A Smash of a 4th of July Bash

Ahoy, ahoy...As one of my best friends used to say. I must say this past week or so was quite an adventure; wine, fireworks, and a pale, bald, guitar virtuoso that rocked harder than I have ever seen him rock before. Let us start with two fridays ago.
Kelly and I went to Charlottesville to see her little bro and sis and also caught some ass-kicking music. I have recently decided that Charlottesville is everything that Boulder could be and should be but isn't. It has a walking mall, like Boulder but with way more culture. It has music just like Boulder, but there is way more of it. It has attitude like Boulder, sans yuppies plus, dare I say, diversity. Let us tackle just one of these subjects: music. At one end of the walking mall the city has erected a giant open air pavillion, think Red Rocks just a tad smaller. Every friday after five there are free concerts that last into the evening. Then on Saturdays there are concerts you can pay for like Bob Weir and Ratdog or Umphrey's McGee. We caught a Friday show with the little kids. Such a pavillion in Boulder would just herald noise complaints and fines (See Dave Matthews Band concert at Folsom Field Circa 2001). It is not that the yuppies don't exist in this city, they do. It is just that everybody seems to coexist, as I witnessed at the show when a cracked out, drunken, homeless hippie danced around completly out of control amidst the hoards of yuppies dressed in their finest Gucci apparel (Boulder still has better mountains). It was a grand old time.


The first band was awesome, though we only caught the end of the show. They were called Man Mountain Jr. and sounded like a cross between Hendrix and Fishbone. The headliner was an Afro-beat band from Richmond and the place turned into a giant dance party. Hippies, yuppies, kids, grandmas, grandpas, nerds, frat boy, dogs and cats all gettin' down to the groove in the Charlottesville heat.


For the 4th of July we headed up to Frederick, MD to take part in the festivities at Kelly's Grandparents' house. We met Kelly's Dad in the park beforehand to do a little slacklining next to the creek where the town festival was. Jim and Yvonne's house was only a block away so afterwards we headed on over. The afternoon was spent schmoozing with the hoards of people that had come to celebrate our independance. There was plenty of wine to go around and by the end of the evening everyone was more than a little toasted. Good thing we didn't have to go anywhere to see the fireworks as they were completly visible in the backyard. Thank you Jim and Yvonne for a wonderful evening.



The next morning found Kelly, CJ and I on the road to Asheville, North Carolina to see one of my absolute all time favorite bands, The Smashing Pumpkins. The drive was about 7 hours from Frederick but we were all so amped that it didn't really matter. We arrived in Asheville a couple hours before the show, so to kill time we got a sushi dinner. After we headed to the club. This wasn't just any Smashing Pumpkins show. This was the last night of a nine night run at the same club herealding their return after a seven year hiatus. We arrived and found that the club was even smaller than I expected, smaller than 1st Ave, smaller than The Fox. We sold our extra ticket for 100 bucks at the door, we paid 20 and I heard they were going for 1,000 on e-bay. We entered and waited for the show to start. We were blown away, Corgan opened the show with a three song solo acoustic set, one of the songs had been written that morning. Then the rest of the band came on and it was only hard rock/metal from that point forward, a 3 hour fist in the air head-banging rock fest. It was loud, and it ranks as one of the best shows I have ever seen. Having seen them two other times, this was by far the most rocking. Billy is having fun again, Jimmy is more solid on drums now than he ever was, Jeff the new guitar player rocks just as hard if not harder than I ever saw James play and the new bassist is a really hot chick(she is also good at bass). And best of all the new material sounds like Gish era Pumpkins. The Pumpkins are Smashingly good and they just announced a full-blown nationwide tour(Matt I believe they are playing Saint Paul, and Boulderites they are going to be Red Rocking).


CJ had never seen them before and was doubtful upon entering the show. Afterwards he said he had been converted and that it was probably the best show he had ever seen. Better than anything he saw at Bonaroo, for sure. Kelly liked it but wished they had played more of their softer stuff. Did I mention that I recorded the whole show on my hi-def Canon GL-2 camera, the sound is a little crunchy at times just because it was sooooooo loud, but I am trying to clean it up. The above still is taken from that recording. We drove back immediatly after the show because CJ had summer school the next day. We remained exhausted for two days afterwards, but somtimes you have to make sacrifices for Rock'n Roll. Delicious Custard Indeed, Peace. Danny Wilder Culpeper, VA