Weekend Recap: Northside, Softball, Asbury Park, and Swim Meets, 6/11-6/14, 2015

Hot Blood at Asbury Park Yacht Club

Life Is Pretty Good, I Guess

I had big plans for the number of bands I'd see at Northside Festival this year. You can check out the previews I did if you want to see some of the bands I had on my radar. Things didn't go quite that way, though.

After getting to Brooklyn on Thursday and catching the free sets from Chris Forsyth and Luna, I did manage to see Sharkmuffin, Beverly, and Ludlow ejacula. I sweated it out in McCarren Park and at Alphaville., met up with some people I hadn't seen in a year, and had a great time.

Philly's Chris Forsyth opened Northside Fest with his band, The Solar Motel Band.

On Friday, I headed up to Pet Rescue for the Hearts Bleed Radio showcase featuring Vomitface, The Rizzos, The Planes, Warn The Duke, and Dentist right after softball practice. I thought about maybe

The Rizzos at Pet Rescue

trying to hit The Paper Box for The Battery Electric or Aviv for Sleepies, but a mix-up on The Battery Electric's set time and just the good time I was having hanging with Dentist kept me parked at Pet Rescue.

On Saturday, CoolDaughter #2's softball team had their final game of the season followed by a pizza party. I helped out with the coaching duties all season, and I'm not joking when I say that I welled with pride over how much our first and second graders had improved over the course of the year. They downed about 6 pizzas and an endless flow of Sierra Mist at Luigi's after the game.

Good hangs with the Dentists at Pet Rescue.

Asbury Underground was happening, but I was tired and wanted to spend some time with CoolMom before she left for her business trip. We sat out by the pool as CD2 swam with her friends from the neighborhood. I worked and worked to get CoolMom to join me in Asbury for the evening, but she wouldn't go for it. She wanted to get to bed early.

Working on about 3 hours of sleep, I headed out to Asbury Park where the sold-out Third Eye Blind show made parking a nightmare. After finding a spot in front of Asbury Tower, I walked south along the boardwalk toward Convention Hall as the sounds of The Ribeye Brothers got louder and louder. I caught the last several songs from their set and noticed Spider Bags' Dan McGee, who was up next, bouncing along to the music and enjoying himself.

The Ribeye Brothers

I told the bunch of friends that I ran into at Anchor's Bend that they would enjoy Spider Bags who were visiting from Chapel Hill. The reviews I got back after the band's set were unanimously positive. The wild and sweaty set ranged from short garage pop nuggets to extended jams. McGee called it the best show they played all year, and damned if I didn't believe him.

Spider Bags

Then it was a brisk walk down to Asbury Park Yacht Club where I managed to catch the last three songs from Hey Anna. They closed with infectious recent single "Don't Talk Stop" and sounded great. Afterwards, it was a 180-degree turn from Hey Anna's pristine, beach-tinged pop to Hot Blood's hardcore punk.

Hey Anna

Hot Blood's set was as wild as The Battery Electric's from the previous week. The scrum in front of the stage pulsed and heaved from the first song. Crowd surfers bumped up against the surf boards that decorated the ceiling. Mat Kiley jumped off the bar and landed on top of the crowd during the band's last song.

When Hot Blood were done, I was pretty physically spent. With a 6am wakeup call ahead of me for CoolDaughter #1's Princeton swim meet in the morning, I reluctantly had to call it an evening before We're Ghosts Now took the stage. I've seen the band a few times now, and you should make it a point to catch their set the next time they pop up in the listings. I did get to meet bassist Max Resnick and chat a bit, so that was cool.

Things got crazy for Hot Blood.

The next morning, I got to watch CD1 swim a couple of personal bests. Even though I was kind of in a daze, it still made me smile. Once we got home, it was a couple of hours with CoolMom before she left us until Friday.

I always get a little sad at the prospect of a week without CoolMom. The moment she walks through the door each night really is one of the highlights of my day, and I miss it when she's gone. The girls and I will manage. Maybe do a little breakfast for dinner or just swim in the pool following their half days this week.

As I lay in bed with a drink last night, though, I thought about happier things than missing CoolMom. I thought about how many really good friends I've made over the last few years, and how much I enjoy seeing them when I head out to shows. I thought about how, when certain local bands are playing, it's just as much fun for me to hang around and laugh with them as it is to see their show.

It's not all about seeing as many bands as I can and accumulating pictures and content for this site. If I wanted to to that, I'd have driven back and forth to Brooklyn for four straight days. Instead, it's about discovering new things and new bands, spending time with family and some of the other people I've grown to genuinely love, and being able to balance it all with the rest that life has to offer. That's not always so simple; but, unlike most of the other "work" I've done in my life, it feels like work that's really worth doing.

Check out Flickr for some more pics of the weekend. I still have a few to get through, but they'll all show up there eventually.