August Rises....

The first weekend of August was both busy and very... well, for lack of a better word, wet.

I had plans to go meet up with some friends after work on Friday. I headed up to Maine immediately after work. For whatever reason the traffic was a real struggle (more so than usual) leaving Friday night. I got stuck driving in the tunnel underneath Rt. 28 near Sullivan Square for a 1/2 hour. The intersection where the tunnel empties out is quite a mess and no one has any clue where they are going. To make it worse, the light stays green for about 5 seconds and then the other routes feeding into the intersection get several minutes divided up amongst them.

The weather was nice in Boston as I was leaving however as soon as I arrived at the Portsmouth bridge into Maine, a nearly impenetrable fog had settled upon the landscape. It spit rain intermittently until I arrived at Tim and Brandy's apartment in Saco. John was there and I planned to head back to Portland with him after eating supper. Brandy prepared a nice pasta meal and salad with strawberry shortcake for desert. Tim, Brandy and their friend Sherri were carb-loading for the "Beach to Beacon" which is a 10k race. (Hope everyone did well!)

After some good food and conversation John and I headed out to Portland. We stopped by John's apartment in the West End quickly and then walked over to the Old Port. It was the first time that I've been to John's new apartment. It is a great well laid out studio in an old colonial building. The mahogany woodwork and the maple hardwood floors give it a lot of great character. But the best characteristic is definitely the neighborhood which could be much more picturesque and convenient.

We met up with two of John's friends Lindsay and Maria at a new (to me) bar called Novare Res. Novare Res specializes in "craft beers" as they are often called. However separating it from many higher end bars, the menu is populated with more regional brews than it is with imports, which is fine considering the bevy of micro-brewers in the area. They had a large list of 750 mL bottles to choose from which was a nice touch. Beyond the beer selection, the location was fantastic. It is tucked away in an alley, and a outdoor large deck occupies an area that probably at one time may have been occupied by another building or was perhaps used primarily for utility purposes such as a loading dock. It is surrounded by buildings with the exception of the alley that you must walk down to enter the bar. The deck was located slightly above the level of the street built on ledge and/or an old foundation. The actual pub is located to it's left and is in the basement of an older brick building. Communal wooden tables populate both the interior of the pub and the deck.

Between the four of us we split two 750 mL bottles before heading over to the favorite Old Port dive "Rosie's". From there our drinking of course downgraded to old faithful PBR.

Lindsay and Maria were both very interesting to meet and talk to. Lindsay was actually from Bar Harbor and I had gone to college with and knew in passing one of her high school class mates (Kate Muzzy) (I'm sure I'm misspelling that last name) which would have been un-circumstantial except that this was out in Wyoming, not St. Joseph's. And Maria shared a great deal of great stories about growing up with her close knit Italian family. At one point in the evening John & Lindsay were out for their periodic cigarette smokes and came back with several large chocolate cup cakes. Apparently there had been a wedding party nearby and some one was giving the remainders to people on the street. They were a great accompaniment to the PBR.

When the bar closed John and I headed back to his apartment and had a couple more beers and ended out the night with the usual good discussion set to some music courtesy of the ipod on shuffle. John cooked up a quesadilla that he bought from Whole Foods, and had some bread with hummus to satisfy the early morning hunger pangs. Eventually in the wee hours I crashed on the air mattress John set up for me.

The next day we decided to get some lunch before I headed back to Massachusetts and John headed into work. He brought me to Aurora Provisions, a specialty food shop and deli where we grabbed some sandwiches and chips. It is a great little place, definitely catering to the bohemian/yuppie crowd that I am (some times reluctantly) a part of. We both had turkey sandwiches that had layers of home made bread, a great Asian spicy sauce, and a ton of vegetables, including cucumbers, tomatoes, and various greens. After eating lunch I dropped John off near the city center before getting back on 295 to head to Massachusetts.

I was excited to get back and go see Kate. We were headed to see "The Boss" Bruce Springsteen at Gillette stadium. I was never a fan but I saw him a few years back with my friend Jason when he offered me a ticket, and I had new respect. Kate mentioned liking some of the songs from his latest album so I picked up the tickets on a rare impulse buy.

From the time I left Portland for Boston it seemed like all of the odds were being stacked against me. I got caught up in unexpected traffic at the toll booths which one might expect on a Sunday night, but certainly not a Saturday. When I finally got through into Massachusetts I realized I had to call Kate and tell her I had been overly ambitious with my 4-4:30 pm E.T.A. To compound things even more as I crossed the Tobin bridge there was a down pour so intense I had to slow down to 25-30 mph. It was a rare occasion when I actually welcomed the shelter of the big dig. I ended up arriving at Kate's around 4:50. I had hopped on arriving around 4:00 pm since I left Portland just prior to 2:00 pm, but no such luck.

At Kate's apartment we rushed to get directions to Gillette from mapquest. The route from Brookline was a bit more complicated than I thought it would be, and I did manage to make a couple wrong turns. They were recognized quickly and no harm came from them, largely in part to Kate's navigation assistance.

Kate and I were running short on time so I decided that we should just eat at a Friendly's which happens to be one of Kate's favorites anyway. After eating some greasy sandwiches and fries in an outdated strip-mall-Friendly's-location, somewhere in Dedham, we continued on our way to Foxboro.

