When we arrived at our seats it was almost the end of the 2nd quarter and we where loosing badly.  Listening on the radio didn’t prepare for what we saw.

I took the half time to use the restroom and grab another beer.  By the time I got back to my seat the 3rd quarter had already begun.  In short work the Giants scored another touchdown.  At one point Campbell was well into his own end zone and decides to throw an interception that was promptly returned for 6 points.  Did I mention this was the first down of the possession.  I turned to Matt just to make sure I saw what I did.  Things never got any better, even though we scored 12 points in the quarter, we were to far behind.

this game was horrible

What the little hope I had left for a victory faded quickly in the 4th quarter with another Giants touchdown.  Matt and I left.  All night the stadium was pretty empty.  With each score by the Giants, more and more people walked out on the team.  It was just not worth it watching the abysmal game any longer.  Not when the lots would be a mess, taking hours to get back to the highway.  By the time we left it was mostly New York fans left, a lot in fact.

Fortunately in short order we arrived back to my truck and took a back exit out of the parking lot.  This saved us a ton of time when you consider how far back in the lot we actually where.  The road back to the highway was long but free of traffic.  Once on the beltway there was an accident that slowed our progress even further.  I was so upset at the game, I just wanted to get home and sleep.

Late in the evening I finally did make it home.  Miserable, I went straight to bed.  I couldn’t believe I spent all that money and time going to the game.  It was not the weather or the cold that pissed me off so much, I was able to deal with mother nature.  It was the lack of parking guidance and delays getting into the stadium that flipped me over the edge.  Being such a blow out didn’t help the situation any.

I am not sure if I will be buying tickets for next years games after this experience.  I have seen several games of many years and never have they been as bad as this.  If I get tickets for next season it wont be early.  I would rather just buy tickets from a scalper closer to game day so I can make sure things turn out.  It is just not worth it when I can watch it from the comfort of my couch.  Lets hope during the off season the team can get their act together and perform better next year.

Photo Gallery

My birthday weekend was great.  It started with dinner Saturday night with my Dad, Pat, Nancy and Jeremy at Coastal Flats.  I love this place.  It is a part of Great American chain of restaurants and the location at the Fairfax Government Center is perfect.  After dinner you can get some desserts, grab a cup of coffee or see a movie at the theatre.  There is just so much to do there, plus they have an REI!

On Sunday Nancy and I had tickets Skins vs. Broncos game up at FedEx Field.  I was looking forward to getting up there early and doing some tailgating.  I managed to score a green parking pass at a good price on eBay and spent all Saturday afternoon preparing food for the festivities.  Nancy and I got a late start to the field, but made it to the stadium in about an hour.  The green lot we parked in was pretty empty when wee arrived so we took a spot close to the exit.  The weather Sunday afternoon was going to be perfect as well.  The sun was shinning, the skies where blue and the temp didn’t get much above 70.  For a mid-November afternoon you couldn’t beat it.

scoring drive

Minutes after arriving I fired up the grill to get cooking.  We spread out some chairs and cracked open our first beer.  I packed the cooler with four 6-packs and I was not looking forward to lugging that crap back home with me.  We spend the next several hours enjoying the weather and eating a ton of food.  Fortunately we parked near a porto john so trips to the bathroom were painless.  I know it sounds weird, but I love talking to people in line waiting for the bathroom.  Usually at events like this people are drunk and very friendly.  On one of my excursions to the restroom I meet these two ladies from Maryland.  One just moved to the area and the other was a lifer like myself.  Add alcohol and people just start spilling their guts to complete strangers.

We started to loose track of time as the afternoon went on.  We got so engrossed with food, drinking beer and talking we almost forgot about the game.  My sister Tracy and her husband Bobby were at the game and we were suppose to meet them for a little tailgating in the Platinum lot before the game, but that didn’t happen.  He called back saying he and Tracy were going in but he had club level seats if we wanted them, hell yeah hook it up.  We had lower level already, but I would much rather be on the club level.  After Nancy and I quickly cleaned up we headed off to the box office to get our tickets.

packed lounge

After fighting long lines getting into the stadium, by the time we reached our seats it was just in time to watch the Broncos score their first touchdown.  I hadn’t even sat down yet and things were not looking good, a mere 3 minutes into the game and we already were behind.  As the first quarter went on things didn’t look so good, Denver score another touchdown and all we managed to come back with was a single touchdown.  But it was a touchdown and not a field goal at least.  By the end of the first half we closed the gap to only three points.  Things were actually looking good, however we were coming close to our average per game score of 17 and that wouldn’t be enough to win this one.

