Bookends

This was a summer of crazy weather and personal journeys through hell and back. It was also a summer of lessons and growth, and it began and ended with concerts at the Charlottesville Pavilion.

The first show was The Arcade Fire in early June. The night was hot as hell at show time  — well past 90 degrees still. The band turned it on, though. The energy was great. I got texts from friends close to the stage and decided to hang back after aborted attempts to wade into the roiling, steamy crowd. it was a good show, though, and somewhere on my phone is a happy picture that belies the tensions that were already in the final stages of destroying our relationship.

The counterpoint to this show was seeing The Avett Brothers with the kid a couple weeks ago. Where the Arcade Fire show was tightly choreographed with a defined setlist. The Avetts show was the opposite. It felt loose from the moment they hit they stage, down to forgotten lyrics and missed cues. Still, it was a brilliant show. They were obviously happy to be on stage and engaged with the audience. And it felt more honest than the tighter, cleaner show at the beginning of the summer.

In the end, the bookends seem more stark than sandwiching a concert in on an "off" night in early June and taking the kid for a show I knew she'd enjoy in early September. (I wasn't the only dad who thought that, either, given the number of dads with daughters on the lawn that night.) The real kicker, though, is that I remember the tension at the first concert, and soon after, all hell broke loose. It wouldn't really calm down for another two months or so. In that time, life took some drastic turns; I discovered how powerful and insidious PTSD could be; and I spent a great deal of time gaining perspective, healing myself, and working on my relationship with the kid.

And that's where The Avett Brothers show really stands out in stark contrast. We barely made it to dinner at Mas Tapas and barely made it to the show, but I felt more relaxed than I'd felt in ages. Chalk the easing up to some positive turns in life in general and feeling like I'd finally been released from a strange, bad dream. Chalk it up to that, in part. But chalk it up also to watching the kid play with her glow sticks and smile as she curled up on the blanket next to me as the concert was winding down. And chalk it up to realizing — finally — that I was back in ways I hadn't been for years.

Mas and more Mas

My previous visits to Mas in Charlottesville have all been exercises in controlled gluttony. You finish your meal realizing you have eaten perhaps double what you should have, but the food has been so good that the satiation feels grand.

 Tonight, it was just the kid and me.

 We scraped into the parking lot behind Mas with barely an hour to spare before The Avett Brothers concert. The wait was far too long, but the hostess had a bench with a not-really-table table that she could spare. Next thing you know, she is asking the kid which kind of juice soda she wants and what beer I want, and we're settling in at the nook in the corner. Not exactly perfect planning, but things were working out.

The kid was tired and distracted, but we covered the menu and put orders in. Anchovies, spinach and manchego salad, hummus, lamb sausage, and empanada with Caremont chevre. The dishes came out with remarkable speed, particularly considering how busy the restaurant was.

 The kid tried the anchovies; she wasn't sure about them, but it was a start. She liked the hummus though it was a tad spicy. The spinach salad? She hated the dressing. Hated it. One of the servers stopped by, and I took a step I rarely take which was to say that the salad wasn't to her liking. Next thing we know a comped spinach salad with oil and vinegar arrives. She wolfed it down, and minutes later we were paying the tab to get to the show.

How were my dishes? Terrific. The empanada with Caremont chevre, jalapenos and applewood smoked ham chunks was delicious. The merguez with a habanero-cider chutney was delicious. The anchovies were as delicate as they could be. And I could only finish the empanada.  As I told the excellent hostess, one of these days I will remember to order half of what I want to order.

The real win there wasn't the food, however, it was the service. They took care of us in ways that will be sure to bring me back. Kudos.

good stuff

First Saturday in November. Apples. Dads. Kids. And finally, beer.

The apples were courtesy of the Vintage Virginia Apple Harvest Festival in North Garden, south of Charlottesville. And the beer was courtesy of Blue Mountain Brewery.

The owner and brewmaster of Blue Mountain was with Goose Island in Chicago for several years before moving to the South Street Brewery in Charlottesville. He's turned out some really nice beers at Blue Mountain now. Their pale ale is excellent. The kolsch is nice and light. And the nitro porter is excellent. I also enjoyed the growler of aged hefeweizen I brought home. In addition to some nice brews, they have a stellar location looking out to the Blue Ridge and link in nicely to the locavore movement by growing their own hops and serving as much locally produced food as possible on the limited menu.



What I also appreciate, though, is the space they've created. The room is open and inviting, with big windows looking out to the deck. Because it's non-smoking and fairly sedate, it's also a very parent-friendly environment. In fact, it's exactly the kind of place I wish we had here in Richmond: a place where adults and kids can relax, eat, socialize.



My only complaint (and suggestion): Two dollars for a bowl of mini pretzels? Really? Kind of absurd. They should be free. Really.

kids at concerts

Wilco, Charlottesville Pavilion, tonight.

I took a gamble on this one. Wilco fans are a pretty reserved group, and the Pavilion is an outdoor venue. It seemed like a reasonable chance that Banana would have a good time. But at $40 for her ticket, nothing was guaranteed. Still, it was their last show in the States this year, and it would be a bit of cleansing since the last show I saw was with the ex before the meltdown.

Blah, blah, blah...

Long story short: we ran into a few other kids; they all ran around and had a great time; Banana curled up in her Hello Kitty fleece blanket and passed out just before the encores.

So the show...

They played two hours and 40 minutes, with three encores. The set list (which I will link to when it goes up on WilcoBase) was heavy on the last three albums, but they branched out to a couple tracks from Summerteeth, several from Being There, and one each from Mermaid Avenue, and A.M.. Throughout the set, they kept up a little schtick around "Heavy Metal Drummer" -- they'd play the opening beats or Kotche would come out in a blast of white light. But they saved the song for the end of the first three-song encore. The second encore ran five songs, covering what amounted to the history of the band. The final encore was "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," and it was phenomenal.

The band was as tight as I've ever heard them. Nels Cline was pulling riffs apart and reconstructing them, and during "Hoodoo Voodoo" he traded dueling riffs with Pat. Then during "Kidsmoke," Pat and Mikael traded keyboard riffs. And the chemistry was there the whole show. Stirrat and Tweedy were playful. Tweedy brought an 8-year old girl on the stage for Kotche was fierce. I can think of no other word to describe how much energy he puts into his playing, and his ability to mix and layer multiple sets of complex rhythms is constantly amazing.

Overall, what constantly impresses me about Wilco is their ability as a group to rethink and retool their songs. It doesn't matter that some of the production work on the albums is unavailable on stage. Instead, they'd rather take the core of the song and explore from there. The performances rarely feel repetitive, but at the same time, they don't abstract the songs so much that you never know what to expect.

The venue deserves kudos, too. The central location off the Downtown Mall makes it feel far more linked in to the city than most such places. Furthermore, the sound was excellent, inside and outside. This was our first trip there for a show, but it's definitely on the radar now. Next time, we'll have to get there early enough to roam.