edpaffjr.comMy entry before the trip pretty much sums up what we did the whole time. After flying and getting settled in at our hotel we had dinner and then went to the show at Wise Fools. The Alternate Routes played first and were great. Their CD is just as good and I recommend picking it up if you are searching for some new tunes. Some other band played who I think was local to Chicago and then Greenstreet rocked the house. They were happy to see all of us back at their show and with so many new friends. From there we went back to the hotel and hotel bar for the rest of the night.
Saturday started off early with the continental breakfast. We then hung around the hotel room for awhile. The cool thing was that we had a perfect view of the Air & Water Show. After awhile we had ourselves a nice little pregame party and then before we knew it we were off to the venue for the festival. I saw a ton of the bands of the festival and enjoyed some of them. I walked in as The Southland were finishing their set. They sounded pretty good from what I heard while setting up my recording gear. It was good to see Stephen Kellogg again, and they put on a pretty nice show. I didn’t really care about most of the other bands besides Citizen Cope, who played well but didn’t really fit in that well. O.A.R.’s set was great! Lots of the newer songs were played which was great for me and my friends. The crowd was pretty weak until later in the night but even then I was expecting it to be bigger than it was. The venue was nice with a great view of the downtown area, but the lack of a “village” with different booths setup was pretty disappointing. I guess I was just expecting big things from the show and it ended up probably being worse than all the past festivals in Cleveland. The good news was that O.A.R.’s set and hanging with my friends was well worth the trip!
After the show I hung out with my email buddy Nasim and the guys from the band for awhile. I ended up going with them to a bar called Rockit where an after party was going on. There was a line outside to get in, but we were quickly escorted in and to a sort of private area of the bar. I met some cool people up there and had a couple of free drinks. From there I went back to the hotel to meet up with everyone for a repeat of the previous night.
Sunday we didn’t do too much. We had some Chipotle and then realized that we had some extra time. We then went over to my buddy Pat’s apartment and played cornhole on the roof there. The Air Show was going on again, so we also watched that while playing a few rounds. Then we all went out to the airport and went our separate ways. Kim picked me up at the airport along with Dominique and Bianca. Kim dropped Amy off earlier in the day and so she brought our brother and sister along with her to keep her entertained. We dropped them off and then headed home to relax for yet another exciting work week. Bad news to end this entry, I have to work all five days this week.