I'm so far behind — still thinking about last weekend. Not to mention last week, last month, last year. It's hard to look forward when there's so much behind. More and more is behind rather than ahead all the time, making it harder and harder to focus on the glass half full, as it's less than half full, though no less yummy, but anyway ...
There we were — Mr. Betty and I — down on Thames Street last Saturday night, though it could have been Friday or even Sunday for that matter, as all three nights featured "Deer Tick" at the Blues Café.
"They're a pretty big deal," according to Super Son, who knows his music.
"But are we going to feel old, ridiculous and out of place?" I asked him, having caught him (for once) on his cell phone in his distant city as we pondered buying tickets to hear this Providence-based band who made quite a splash at the Folk Festival two summers ago. "And will we like the music?"
Must admit, the latter was less concerning than the former.
"Yeah, they're pretty mellow."
So we showed up early (how geriatric), as we wanted a good seat. The "kids" wouldn't take seats; they'd crowd around the stage, as kids do, to get as close as they could. But we figured we'd be better off — more comfortable in every sense — upstairs looking down through a square, center well onto the stage. And, to do that, we needed to snag a bar stool. To establish (accept?) our place.
First a beer — Newport Storm, of course — then a bar stool.
We weren't alone. There were other "grown-ups" upstairs: parents of band members by the looks things, those things being mouthed words, anticipated notes, waving arms, barely contained enthusiasm. I totally got it, as Super Son and his friends once had a band — now defunct (sigh) — and I, too, knew every word, every note (still do) and could barely contain my enthusiasm, to the point that I suspect it may have embarrassed Super Son on occasion, and to this day listening to their music makes me dance around the kitchen ...
Yes, it was a little weird looking down on the whole scene: down on the instruments, the hands playing the instruments, the hands reaching for odd-looking bottles of Bud between numbers, the hands drumming the beat in the air, the hands waving in the air, the hands writhing (no other word for it) to the groove of the guitarist/singer whose hands were covered in tattoos. Things grew more steamy as the night wore on ...
We liked it (!), though we didn't stay 'til the very end; at some point, we wove our way downstairs and toward the door about the time the guitarist called his mom up on the stage to share a nice moment as the crowd warmly cheered ...
It bears repeating every once in a while (I think): images get bigger if you click on them.
