SHARING THE SHOWS
So I’m pretty sure I caught my cold at the Phish show; damn hippies not washing their hands and such. Oh well, it was worth it (though I should consider carrying hand sanitizer to these shows). At any rate, Maggie was congested, so we were both braving the sickness to pop our “Infamous Cherries” in seeing the Infamous Stringdusters for the first time. After a day of subsisting on hot tea and chicken soup, Maggie and I headed to Joe’s Inn in Richmond for preshow chow; we split their Loaded Spaghetti Dinner, and I ate the whole thing, as you can see. No, not really. With all the carbs I’d been taking in over the holidays, I actually couldn’t eat a ton of it. It was still good; not New York good, but I enjoyed.
We headed over to the National, and paid $7 for parking (a little more than the $2 for Norfolk, but way less than the $45 we paid for JRAD in DC). This would be my seventh New Year’s concert. A history: 1999 – 2000 Big Cypress 2000 – 2001 Ominous Seapods – Ray’s Downtown – West Palm Beach, FL 2004 – 2005 Apple Pickers Union – The Oasis – New Paltz, NY 2014 – 2015 Dark Star Orchestra – The Paramount – Huntington, NY 2016 – 2017 Phish – Madison Square Garden – New York, NY 2017 – 2018 Phish – Madison Square Garden – New York, NY I hadn’t been to the National in two years; the last time was when I took Valerie, a woman I was dating, to see Yonder Mountain String Band (11/18/17). All I’ll say is it was a helluva lot more fun going as a singleton with my best bud. Security was carding everybody, and I was flattered; made me feel like a kid again. As I’m obsessed with Freaks and Geeks, it made me think of the episode where the freaks try to get fake IDs to get into a bar. The opener was Cris Jacobs, and he was without a doubt the best Special Guest I’ve seen thus far; his group jammed out hard. One thing I love about the National is that there’s open seating on the second floor (first come, first serve) and I wasn’t feeling like shoving through others on the first floor, so we went up top, all the way, and I truly love that view of the stage. That’ll be my new spot. We did go toward the back so we could dance; I’m thinking of when Drew/Brometheus and I went to see the Pixies there, and my dancing was interrupted by the dude behind me yelling “Sit the fuck down!” Message received. I didn’t know most of the originals from Cris Jacobs or the Stringdusters, but during the Stringdusters’s set, I recognized CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising,” the Grateful Dead’s “Not Fade Away,” the Allman Brothers’s “Jessica,” and Old & In The Way’s “Midnight Moonlight.” Gene Autry’s “20/20 Vision” came on as well (two in one weekend; guess that’s a popular one right now with 2020). Some notable lines: Maggie: We’ll make it till 2060. Me (thinks for a second): Fuck that, we’re making it till 2070 (knocks on his own wooden head). I had started out wanting to preserve my energy by sitting, but as the band kept rocking on, I started spinning in a circle (totally worth it to prolong my cold). Then I sneezed. Maggie: You okay? Me: Yeah, I’ll sleep when I’m dead. After the second set, I repurposed Mark’s joke, “Call the police, because they MURDERED that show,” and then I did that thing where I laugh for ten minutes. The band ended at about a quarter after 1. On our way out, we stopped at Wawa to get gas and water. I reflected a bit on my resolutions. They are:
We got home at about 2:30; I took some NyQuil and passed right out. Overall, Maggie and I agreed that the Stringdusters were awesome, and with no percussion either. Happy New Year! Let’s all make it great!
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