white people dancing

this blog post is brought to you by episode #28 of The Sam Roberts Show Online. you can find the show by going to ITunes, Stitcher or notsam.com.

had a really good time at the Downtown Dayton Revival the past 2 days. saw a ton of great music and below are some musings.

Day 1 (my sister's birthday by the way. she's now 35. i reminded her it's really all downhill the rest of the way. enjoy it.) showed up fashionably late with my mother and sister. caught the end of Bronze Radio Return (pretty good). then, headed over to the Monster Stage and saw The Right Now (great sounding band i had never heard of). next, down a few blocks to see Kristy Lee (an incredible voice, a new favorite). hung around there and caught The Werks (really needed a joint at this point). we then headed back to the main stage and caught a good portion of Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk (really great band). next, a little high energy from Cowboy Mouth. then headed back to the Monster Stage to catch Jordan Hull (remember his name. for his age, this kid is scary fucking good). then, we caught one of the three most influential bands in my life, Guided By Voices. one of the best sets I've ever seen them play. and thankfully, i hung around for the six song encore. most people, my mother and sister included, went off to go see John Legend. i wasn't in that big of a hurry to do that. by the time i got to the main stage to catch John Legend, quite the mind fuck as he was doing a cover of The Beatles at the time. he's a great performer, totally enjoyed his show. all told, about 10 hours or so of music, food and white people dancing. 2 out of 3 weren't bad. I'm sure you know what I'm putting in the bad column.

Day 2 after showering and scrambling to get my fantasy football lineups in order, we were off to the show. got there a little earlier because i wanted to see Heartless Bastards. holy shit, they didn't disappoint. first time I've seen them live. count me as a fan. next, we went down to see Red Wanting Blue. they sound even better live than they sound on CD. what a great band. next, at the recommendation of Heartless Bastards we went to see Buffalo Killers. before they came on we got some food, my sister was stalked by a family that swore she was an exact double of their sister off in Japan and i was asked to take a picture with a gnome as i was wearing my Big Lebowski "ABIDE" shirt. i was kind of shocked i didn't get called Dude more actually. just your average festival day 2 shit. as for the band, i had never heard of Buffalo Killers. holy shit, what a great sounding band. i will definitely do some digging on them here soon. then, we headed over to see Rusted Root. a great mind fuck for my sister as she hasn't listened to them since college. they sounded really good. sadly, no pot in the air. kind of disappointed. we left that stage a little early as we all wanted to get good spots to see The Ohio Players. they went on 20 minutes late but it was totally worth it. still sound as great as ever. all the big hits, some stories about growing up in Dayton, still funky as fuck. my mother went to go see Tony Lucca afterwards as my sister and i hung around to see Robert Randolph & The Family Band. first time i had ever seen them play after years of hearing only good things. they totally blew me away with their sound and energy. i will definitely try to see them anytime they are in the area from now on. all 3 of us were spent by the end of that show (mom showed up maybe halfway in) and decided to skip out on Train. none of us were interested and the Steelers were playing at the time (my sister is a huge fan). so, out of there, hit a pizza joint and back to the house to catch the 4th quarter on TV. let's just say my sister didn't go to bed happy about the outcome.

all told, incredible festival for the first time. no crazy shit went down other than some travel delays for artists on day 2. the layout was really easy to navigate. the bands were great. the porta potties were aplenty and clean (SHOCKER). hopefully, next year will be even better.

and all of this coming from a guy who hates crowds and being out in public in general. let alone being subjected to seeing white people dance. but, my love of music outweighs all of them. hopefully, that never stops.