This was a most pleasant surprise that sent chills down the back of my neck. The best testament to their talent was that the room was empty when they started. After all, they weren’t even on the bill. No one knew who they were so it was inevitable that folks would be distracted with beer and cigarettes in the back bar. Then, slowly but surely, the room filled up with curious onlookers. People started to dance and drunk guys started practically proposing marriage to the girls in the band. It was phenomenal.
The best was yet to come for me as I got to hang out with them all for several hours after the show. We went to Slice of Life to order pizza. It’s a place that used to really suck as I remember it. Being from NY, southern pizza is a touchy subject for me. This year however I noticed a marked improvement. I credit the guys from Brooklyn who opened I Love New York Pizza nearby, raising the bar a bunch of years ago. While waiting for our pizza, one amusing drunk was juggling the dangerous acts of hitting on the girls and telling the guys that the band needs a drummer (of course they do not). We got a good laugh outta that.
He was also apparently was complimenting the band when he said that their beats were ‘dank’. It’s a term I’d never heard and frankly I think I’d be insulted. Mainly because I hate things that are cold and wet (i.e. dank). We amused ourselves by reenacting the Starburst Berries and Cream commercial. You know the one. After a few other inebriated encounters, the pizza was ready and we were off. We ended up at Lee Buffaloe’s house where we ate and talked music. And this to me embodied my whole reason for coming.
Within in a few hours I had discovered some great new music and made some very cool new friends. We finally called it a night at about 4:15 or so. I headed back to my Hotel with a smile that was long needed. I could feel the tensions of my unfortunate personal life floating off of me like a mist in the sun. Luckily for me, the band would be in NYC shortly after my return home, so I’d get to hang out with them again. But more than that, I was rediscovering my faith in music. This is my religion. This is what makes me happy.
Day Two
I woke up around 10:00 and slowly made my way to the front desk of the hotel. The Carolinian, I would later discover, was the old Best Western which I had stayed at in 2002. But it was now in a bit of disrepair and the reasons for it being one of the cheapest hotels in Wilmington became clear. All in all not a bad place, but some mildew here and a broken this or that there were just enough to make it funny. If you stay here, don’t shut of the light switch. For some odd reason it controls the refrigerator, the air conditioner and alarm clock as well as the lights.
I was too late for the free continental breakfast, but I did run into Adam and Danny from the band Second Dan. We wound up going to my favorite breakfast spot in town, the Goody Goody Omelet House. Home of what very well may be the fluffiest omelets in the country. Adam and I turned touristy as I got a tee-shirt and he a baseball cap. The waitress thought $14 for the shirt and $5 for the hat was expensive. We found that sweetly amusing. We then reminisced about WE Fests gone by. As coincidence would have it, Adam’s former band The Booda Velvets was one of my favorite local NY bands around in the mid to late nineties. They played the first WE Fest back in 1996.
This again was all in keeping with the kind of WE Fest I wanted to have. Random encounters with cool results. Later, I drove Danny and Adam downtown. We had a short walk around, which is seriously all it takes to see all of it. We then stopped for lunch at the Reel Café. They ordered Oysters, I got the pulled pork sandwich and all three of us fell in love with our waitress Lindsay. A sweet and very cute girl who was about to move to San Francisco. I’m not ashamed to admit to asking for little extras so I could watch her walk away from our table.
