The weekend is gone, what a shame. Saturday afternoon we headed up I-85 to
Greensboro for a few sweet reasons. 1) The Avett brothers were playing for free. 2) The Violent Fems were also playing for free. 3) Our awesome summer buddy and member of the RTA Ruth Murray lives up there while going to Guilford College.
I rode with Lee, others followed in their vehicles. Lee and I took our mountain bikes with plans of riding Hobby Park in nearby Winston-Salem the next morning, we weren’t yet aware that we’d still be awake the next morning (OHHH! FORSHADOWING!) I took a set of flat pedals so I could ride the bike from Ruth’s place to downtown G’boro for the free shows, lee roughed the ride on his SPD’ and street shoes. This ride from Ruth’s place to Downtown SUCKED. Lee and I were on single speed mountain bikes that were geared low for riding in the hills. The road we pedaled on had a lot of very uncomfortable traffic until we got closer in, and it was a lot longer than we originally thought. It’s a good thing we’d packed beers in. We got there pretty much as the Avett brothers went on stage. These guys have a special place in my heart for a lot of reasons. 1) I like gritty neo country / bluegrass 2) I hate most people that like neo country / bluegrass and I think the gritty part keeps them at arms reach. 3) I like a good story teller, and I like when a person puts effort into making their music meaningful. There was a moment when the Avetts finished a song and as the crowd set into applause a train was approaching the bridge right behind the stage and added to the crowd’s calls with the steam horn, like it was ment to be. We had about two hours to kill before seeing the Violent Fems, so we seek out for a bar. We made rounds to two different bars; one was crowded but was conducive to ordering a draft and finishing it, taking the empty glass to the bathroom and re-filling it with beer from my messenger bag. At this first bar Lee and I were hanging out with a buddy of his that we ran into at the show that he knew from Greenville NC and his chick (married?) turned out to be the big sister of a high school pal of mine and the niece of high school pals as well (her step mom was the sister of the other two friends) its a small world when your getting drunk and at a free music event. Bar number two was empty mostly and didn’t serve food, we just dank more beers from our bags. On our way back to the stage area we hit up a bodega for snacks and sparks, we got a place we liked in the crowd and held it down. We ran into more bike riding pals. We jumped around like we were fifteen again. This is what I love about the Violent Fems: when you’re 14 or so and you just discovered them, they explain all that teen angst and sexual frustration to you in a way that isn’t all aggressive like the other bands you probably listened to at the time. I think that is something you never really let go of, that feeling of being the dorky fucked up confused kid and they make it all alright. I think that most people probably felt like that about them too because I’ve never seen so many white people dancing like they were Fifteen (and I don’t mean stupid trust fund hippie widespread panic dancing either). Headed back to Guilford but stopped at a grocery store for beers and munchies, we had college people to hang out with. Being a three time college failure / drop out etc. this was bound to be fun. Time flew by, the next thing I knew it was 5:30 and McGoo was trying to impress Ruth’s roomie by cooking some awsome breakfast burritos that had everything from sweet potatoes and bananas to onions peppers and cheese all scrambled with eggs into an omelet wrapped into tortillas and covered in salsa. I guess I just passed out. We woke up around 11:30. Hobbie Park was starting to seem like too much of a chore. Lee and I settled on Hitting up Poplar Tent to get a ride in rather than Hobby because it was far enough away that w could eat at waffle house, drink coffee and drive off a little bit more hangover before getting there, its just off of i-85, and when we got done riding we’d be closer to home. Lee had never been to Poplar Tent before, and I’ve been riding there since high school so I wasn’t sure if he’d like it or not. Most people either really like it or don’t like it at all. The current trail conditions were generally poor but I thought it was a fun ride, and Lee dug it after all. This weekend > Last weekend. HA!