During halftime we took the time to walk around, hit the head, and for me grab another beer.  We also stopped by the cigar lounge to see who was working, but talked with some random drunk people that were pretty cool.  After the short break it was back to the seats for another half of smash mouth football.

The second half was definitely better than the first.  We managed to score another 13 points in the fourth quarter while the Bronco couldn’t put any more points on the board.  Final score was 27 to 17.  With about 2:30 minutes left in the game Denver tried to make another drive but failed near the goal and suddenly it was our position.  With that Nancy and I headed back to the truck for a little more tailgating.  I had plenty of food and even though we were near an exit, we were in no hurry to head home.  The lot around us emptied rather quickly, but I fired up the grill once again and put on some burgers that were oh so delicious.  Top that off with a victory beer and I was feeling good.

good times

After the game Bobby and Tracy came over to hanged out for a while which was really cool.  We couldn’t believe we won the game, and by such a large margin at that.  As the sun set was snapped a last photo, said goodbye and headed our separate ways.  It took Nancy and I several hours to get home because of traffic across the bridge, but that didn’t matter.  We had good tunes on the radio and the Skins won so we were in high spirits.

I have a set of tickets for the Skins game against the Giants on Monday just before Christmas.  I am sorta looking forward to it.  I think it will be  hard game that we will probably loose, but it should still be a lot of fun.  I can’t wait to tailgate again and freeze my ass off during a crisp winter night.  Lets hope the Skins can give me an early Christmas presents and deliver a victory against one of our division rivals on December 21st.

I was able to catch two shows on the reunion tour early in the summer, Knoxville and Pittsburgh.  After they announced a second leg of their summer tour I of course wanted to score some tickets.  I was hoping to do a four show run, but decided on a more reasonable Merriweather and SPAC.  These two shows happened on a Saturday and Sunday, so less time off from work and were the last two shows of the tour.  Fortunately I lucked out and scored my tickets via mail order so I didn’t have to mess around with getting my tickets via TicketBastard.

copyright: Dave Vann

Merriweather was the place I saw my first Phish show back in 1998 and I have always had great shows here, I was excited they were coming back to this great venue.  Jeremy and I planned on tailgating so I purchased a mini grill to cook up some great tailgate food.  We arrived to late to get a spot in the lot and were forced to park in an over flow parking garage near Columbia Mall.  This meant we were not allowed to tailgate as security came around several times telling us we couldn’t tailgate, finally the cops came around and forced everyone out.  We couldn’t even sit in chairs.  We had all this time to kill and some great food to cook but were stuck doing nothing.

As the show time approached we made our way to the venue entrance to grab a good spot on the lawn.  Security was a none issue getting in, however later I read that 31 were arrested for various offenses.  Non of which made the front page like they did with the three night reunion show in Hampton.  The weather was hot but with the quickly setting sun things were starting to cool off, if we could only get ride of the humidity things would have been perfect for a concert on the lawn.

When the show started both of us were pumped!  It was great to finally have my boy out on the road with me and our hopes where high.  Memories of Sabotage (8/8/1998), Harry Hood (8/8/1998, 7/9/1999), glow stick wars, 2001 (8/8/1998), Fluffhead (9/17/2000), Rock and Roll (9/17/2000), the list goes on and on.  One of the best shows in my life was my first Phish show at Merriweather 8/8/1998.  The boys always crush it when they play here, so my hopes where very high for this show.

copyright: Dave Vann

After giving this show such a huge buildup, now it’s time for the actual show.  In short I was very disappointed with the performance.  I had heard that the night before in Hartford was off the hook and I was expecting a similar performance tonight.  Not only because the band should have been running on a high but the pedigree the venue brings to Phish shows.  Looking back the performance was a solid one, but I was expected a more upbeat show then what was delievered.  They played a ton of new songs, some of which I am a fan, others I am not.  There was just a lack of energy that night and Trey was also pretty horrible on the guitar.  Both Jeremy and I noted off key playing, missed notes, simply sloppy playing in songs like HA HA HA and Party Time.  I guess they were saving themselves for the tour closers in Saratoga.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some great highlights including another great version of Foam that was jammed out again, HA HA HA I had not heard live, a new Fishman song called Party Time (crazy vocals, the man just can NOT sing), a version of Tube which was good but waaay to short.  The second set opened strong with Tweezer that lead into Taste, I don’t get that combo.  A long version of 46 Days which was played well and a long running Merriweather staple, Harry Hood as the set closers.  That was the song I wanted to hear, at least I got that.  Jeremy was hoping for a Down with Disease, but we later found out they played that in Hartford so there was no chance of it at Merriweather.  The encore was decent, they played Tweezer Reprise, which was a surprise because of my short memory I forgot they played that as the set opener so it is always a safe bet to get the reprise some time later in the set.

