This is the incredible tale of the weekend of the Utica Music Festival. Most things will be discussed and the names will be changed to protect the guilty. The picture to your left is the 257 Steakhouse in downtown Utica, NY. We were scheduled to be on stage at midnight on Friday. We hit the road at 4pm, with a 4 hour trip ahead of us and all our gear and personal effects neatly packed. After about 30 minutes, Jay looks at the speedometer and we are apparently traveling at 95mph. Pretty sweet. The radio and everything died. Who needs a battery anyways? Oh how close but so far away we were. Ok, we were just far away at that point.
Anyways, to make a long story endless, with the van on the side of 495, we had to go back and all get our own cars. Roadside assistance came and we were able to get a new battery into poor old Daisy, but then we thought to ourselves: how do we know it's not the alternator?! The roadside guy, Jake I think his name was, was the man and told us where the nearest garage was. We left it at the garage and transferred all our gear in the rain. By this time, we are cutting it close. We hit the road together (in separate cars) and made it to the steakhouse with 15 minutes to spare. How's that for cutting it close?! A huge shoutout to
Autumn who played before us at the steakhouse (sorry we missed it Autumn!). She is an amazing singer/songwriter from Texas that we exchanged cds with. Lovin the cd!
After an awesome show at the steakhouse, we hit the road for another 10 miles to get to our cabins, in a campground in Poland, NY. We awoke the next morning to the sounds of yelling kids dressed up in halloween costumes. Did we sleep until halloween? No, it's just halloween in Poland, NY. Dozens of campsites all decked out in cobwebs and beware signs. Children marched by a groggy and confused Jeff, scaring the poor chap half to death. Later in the weekend, our neighbor asked us 'what was in season?' The whole campground had assumed we were fisherman. We informed them that we were rockstars, chilling at a halloween campground to save money on hotel costs. Such a strange combination.
We then searched the streets of downtown Utica for food for what seemed like hours. Everything was closed. For a moment, we thought Armageddon had happened and we would be living a real life "Jericho" in Utica, starting out with nothing but our instruments and our wits. Luckily, we eventually found the main drag with all the good stuff.....we found several other hungry bands at the one and only Dennys. After eating 1500 calories, we headed back to the cabins for pre-show rock skipping and showed the other campers that we were clearly no fisherman. Somewhere along the way, Ben ended up with a flat tire. While changing the tire, we saw Amash people and a rainbow with a clear ending in front of a small tree. I am not making this up.
We finally headed back to town and found the venue of our 2nd gig. The stage area was outside and had flooded, so we had to squeeze onto a tiny room. Good thing we get along with each other and had an ample supply of TAG at the cabins. At the venue, I met the owner's brother Jay, who taught me how to play buckhunter and floss Cadillac Escalades and also Sick Rick, a cool biker dude who was concerned I was going to hit my head on the ceiling fans. We rocked hard and won over the crowd. Ben had to split at 10 and drive all the back to Manchester, NH...he had a flight to catch the next morning. I learned a lot about my bandmates on this trip....two members of the band snore louder than I sing...1 wears an irish kilt on occasion (he wore it at the show)....and other things which I'll leave up to the imagination.
Not sure why I put this last picture up here....this was on the ride back, with no coffee in my system....I was ready to keep going south and do a tour! Hopefully someday soon!
