Summerfest
Yesterday I somehow dragged myself out of bed in a timely manner and went over to Karen's, where we met with her friend Beth and drove off to Summerfest. Summerfest is an annual music-n-stuff show in Milwaukee, which lasts a little over a week. You pay a flat fee ($8 or $9, depending on the day) to get in, and you can see most of the shows without paying extra (the headliner in the Marcus Amphitheatre costs extra for reserved seats). Of course, you also pay extra for food, drink, and various wares that vendors are selling. They also have a portable carnival on the site.
We lucked out early. There were numerous people outside the gate hawking tickets, but Karen and I had our east coast mentality kick in ("ignore them, don't even make eye contact") and just went to the gate. But then, as Beth was buying her ticket, a woman came up and said, "Here, take 'em. They're free." She gave me two tickets and walked off, having said the magic word, "free". So Karen and I kicked in 2 bucks apiece to Beth, and didn't have to buy our own tickets. Can't beat that!
We wandered around a little, looking in the tent-shops (most of which were not too impressive), and then had lunch. Actually, the and everything was pretty reasonably priced, by which I mean it wasn't much more expensive than restaurant food, and was considerably cheaper than ballpark food!
They have a cable-tram line called the Skyway running over the park (altitude of about 60 feet, I'd guess), and we went on that. My thought as we were ascending was, "Hmm, this car is attached to the cable by one metal pole, with absolutely no redundancy, and I'm going to be just high enough that a fall would probably be fatal." It occurred to me that I don't have a problem with heights, I have a problem with worrying about shoddy manufacturing! But I got over it quickly, and it was fun.
We ambled over later to the amusement park and went on their miniature roller coaster, which did have a couple of impressive drops to it, despite its small size. I was surprised that the lines at the park (and elsewhere on the grounds) were not very long. In fact, despite there actually being many thousands of people there, the crowds were quite manageable. Impressive.
Finally we moseyed over to one of the music tents and grabbed some seats front-row-center to watch a group called Five Guys with Day Jobs. (The fact that there were six guys on stage playing instruments didn't seem to faze them.) They were a pretty competent group of cover artists, though they started by playing a whole bunch of R&B (I'm not much of a blues fan or an R&B fan). They then moved into 80s and 90s music, first playing songs by groups I'd heard in high school, then by a group I'd considered buying, then by a group I owned other albums by, and finally, on their last song, they actually played a song I own ("Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba).
The main event came after them, though, as Sonia Dada came on stage for a two-hour show. It's the fourth time Karen and I have been to see them, and front-row-center seats were most cool. Karen asked me what I thought they'd start the set with, and I correctly guessed their latest single, "Zachary". As always, it was a good, high-energy show, and I was pleased that their new vocalist, Shawn Alexander, seemed more fully integrated into the group. (She was reading some of the lyrics from paper at the last show we saw.) She also sings one of their better new songs, Paradise". I was especially pleased that they played "The Edge of the World", which is probably my favorite track from their first album, and which I hadn't heard them perform live before.
After the show we headed over to take a turn on the ferris wheel in the dark, and then we headed home. I finally got home at 12:30 am, and got to bed around 1:00. My legs were quite sore, but it was a good day.
Gee, and I didn't even mention the flavored shaved ice I got to buy at the fest. That stuff is very popular in New Orleans - stands with 40 different flavors - and I'd forgotten how good it is. (I also didn't mention all the extremely attractive young women, so I'll make sure not to do that here.)
They're probably right, since it took a while for their first album to grow on me. On the other hand, I got into the group through their second album, A Day at the Beach, which had several strong tracks which sucked me in immediately; it's an all-around outstanding album, and is going to be a tough act to beat. Still, there are a few tracks on My Secret Life which have grown on me, including the aforementioned "Paradise". Overall I think I can at least fairly say that it's a rather different album in tone from their first two.
And I think we can all learn a lesson here about making snap judgments and putting them on the Web where anyone can read them! (Will this stop me? We'll see.)
Oh, and the letter also said they would probably be coming through Madison again in August. So perhaps I'll see them again real soon...
Fantagraphics seems to have a corporate ego as large as Microsoft's profit margin, but they certainly do some things right. The Pogo and Prince Valiant reprints are of excellent quality, and I've enjoyed them immensely.
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