('cause it's gonna take time...a whole lotta patience and time...)
A great capper to a great week of music. And appropriately enough, back where it all started...JOISEY!
Ever since I got involved with a certain Jersey girl, the Casa de Fleur has essentially served as Road Trip Base - South for many of our musical outings. Trips to New York, trips elsewhere in New Jersey, trips to Philly. Even trips to Maryland, DC and northern Virginia. Yes, it's a sickness.
But in all those years of abusing my mother-in-law's domicile for our musical traveling purposes, I'd never flown solo before. Maybe we'd gone down there for ME to see a show (including one famous episode where we went to see separate shows our first Thanksgiving down there) but there were always at least two of us (sometimes three, if we dragged a friend along). I'd kinda hemmed and hawed at the idea of finding someone else to stay with, but Princeton Junction is a mere 20 miles from Sayreville (boy, does that get misspelled a lot) so the fix was in - I'd stay there, and to avoid a guilty conscience, I'd throw in installation of some new Venetian blinds in the living room. The deal was done.
For some weird reason - must have had something to do with spending EIGHT HOURS on line, baking in the sun, before the show started - I wasn't all that awake when I got up the next morning. Kinda slugged around the house for a while, eventually packed up and started towards Princeton a bit later than I was expecting. The original plan was for me to get there, spend an hour or two socializing and having dinner, then leisurely roll over to the venue and catch the show. An accident on the Mass Pike changed all that, and after traffic cleared up, it wasn't a question of how fast I could get there, but how big a speeding fine I was willing to pay. Fortunately, no fines were needed and I got there just in time to gobble down some food and head to the show. There really isn't much better than having homemade egg rolls waiting for you at home. Of course, accompanying the mountain of egg rolls were three or four pork chops, a gi-normous pile of sticky rice, and repeated imploring to "eat more!" My mother-in-law must have had me confused with the New England Patriots. All of them. Though in her defense, I do get that a lot.
The show was at a newly-reopened venue called the Starland Balroom. Apparently this used to be a huge hangout for hometown boy Jon Bon Jovi, and according to a Jersey native, was also "Guido central" that at one time went by the name of the Hunka Bunka. Yeah, I like the new name better. Despite thinking I was there late, doors hadn't opened, so I got to wait in line and take in my surroundings, peoplewatch and eavesdrop after grabbing my ticket from a friend. Unfortunately, not much interesting going on, except for opening band members schmoozing with the girls in line around me. Doors finally open, no fuss whatsoever about the taping gear, say hi to a few other tapers I recognize, set up and once again cross my fingers that the battery will hold up. The 90-minute test from the night before wasn't particularly stressing - I calculate that the battery should run my gear for at LEAST four hours - but lo and behold, it makes it the whole way through the show. And this was no ordinary, two hours and thank-you-good-night, but two full sets, plus encore, clocking in at a meaty 2 hours and 56 minutes. The first set alone was nearly as long as the previous night's show, and the second set MINUS the encore eclipsed that by 15 minutes. Probably the longest show I'd seen with the new lineup - just a huge pile of music. Good stuff for the most part - the band is obviously still having fun, there are new jams in old songs, new toys (Ben has a new keyboard, I think) and new tunes (unfortunately, an uneven cover of Freebird, which the band apparently learned for a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute album). But a great way to end the week, and nice to have just a 20-minute ride home after the show. Up the next day, installed some blinds, and then back home for some rest and relaxation...
Leave a comment