Have you ever experienced a perfect weekend? I believe I just did.
In the past I have heard the saying, "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten." This was the weekend where I first heard, "Every time you kill a kitten, God masturbates." It was amusing in a very sick and twisted kind of way. I hope to start selling the T-shirt.
It all began at O'Hare. Actually, now that I think of it, it started way before that.
I have needed to get an I-PASS for a while now. I find myself in Chicagoland now and again, and when I am down that way, I have to wait in huge lines to pay my toll. They have transponders you can mount in your car that allow you to bypass the toll booth and take advantage of open road tolling. Back in Denver on the E-470, they had the same thing, but since the lines were never very long, I never bothered getting one. I just paid my toll and went on my merry way. In Illinois, it behooves you to get an I-PASS.
A friend let me borrow his transponder for a previous trip to Chicago, and after using it, I was hooked.
Every time I attempted to order one for myself, I had been thwarted in the attempt. The web site quit taking orders. The 800 line took too long to answer. I stopped once at an Oasis and the customer service center was closed.
Not this time.
I stopped, the Oasis was staffed, and within 30 minutes I had my very own shiny new I-PASS transponder. No more stopping at toll booths. And the tolls are half priced when you use your I-PASS. It is a win win.
After this happy bit of news, I was off to the airport to pick up my co conspirators in our weekend's festivities.
I guess now I need to back up and explain why we were bothering to get together in the first place. Long ago, and far away, we all lived in Arizona. While we were in Arizona, we all worked for a company in Tempe. While we did this, many of the musically talented employees would get together and play music. Some of these musicians got together and formed a band. The band went on to get signed, and get a pretty large following. Then, the band broke up.
In those early days, I went to many of their shows, and enjoyed the music very much. Since the band broke up, and I have moved away from Arizona, the memories are contained on a few CD's that I have listened to over the years. I cannot remember the last time I saw them play live.
While messing around with Google one day, I came across a posting from one of the members of that band. He mentioned that he would be playing a show in Chicago and they would be performing many of those songs. Now that I am pretty close to Chicago, I thought that it sounded great. I planned to attend that show.
One thing I know about myself is that I am lazy. If I can come up with an excuse to skip a show, I will probably take it. The bar is too far away. It is too smoke filled. I am too old to stay out that late. I will never find a parking spot. I do not want to pay the cover. Blah Blah. It is easy to make up excuses when you are old and married and raising kids. Going to clubs is for the young, and I no longer qualify.
So I brainstormed a little bit, and remembered the last live show I had been to. While in Denver, I was contacted by my friend who is a huge Shins fan. The Shins would not be swinging through Phoenix, but they would be coming to Denver. Would I be interested in going with him? Sure I would. So he dragged my butt out of the house, and I had a wonderful time. So much so that when the opening act from that show (The Brunettes) came back through town, I ventured out on my own to see them again. That had been quite some time ago.
I contacted my Shins loving friend, and asked him if he wanted to go to this show in Chicago. Since he was very good friends with the musician that would be playing, he wholeheartedly endorsed the plan. We made plans for him to fly up on the Friday afternoon, we would catch the show on Saturday, and he would fly out on Sunday.
He contacted the musician, and they worked out a song that they could both play together. The weekend was shaping up to be a memorable one.
A week or so before the adventure was to begin, we were sending IM's back and forth and working out last minute details. While Googling around, I found another of our old friends (and my Shins loving friend's old roommate) and sent him an email. He wrote back. We sent messages back and forth, and when he heard about Chicago, he was in too. The two to get ready became three for the show. The plans were set.
When he booked his flight, he booked a room in the loop, and all was well.
Now our latest arrival also had an old musician friend that is currently living in the Chicago area, so he sent an email to him letting him know that he would be in town. The old musician friend said, hey, why don't you swing by for a bit when you get into town?
This all takes me back to the airport. My first experience driving to O'Hare. I have taken a bus to O'Hare when the flight from Milwaukee to Chicago was cancelled. I have hung around O'Hare waiting for flights when I could not find a non stop out of Milwaukee. This was my first attempt in a car.