copyright: Steve Moyles

On the long drive home we reflected on the performance and although we were not that satisfied with the song selection and the lack of tailgating, we agreed it was still a great trip.  Even the worst Phish show beats any other day.  I was just hoping for a killer set Sunday night in Saratoga to make up for this poor performance.

Set 1: 7:38pm start
1. Crowd Control
2. Kill Devil Falls
3. The Sloth
4. Beauty Of A Broken Heart
5. Axilla I
6. Foam
7. Esther
8. Ha Ha Ha
9. Party Time*
10. Tube
11. Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan
12. Strange Design
13. Time Turns Elastic

set 1 ends at 9:02pm

Set 2: 9:31pm start
1. Tweezer >
2. Taste
3. Alaska
4. Let Me Lie
5. 46 Days
6. Oh! Sweet Nuthin’
7. Harry Hood

set 2 ends at 10:44pm

encore: 10:46pm start
8. Good Times Bad Times
9. Tweezer Reprise

show ends at 10:55pm

notes:
*first time played

Photo Gallery

For several years now I have seen Baltimore’s Artscape come and go, never being able to make it.  This year I was determined as ever to catch “the largest free outdoor art festival” in the country.  Every year they get hundreds of artists together and close several city blocks for all the booths and stages.  Not only do they have traditional artists, but dance troops and what I was mostly interested in the local and national musicians together as well for free concerts on several different stages.  This years artists included Cake and Robert Randolph.  With Cake making an appearance it didn’t take any arm twisting to get Jeremy to come with me.  For the first time in years I was finally getting to Artscape.

Jeremy and I got together in the early afternoon to start our trek to Baltimore.  I had never been to Artscape nor the part of town it was located in.  Needless to say we were going to be winging it, just like so many adventures from our youth.  When we got close to the festival we found a garage that was only a couple blocks from the festival and followed the throngs of people towards the festival grounds.  When we arrived it was a giant mass of people walking down the closed streets.  I just couldn’t get over how many people were there.  But I guess being right in the middle of a large city and a free event, brings out the people.

Our first priority was bathroom, drink,  and food, in that order.  We hit one of the “food courts” to grab some grub and found huge lines of people waiting.  It was nice to have all the food in one spot, lots to choose from, but everyone had to go to the same spot to eat.  Instead of picking what we wanted, we settled for the shortest line, a Greek place.  After waiting only 15 minutes or so we placed our order with the lady and promptly got our food.  For some reason she couldn’t take our money and told us to see the guy next to her.  So we cut in line and paid.  He told us $23 for the food and drinks for which we quickly gathered our money and got $2 change.  While looking for some napkins the lady start yelling at us to pay, saying we owed her $20 for the food.  The guy starts yelling at us asking for more money, so we just walked away.  We paid in full and apparently got ripped off for doing so.  Food vendors can be some shady people.  With food and drink secured we found a nice shady spot under a tree and joined the hundreds of other festival goers in eating some food.  For being over charged it was rather good too.

After lunch Jeremy and I parted company.  Jeremy took the recording gear and headed to the pit to secure a spot.  I headed to one of the other stages to catch Higher Hands for a few songs before meeting back up with Jeremy.  On the way to and from the Festival Stage I stopped by many of the booths to check out the art work.  I was very impressed by what I saw from most of the vendors.  I would have actually bought some of the pieces but the prices were to steep for my pockets, so instead I just marveled at what I saw.  I have always been impressed with artists, of all kinds.  I have always been a little jealous of artists actually.  The fact that these people create something and display it for the world to see has been something I wish I could do.  I wish I could create something beautiful the way these people do.  The closes I come right now is with my photography.  What I do might be called creative, but I think of it mostly as being at the right place at the right time.  Nature has done all the work by creating the world around me, I just take the pictures.

