All of my Summerfest '07 posts...
a Day 1
a Day 2
a Day 3
a Day 4
a Day 5
... No Summerfest tonight.
... Kates and I were up at 6:30 this morning and on the road by 7:30, trekking to join my extended family for 'lil Owen's baptism ... Wonderful service. Owen was cute and did well. We celebrated at the house afterward. Caught up on life. And it was good ...
We were on our way home by 2 ... and thoughts of sneaking in one more night of Summerfest were filling my mind ...
I still had a couple tickets left over, and I thought it would be cool to be there once more on closing night. Blue October was playing at the U.S. Cellular stage at 10 and I was interested in seeing them ...
I think more than anything I just wanted one more giant Summerfest cup of Mountain Dew and the perfect amount of ice ...
On the other side, it was really hot. And having to drive up to the Park N' Ride and catch yet another bus to Summerfest didn't really excite me. Same for the crowds and for the notion of another night of minimal sleep ...
(I am really dragging after all. I tried driving home this afternoon, but a third of the way into the drive I had to pull over and switch with Kates out of fear I was going to crash the car. She took over driving and I slept the rest of the ride home ...)
... I was still trying to decide whether I wanted to go right up until 7 p.m., and for a time Kates was going to go with me ... but we stepped back to reality and decided to stay home instead, cooking a pizza and watching Friends DVDs, thus easing the soul with some good laughs ...
And so it ends. Summerfest 2007, the 40th Anniversary celebration turns into a memory now. And a fine memory it will be ...
So too ends, the best 11 days I've had in a long, long, long time. Easily the best 11 days to start a new year of birth ... Lots of Summerfest, with Nostalgia Fest, a good night of baseball and Fourth of July on the beach mixed in -- nice.
My mourning period will last a few days. But don't worry I'll be OK ...
... This year, I made it to five of the 11 nights and saw a total of 17 bands -- give or take one or two, it was hard to keep track ... and from Headlights last Friday night to Scythian on Saturday, there hasn't been a year where I've had such a good time seeing the no-name/up-and-coming/pre-headliner bands ... Every night was better than the one before ...
... Above all, if you asked me to name my top four bands/musicians right now -- I’d give you Ben Folds, The Shins, Fleetwood Mac and Guster. And here I sit, having seen three of them (Lindsey Buckingham, of course, representing the Fleetwood Mac aspect) in a week's span -- I think that’s pretty darn special …
(For the record, I tried to come up with an even five for my top bands, but among the next bands I thought of -- Beach Boys, Chicago, Matchbox Twenty, Mute Math -- it was too hard to pick just one, and even then, none of them have garnered the consistent play over the last several months as my top four … )
... Actually the reminiscing began a few days ago already as I started searching YouTube for some videos from this year's Summerfest ... So here I give you some of my findings, representing a few of my favorite moments from this year's Summerfest ...
The first is a video of Lindsey Buckingham performing "Big Love" last Saturday night. The visual on it sucks, but the audio does the job ...
This one, although not from Summerfest, is of Lindsey doing "Never Going Back Again." According to the tag, this video was actually shot a few months ago in New York. But his performance at Summerfest was almost identical to this one, so here you go ...
Here's a short clip of Ben Folds doing the "Such Great Heights" cover ... man, I wish the whole thing was here! ...
... And here's a clip of the A-MAZ-ing synthesizer solo that he played at the end of "Such Great Heights" ...
Thankfully, there's a lot more of John Mayer's show. Like my favorite of the night, "Waiting On The World To Change" ...
... "Bigger Than My Body."
And "Your Body Is A Wonderland" (yeah, the crowd was this loud almost all night ...)
And of course, it wouldn't be worth remembering Summerfest without people dancing on picnic tables. This video apparently was taken last night as me and a few hundred others were waiting to see Guster ...
Summerfest reads ... cleaning out my Google alerts about all things Summerfest ...
a Heat doesn't stop the beat
a Keeping a clean smile
a Milwaukee Talks: Summerfest Chairman Howard Schnoll
a Trains, planes and guided missiles at the lake
a Summerfest grounds may get makeover
a Is this Summerfest or Oktoberfest?
a Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears
a Roads traveled: 40 years of Summerfest
a Summerfest TV documentary blends history with reminiscences ... I watched this documentary. I didn't think it was that good; it didn't tell me a whole lot I didn't already know and the production quality was lacking, if not cheesy ...
a Festival shook off dust, mud to put smile on summer
a jsonline's Summerfest page
No comments:
Post a Comment