The traffic was light, finding parking was a breeze, but now I had no idea where I was. Since I had stopped for the I-PASS, I was running a little bit late, and one of the planes had arrived. (There were two flights I needed to meet, one from NYC and one from Phoenix. They were originally scheduled to arrive at about the same time, but the one from Phoenix ran into a delay. It was not due to mechanical problems, or due to weather. Frankly, I suppose we will whitewash history and not put into words the actual reason for the delay. However. The flight I was to meet from Phoenix was moved back two hours, so we had a bit of time to kill at the airport and I was not in a super big rush to make it there on time.)
I called the cell phone, and found that he had already gotten off the plane, and was in the terminal. I will skip the details of phone calls, misunderstandings of airport layouts, and the fact that there are two entrances to the airport Hilton. I will fast forward to the moment where we finally found each other. We spent the next few hours catching up, working out business plans, and listening to scratch / demo songs that my NYC dwelling friend had been working on. It was a blast.
When the third musketeer arrived, we went to the car, and began our journey over to our NYC friend's house. However, what I did not know at the time, was that all three of these guys knew each other in high school. I was the odd man out. I was a little bit concerned. How would we get along? Would it be awkward? Would I want to leave after ten minutes and start the weekend off on a sour note?
Not at all. He treated us all like old friends, threw some food on the grill, and made us all feel very welcome. The three talented musicians went upstairs and I listened to them work out some songs on the keyboards, drums, and guitars. It was a great afternoon. After the music, we walked the two blocks from the townhouse to the beach on Lake Michigan. It felt like visiting someone that I had known for years, and I very much appreciated his hospitality. The sun began to set, and we began our journey into the city.
I have a terrible sense of direction. I used to deliver pizzas, and even toward the end of those days I would need to call the customers to ask them how to get the pizzas from the pizza shop to their house. Assuming I had good directions to work from, I had no problem actually finding the houses. But if you set me down in a new city, I promise you, I will get lost, and will need to pull over and look at a map. (Looking at a map and stopping to ask for directions are two different things. I will not ask, but I will stop and look. Yes, there is a difference. It's a guy thing.)
With my two GPS systems (as I called the guys riding along in my car) in place, they told me where to turn, and we headed down along the lake into the city. We found our way to the House of Blues hotel and some public parking. (Valet = $40 per day. Self park = $26 per day. You do the math.)
Now we were three young men on a mission. Trying to avoid detection by the front desk. We had three adult males sharing one room. The hotel clearly said only two adults to a room by golly. We were skimping on parking, we would not be splurging on hotel rooms. Chicago hotels are not cheap, and we had a plan. One of my bags contained an air mattress. We were well prepared, and well equipped. But we had to be careful. We concocted elaborate schemes, and prepared ourselves for mission impossible. We had laid out routes into the hotel to avoid detection. We would take different entrances. We would wear disguises. We would use voice changing technology and knew different escape routes and had rendezvous points mapped out.
None of it was necessary. The hotel was undergoing renovations. The check in desk was on the fourth floor. Nobody saw us coming or going. Nobody cared. This was Chicago.
We checked in, dumped our bags, and went out for a bit. Found a good Cajun restaurant and enjoyed a great dinner. The waitress came by, seemed a little flirty. Asked us to see ID. The young looking member of our party played the 'how old do you think I am' game. She guessed 25. After learning the true number, did not talk to us much the rest of the night. We tipped her anyway.
We were tired, and retired after dinner.
Some snored.
We slept.
It was at least noon before we stirred.
It was heaven.
Upon waking we went to heaven. Heaven on Seven. Good food. Not enough hot sauce. A great piano man singing and playing. We left the restaurant and rented some bikes. We went toward Navy Pier, then turned around and went south by Soldier Field and the sledding hill where all the cool kids go sledding in the winter. We rode our bikes down the sledding hill. We just enjoyed a great afternoon biking in the sun.