Cake copyright: Kathleen Hill

Higher Hands was not finished with their set before I needed to head over to the main stage for Cake.  When  I arrived the tiny amphitheatre was packed with people.  Jeremy said he was down in the pit near the stage right corner, now I just needed to find one man in a crowd of thousands.  When I got to the pit I quickly ran into a wall of people that made it near impossible to get to him.  He was about 20′ from me but because he was taping I was unable to get his attention, yelling would have been a bad idea.  And besides even if he knew I was there I couldn’t get any closer.  So I took up my spot and just enjoyed the show, only missing two songs of the set.  From my vantage point I could barely see the stage, but I certainly could hear them play.  The photo to the right is a good approximation of my limited view of the stage.

As the set progressed Cake played many of their hit songs, which I recognized, and even a song from their as yet unreleased album.  John McCrea said there is no official release date and they would release it when they wanted.  They currently don’t have a major record label and are taking their new found freedom from “the man” to its fullest, which seems to suit them very well.  Every now and then I would see John poke his head out.  With my limited view of the stage it allowed me to do a lot of people watching which I love to do.  Quite a diverse group of fans made it to see them play.

Once the set was over the crowd quickly dissipated which allowed Jeremy and I to take up a much better position on the hill.  We managed to snag a spot about half way up the hill just left of center, right next to the tapers.  Up next was Robert Randolph and the Family Band.  A rockin’ soul/funk/fusion band that is hard to describe, you just have to see them.  The band does a good job of getting the crowd into the music and their shows are always a party.

Robert Randolph copyright: Jeff Quinton

They came out and rocked the house with their brand of funk and the audience ate it up.  They played a ton of covers, two from Michael Jackson who recently passed away, Man in the Mirror and Billie Jean.  For Billie Jean a young kid, maybe 10 or 11, came on stage and stole the show with his break dancing skills.  The whole show was like this……good.  By the time the band walked off stage at the end of the set it was almost 10pm.  But you see the guys milling around next to the FOH board deciding what they are going to play and a few minutes later come out for an encore.  With the clock marching towards 10pm there was not much time to squeeze in the two song encore.  As they played on I saw coming up the stage stairs a police or fire chief and he looked pissed.  The sound guy and he talk real quick and the sound man gets a panic look on his face.  The city takes their curfew very seriously but Robert didn’t care about any curfew, he just wanted to play.  The crowd was digging the music and he wanted to give them everything he had.  Eventually the band members slowly walk off stage leaving Robert playing a melody on his guitar.  Slowly he walks off stage, still playing, and has a pow wow with the chief.  Then just stops playing, there was no more show.  I definitely thought the power would have been cut mid-song or the chief walking on stage and pulling the cord from Robert’s guitar, something like that.  But I was glad to see them playing as long as they did.

After the show we filtered out with the rest of the crowd.  It was great seeing variety of people that attended the festival as we walked back to the car.  When we got back it was off to Sabatino’s for some midnight grub.  I for one was hungry and thirsty.  I had visions of tiramisu and cappuccino dancing in my head.  When ever I am in Baltimore I stop by Sabatino’s for some late night eats, usually to sober up too.  When we arrived I was hungrier than I thought and ordered a bowl of mussels along with my usual.  Everything was so good, what a way to cap off the night.  After food and a little time to rest we headed back home to Virginia.

CAKE
1. Stickshift and Safetybelts
2. War Pigs
3. Ruby Sees All
4. Love You Madly
5. Frank Sinatra
6. Wheels
7. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle
8. Sheep Go to Heaven
9. Daria
10. Short Skirt/Long Jacket
11. Comfort Eagle
12. Untitled*
13. Mexico
14. Never There

Note:
* – John McCrea said Cake may or may not release a new album with this song on it.

Robert Randolph & the Family Band
Start time 8:32pm
1. Sunshine Of Your Love jam
2. Deliver Me
3. I Need More Love >
4. Wanna Be Starting Something jam >
5. I Need More Love
6. The March
7. jam >
8. Man In The Mirror
9. Shake Your Hips
10. Jesus Is Just Alright
11. Gilligan
12. Billie Jean
13. I Don’t Know What You Come To Do

encore:
14. Ain’t Nothing Wrong With That
15. Thrill Of It

walked off stage 10:02pm

Friday was the second straight show of Medeski, Martin and Wood I was going to see.  Of the two this was definitely the one I was most looking forward to.  Yeah the Lewis Ginter was a new venue for me, but the last time I saw MMW at Rams Head Live it totally kicked ass.  Plus it was a Friday in Baltimore so that was it’s own fun right there.  For this show I planned on doing a little drinking and there is always Sabatino’s for some after show dessert and coffee.

