a recap

As it gets colder, I have two coping methods I use to deal with my numb extremities and blue fingernails:
Everything/Anything Christmas, and summer photos and memories.


So. My summer.

It was definitely a mixed bag to be sure.
And very little of it made it's way up here, between busy-ness and chaos and mixed-bag-ness.

 But I'm going to remedy that! In large part so that when we hit January, I have something to inspire me to get out of bed even though the thought of abandoning my flannel sheets and down comforter makes me want to cry like a child!


So, I sort of left off at Colorado in May and never kept going, and I think I'll start off right after that trip, when I went to Boston to see Dispatch at the last show of their reunion tour.

It was UNbelievable. 

For those of you who aren't familiar, Dispatch is a wondrous trio of guys from Boston who are silly and strange and above all, talented. 
They split almost ten years ago, and it was a HUGE deal to fans when they went on tour this year. There were some who went to all three of the concerts they played in Boston that weekend.
While we didn't go that crazy, we did drive to Boston from Albany, shop in Quincy Market, see the concert and drive back, over about 16 hours, which, while not insane, does mean that Melissa, our fearless driver, deserves props for staying awake and alert and not killing us, because the other three of us were very much asleep on the ride home. 


When I was 6 my sister, mother and I lived outside of Boston for a year, and it was veeery bizarre to return to a place I have vivid six-year-old memories of. For instance, Quincy Market is always familiar, but a little different than I have it pictured. 

For starters, I didn't remember there being redcoats:

Or as many tourists, eager to be skewered on the bayonets of said redcoats. But, hey, to each his own.


In general there were a lot more street performers than I remember, which on the whole, I'm a fan of, so it was a pleasant surprise.

These two guys in particular were fantastic.

Yep, those are knives in his hands.

This guy was gooood at the statue thing, plus the oxidized copper look was really convincing.

If you put a dollar in that pillar-receptacle he would very dramatically remove a scroll and give it to you. They turned out to be riddles.
...WHICH we would've realized sooner if we'd read the sign I JUST now realized was standing next to him the whole time.
You have no idea. He was in view of where we ate dinner and we spent a fair amount of time wondering what he was handing out.
What can I say, uncanny powers of observation, all of us.

This dude had some very long, drawn out trick involving him being straight-jacketed, hoisted upside down in that tripod thing, and escaping, but between the fact that we were watching from the windows of Urban Outfitters, and couldn't hear him speaking, the fact that whatever he was saying was taking FOREVER, and the fact that when he finally did start the trick it involved him being slowly and, from the looks of it, painfully, dragged upside-down, I lost interest before he could go all Houdini on us. 

Plus there were other, more magnificent findings to discover. Behold:

Geordi La Forge or my sister Madeleine? Who can be sure?

And, of course. The book I almost bought, but decided to order from my own bookstore instead, only to discover that it's OUT OF PRINT. WHYYY.


Eventually we made our way to TD Garden where we were met with the strangest cross-section of people I've encountered in a while. Those we saw in the lobby aside, in the near vicinity of our seats alone were the expected 17-25 polo-wearing stoner type guys who are also die-hard Dave fans (let it be stated for the record that I adore Dave Matthews, but dude has some douchey fans. Just saying.), as well as a large number of fifteen to sixteen-ish girls, which I found very surprising given how long it had been since Dispatch broke up, and a 45-50-ish couple that appeared to be on a date which was cute and unexpected.  

And then, this happened. The opener.

That's them. Pete, Braddigan and Chad. 
They're wearing mullets.
They opened for themselves wearing wife-beaters, really bad wigs and British accents. 
It was amaaazing. There was a while where everyone was just confused as to what was happening, and, kept turning to each other like, that IS them...right? or...?  until they started playing and everyone got psyched. 
They pretended to forget the words, fooled around like crazy during the songs and were in general, ridiculous. It was fantastic. 

Eventually they came back out as themselves. And proceeded to give the best concert I've ever seen in my life. 

Chad's hair was out of control. 

They were clearly having so much fun, it was incredibly infectious, and we danced and sang our butts off.

At one point they brought on some of the folks from their Zimbabwe show they did in '07. 


They were so sincere, and so happy and so proud to be in Boston, it was incredibly fun and at times quite moving.


Then the best for last. 
Oh my. 
After leaving the stage, and the longest I have ever heard a crowd call for an encore ever, they came back out.

On top of their van. 
Wearing Bruins jerseys.
And, yes, those are giant foam hockey pucks on their heads. 
It was a beautiful thing.

They came out into the crowd and within about ten feet of where our seats were. So awesome. 


The crowd completely lost it at this point. Everyone was singing/screaming, dancing and happy as hell. 
When they got back on stage someone came to talk to Chad and he informed us that we had seven minutes til they shut us down. So they played for seven more minutes. They did Cut It/Match It and even the lesser fans just about died. 


After the best encore I've seen we reluctantly shuffled off to our car and off back home, with one hell of a successful journey under our belts. 


Happy Tuesday : )