We saw the bean in Millennium Park. We saw the fountain from Married with Children. We saw the Blue's festival. We saw the statue come to life. We saw the Trump building under construction. We did not see the winner of that first season of the Apprentice or Oprah. But we still managed to have fun.
It was time. Time for the show. Time for the entire reason this trip was made.
We cleaned up. We were pokey. We were speedy. We watched the coverage of Paris Hilton going back to jail. We found out where the trains run and where the stops are and where we needed to go.
And then we did.
Go.
To the train stop. On the train. Brown line north.
Slight mixup with directions. Ask for help. Friendly people tell us to turn around and head south. We arrive at the venue. We are on the list.
We walk in. There he is. We all say hi. It is great.
The plan is, he will do some new songs. Our Shins loving friend will do a song with him. There will be a break. A local Chicagoland band will do a set, then after a break they will do a cover of the old well known songs, with our musician friend playing on bass. After this, an unrelated act will fill out the bill.
The lights go down. Our musician friend does his thing. It is one man, with a guitar, on stage. I am extremely impressed. I like the material. I like the confidence and ability to stand up in front of a room full of strangers and be a rock star. It all goes well. Our Shins loving friend goes on and together they perform a song. It goes great. A fun time.
There is a short break.
The band takes the stage and does some original material. I am not familiar with the music, but it's loud and it's live and the sound seems right. After another break, it is time for the reason I am here. The reason two men jumped on airplanes and came to Chicago. The band takes the stage.
Frankly I am not sure what to expect. Some crappy versions of songs I love? Mistakes and desecration of the memories I hold dear? A singer that can't sing? Nope. It was an honest to God great set.
There were minor deviations from the band I remembered. Some lyrics forgotten. But as was stated from the stage, when you make a mistake, you just call it jazz. It worked. The whole thing worked. The band sounded great. The songs were fantastic. I do not have adequate adjectives to describe it. It literally brought me back to another time. A crowd of people that was there to see someone else, being drawn into the music, just like back in Arizona. A section of die hard fans dancing, people singing along with the songs throughout the bar. It was magic.
I figured we would maybe hear two or three songs, but they kept coming. As always happens in a moment like that, you never want it to end.
There were smiles on stage, the band looked like they were having a great time performing great material.
It was over far too fast.
I wish I could more adequately describe it, but this post is meant to remind me of what I felt that night, and all those nights back in the early 90s. When the music was new, and fresh, and live. When we all wished we had recordings of the music, because at that time all we had was the live performances and no way to relive them while driving in our car. We would go to a show and hear the next new song these guys had written. We would sing along and have a great time. Now that I have the CD's and so much time has passed, I had completely forgotten what this music was like live. Now that I have the CD's, I wish I had the power to hear it all live again. I guess I am never satisfied.
I was reminded of how much I used to LOVE going to see these guys. There really is power in this music. And it was over. What a gift to have been reminded of those days gone by.
Who knows if I will have any more chances to see this music performed live. I am just glad that I took this opportunity, and I am glad the guys that were with me were also able to experience this night. (I am not pretending to know if it affected them the same way that it affected me, but affected me it did.)
They are a talented group of guys I was with last weekend. I was given some CD's and I have started listening to them. I am enjoying that music. I have been given some scratch / demo tracks to listen to. People walked away from this gig inspired. They liked what they saw. They wanted more. These guys are musicians, poets, writers. When I grow up I want to be like them.
It all ended. We took the train home. We were tired. It was late. We crashed. We had to get up way too early to make it to the airport. One flight left on time, another was delayed. I had no problems with tollbooths because of my I-PASS. I returned home in a good mood.
I had to get back to real life, do some laundry, fix some problems with some computers around the house so the kids could continue playing their games. I had to go back to the office and get back to the grind.
You can take my dignity, and make me sit in a cube. I will get old, and one day I will decide that I am too old and will never again go out to a club to see live music. But nobody can take away my memory of that weekend.
