Busy Weekend Recap

So I’ve survived my busy, busy weekend. Here’s a little recap. As the title says:

Saturday was the 3 concert in Bearsville. We left at around 3pm for the show and arrived around 5:30-6pm. It was at this time I found out that I was an idiot who misremembered the time the doors opened, meaning we were by far the first people there and we had to wait an additional hour before we could get in. Ah well…it was annoying but we brought books and eventually ended up sitting outside by one of the fountains for a while. By the way, driving through Woodstock is a strange experience. You’re on this small, windy road through a forest when suddenly it opens up and there’s this town with people everywhere. This time we saw a streetside harp player, for example. Lots of people hanging out along the road and playing music and drawing/painting.

If you’re not familiar with the Bearsville Theater, it’s a very tiny venue with a open floor area on the bottom (with some seats in one corner of the room) and a small balcony on the back wall with chairs. We headed straight for the balcony area as we didn’t want to stand on the floor the entire time for this show (which is why we got there so early so we could sit up there)

The opening band was all right (Ricochet I believe). Then the wait for 3 to come on. They are the absolute slowest band ever for setting up. The opener started at 9, played about…15-20 minutes. 3′s set started at 10:30. In between Joey Eppard’s uncle John the Baker played some acoustic songs. He’s…an odd character. I’m not quite sure what to make of what he did on stage. He had a song about crack babies for example.

Anyway, 3 came on finally and the show rocked. The first couple songs were rocky as Billy Riker’s guitar amp was malfunctioning and he was having a heck of a time trying to fix it. Eventually Joey ended up doing an acoustic version of his solo song The Game during which the guitar got fixed and the concert went off as planned. They played a bunch of new songs which sounded really good along with some older stuff. This the first time for me seeing them without their former percusionist Joe Stote (Wow, can’t believe I spelled his last name wrong. I blame lack of sleep) who was simply awesome in his quirkyness, but they managed to do the old stuff really well without him being there. I miss his stage presence, but the band plays on.

After the show we wanted to find someplace to eat that was open 24 hours just so we could grab something to help on the 2.5-3 hour drive back. I found a Denny’s in Albany near our route of travelon my GPS so we headed that direction, only to find that what the GPS said was a Denny’s was really a Lutheran church and seemed like it always had been. There was a McDonalds nearby as well but it happened to be one without a 24 hour drive thru. Foiled! We ended up getting back on the thruway and stopping at the next rest stop for something to eat and drink and arrived home a about 3:30am.

My weekend fun didn’t stop there though. I woke up and wandered off to Whetstone Gulf State Park to hang out with my family at our annual reunion there. It was a good time. Although I said I never would again, I broke my promise to myself and ended up doing the 5 mile trail around the edge of the Gorge with my sister. We walked it in 3.5 hours with me stopping along the way to take photos for my photography course. I haven’t gotten a chance to see what I took, but I’m not sure if it was what I needed for the assignment. Ah well.

Surprisngly, after doing the hike I’m feeling pretty good right now. The problem is my back and arm due to the long game of horseshoes I played after the hike. Owww. But it was a fun time. Hung out by the fire for a while, enjoyed talking with family. Very fun day.

Next up on the fun events schedule: Rush at the state fair on thursday! Wooo!