What I hadn't accounted for (Stupid me....) was the backed up traffic. Honestly we probably were only held up for a little over a half hour, but I was cursing at myself for not planning better. Additionally I had forgotten about the parking fee but luckily Kate had enough extra cash to help me out.

So we are at the show, parked walking to the stadium, relief right? WRONG! I had this naive idea that because of the intense thunder storms earlier, that we would be in the clear. The sky had gone from clear in Brookline, right back to black over Gillette stadium. The lightning started to appear and it wasn't long be for distant rumbles became jolting cracks that made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I thought optimistically "Well when we're in line, if it rains we'll get inside before it arrives." That was some more flawed logic on my part.

Kate and I had to split up to get through the security check. Kate also had a purse so she needed to go through a slower line. Before going our separate ways we came up with a estimated location on the other side to meet. There is a big Bank of America insignia and I was going to wait for her on the other side of it. It started to rain lightly just before I got through. I was already feeling pretty bad at this point, knowing that Kate was going to be cold, potentially wet, and that I had been disgruntled for the last leg of the drive in. Kate's line was taking quite a while. The rain seemed to let up for a bit "Oh good!" I thought. Again, it was premature.

I could hear the onslaught before it hit. It sounded like gravel screaming down from the sky and hitting anything in its way, getting louder as it got closer. Then it hit me, and it hit me like a wall. The rain stung, and in seconds I was drenched. Some reports claim there was hail mixed in. A few lucky people had the foresight to bring ponchos or trash bags to wear. Not me. The rain came down so hard and so fast that it just built up on the cement and was about two inches deep. I looked down at the frantic drops chaotically colliding with the flowing ground. Occasionally I would frantically look around for Kate with a grimace on my face. The rain almost died off completely and finally Kate came through, very wet and sad.

Apparently there was quite a bit of pushing when the rain started. Additionally the Gillette people tried to take her umbrella away claiming that she might use it to go on a killing spree. Kate managed to hide it away in her purse before and they gave up pursuit. Kate had several seconds of umbrella time so she was probably in better shape than I was.... but not much. I was so wet, I might has well have jumped in a lake. I was squeezing the water out of my shirt and t-shirt.

The show of course had been delayed by this point because of the storm. We lingered around not know quite where to go or what to do. Kate had to use the rest room and so I waited in a courtyard next to some concession stands. I could see the long line to the women's room. Yes poor Kate had indeed told me she needed to use the rest room. There were some portable toilets outside that had no wait, but I ridiculously in my never ending stream of bad judgement thought the wait probably wouldn't be too bad inside. I probably would have been right had we not had the torrential down pour.... none the less... the err in judgement was made. I stood there head down looking at my wet feet in the middle of the bustling people running around. I'm sure I must have looked quite pathetic, and I felt really bad, like I could have almost cried. I looked up at the line and there was Kate right in queue to enter, and she was looking right at me. When we locked eyes she raised her eyebrows at me and sort of smiled with her eyes in a way that said "lighten up, don't worry about a thing!" With that simple gesture Kate made me feel like a million dollars.

Eventually we bravely made our way up into the stands. The final disappointment of the evening was the seats. While they definitely could have been worse, I had certainly been misled to think that I was in the mezzanine or mid-level by Ticketmaster, when I was up in the top tier... perhaps the lower half of the top tier, but the top tier none the less. Additionally we seemed to near by a handful of rowdy drunks (the kind of guys that remind you of junk yard dogs). One of them was so smashed he even managed to fall backwards down a couple of rows of seats. If you've ever been to Gillette and seen how steep it is you can imagine how much of a scare this gave everyone. When Bruce finally did start the show he began it appropriately with "The Summer time Blues". A couple of songs later he performed a cover of CCR's "who'll stop the rain". I'm certain the E street band has these little gems saved up especially for occasions like these. When he began working the crowd it was magic. The stage was enormous and Bruce walked all over it engaging people when ever possible. He let the women grab his ass and he took requests on big hand drawn signs. We could see a lot of the action close up with the help of two jumbo trons shaped like upside down "T"s on either side of the stage. Usually they just used the lower sections, but on certain songs they would employ the entire screens which was a pretty neat effect. When Bruce performed "Radio Nowhere" a song Kate likes in particular I glanced at her and she was smiling, and I knew then and there that my concept of Springsteen's charisma had not been exaggerated. And not just Bruce, but the entire force that is the E Street Band. Although we were cold and wet, shivering in a breeze high in the air, somehow we were having a good time. We hugged each other side by side to stay warm letting go only to applaud.

When the encore began I told Kate that we should try to make our way downstairs so we can leave and beat the traffic. If we wanted to when we got to the bridge on the eastern side of the field we could watch the remnants of the show and get a quick escape. When we got to the bridge Bruce was finishing "Jungleland" and the opening notes of "Born to Run" began and I knew we had to stay for at least that song, because if it lived up to the previous time I had seen it performed it would be great. Kate said later on to me that it was one of the highlights of the show. We left midway through "Glory Days" thinking it was the last song, but we could hear him play about two more as we were rushing to the car.

Still very wet, I had the heat on full blast until we were back on Rt. 93.

Despite things not going as planned, it will definitely be a night to remember.

As for the rest of the weekend? Well it rained some more. We had to scratch a beach day but we went to Newburyport and had dinner and tried to make the best of it.

What are you going to do? Eh?

Article on the show: Boss brings thunder to 50,000 at Gillette