Miscelaney

Being the eastsider I am, I’m trying to do eastside things. How embracing of me. Last night was my first ever concert at Marymoor Park in lovely Redmond. The players: Counting Crows and Augustina. The gig: The Saturday Night Rebel Rockers Traveling Circus and Medicine Show. Overall, it was a pretty crowstastic* evening.

Weather-wise, it was one of those perfect days here in the Pacific Northwest. Considering the stage is in a park, the venue is relatively intimate yet affords plenty of  general-grass-seating behind reserved seating, all of it pretty good. There are ample Honey-buckets, stocked with toilet covers and hand sanitizer, and the lines for the beer garden are completely manageable. There’s plenty of good food one can buy, yet we opted to pack in our own (just no glass, and I can’t tell you how many jars of gourmet fig jam we saw confiscated…you feeling me on the crowd’s demo?).

The show itself was the healing elixir it was touted to be. Over this past week, Adam Duritz posted the following note, which let all concert goers know this was not going to be your average show. As opposed to having the opening band, Augustina, play first to warm up the crowd and allow time for the constant trickle of fans who only come for the headliner, the Counting Crows decided to mix it up a bit by blending the two bands for one knock-down hootenanny of a show with all band members playing simultaneously on stage pretty much all night. The bands had a great time, which meant the crowd had a great time. While admittedly, we were all a bit confused as to who was playing when, it didn’t really matter. The show was great and they rocked it well after dark. 

I would say the only drawback (for me) to the evening was the Crows didn’t play the one song I was longing for, but I thought they might pull it out for an encore number. Sadly, no encore. I don’t know if it was because the bands were finito for the evening or if it was because the uber-civilized crowds jammed right after the bands put their instruments down. Either way, veteran concert goers know you have to earn an encore with a bit of commitment and enthusiasm (ie. stay put and wait).  But, the crowds hightailed it outta there like they were headed off to the Nordstrom half-yearly sale. Suppose this genteel concert-goer-esqueness is the price I’ll pay for attending concerts on the eastside and enjoying fig jam (out of Tupperware) on my goat-cheese crostinis.

*credit: Tammi Tompkins