Medeski, Martin and Wood

Unlike last nights show, this one started at a more reasonable hour.  The doors didn’t open until 7 where as with the Lewis Ginter show, by 7 MMW was getting ready to take the stage.  The extra time allowed me to put in a full day of work with plenty of travel time before the show started.  I couldn’t leave work till 6pm but even at this late hour traffic was not an issue and I was in Baltimore just after 8.  When I got into the venue The Wood Brothers were already on stage, but only a couple of songs into their set.   Not my favorite band.  They play really well and it was certainly different just having a due on stage.  I like to call it hard core bluegrass, it was mostly time to get drinks and mingle with the other fans.

Trying to find other fans turned into a little bit of an issue as NO ONE showed up!  That is not entirely true, probably 400-500 people showed up for the show.  The last time I saw them at the Rams Head Live back in 2005 the placed was packed and I was hoping for the same amount of people.  Baltimore has got a great scene when it comes to live music and I was expecting the hoards of people to flood into the inner harbor and support the band.  Even on a Friday night and still no one showed up.  So as showtime approached I was a little apprehensive on how good the show was going to be.

Another beer and it was time to find my permanent spot on the floor to enjoy the show.  Because of the low turnout the upstairs area was closed off, so I took  a spot dead center about 20′ away.  There I meet two really cool people from Annapolis, Gretchen and Michal.  A couple of young people who were well traveled when it came to seeing concerts.  We all reminisced about various concerts we had been to and the upcoming Phish shows we were going to see.  When the lights went down the fun was about to begin.

Rams Head Live!

The quick and dirty is that the show was 10,000 times better than last nights.  Having such a small crowd did not diminish the vibe.  The boys were on fire this night performing many of their new songs from Radiolarians II.  They also threw in some new new stuff that should appear on the third installment of this series.  The energy during the entire show was well maintained throughout.  Reliquary starts off the first set and had this building quality to it.  It sounds as if at any moment they are just going to breakout into this crazy bizarre jam without limits.  Riffin’ Ed continued in the same way.  When they got to the third song, a new one, they changed direction into something a little mellower that flowed right into Junkyard and back into an uptempo beat.  For the set closer it was all energy with two more songs from their recent album, ijiji > Flat Tires.  This left the crowd on a high and me wanting more, that second set couldn’t get here fast enough.

One last run to the bar for beer, I am responsible you know so no more drinking once the second set starts, and then to procure more real estate.  This time I was able to get within a few feet of the stage, everyone else was not as quick at getting the last beer like I was.  While waiting for the second set I meet Jennifer, now what I am about to say sounds straight out of a porno, but it is not.  She is a airline stewardess out of Detroit who was in Baltimore for the night just to see the show.  A real lovely woman to talk to and a true music fan like myself.  I don’t know many people that will travel such a great distance just to see a band.  When the lights went out and MMW stepped onto the stage it was time for my attention to shift.

copyright Tim

The second set was a little more adventurous in it’s tone and arrangement.  Set highlights included three new songs, including one for the encore and another great version of Amber Gris which I have been really digging from their new album.  Right in the middle of the set they change temp and pull out Baby Let Me Follow You Down.  Not sure why when they were rocking hard they felt the need to slow things waaaaay down.  Fortunately once it was over it was time to get back to the funk and boogie.  When the set ended the crowd was pretty tired and I doubted they would be able to pull the guys out for an encore.  Fortunately we didn’t have to wait long for them to bust out a new funky jam to leave us all on a high.

At the close of the show it was not exactly time for me to drive home.  I was hungry for some dessert and besides, I needed to sober up a little.  On my way to Sabatino’s I ran across this woman throwing an orange around and I just had to ask what she was doing.  Being the gentleman I am I couldn’t just let her walk alone in the city this late at night.  When we reached Sabatino’s however we parted ways, she headed home and I was headed for tiramisu and a cappuccino.  I don’t know what it is about this combination, but it totally kicks ass and is but one reason I like coming to Baltimore for concerts.

Sober from the evenings concerts and still jamming to the tunes in my head it was time for the long drive home to my nice comfortable bed.

Set 1 9:38
Reliquary
Riffin’ Ed
unknown >
Junkyard >
ijiji > Flat Tires

set ends at 10:41

Set 2 11:13
Sweet Pea Dreams
unknown
Amber Gris
Baby Let Me Follow You Down
Amish Pintxos
unknown

encore 12:03
unknown

show ends at 12:11