Man, having fun can be so exhausting. I've barely slept in the last three days and I haven't been eating enough, but it's all been worth it and I am looking forward to the second half of my road tripping. I have pictures and video; again, no mp3s but you can buy the show. So much to do before artmonkeygirl, hobbitgrrl, zimbra1006 and I go to Madison on Wednesday...

And you know what, plenty of nice people have summed up the show over in tmbg, so I'm not going to give many details about the performance.

I left Ann Arbor about 9am (EDT) and sped back to Chicago for the afternoon show at the Taste. unsupervised had promised to hold a place for me in line or on the lawn at Grant Park, but I still wanted to get out there a little early. Once I got home I got my shit together and went back out the door to the bus stop. I had a frustrating wait for the bus—theoretically it should come about every ten minutes, but in practice what usually happens is you wait for half an hour and then three buses arrive at once, which of course was happened this time. I called unsupervised to apologize for being late and she told me that she'd kinda given up on waiting in the line because she'd gotten there about 12:30 and it was crazy long, that there had been people lined up since 7am (mostly to see Counting Crows, which seemed very stupid to me) and she'd been pretty sure we wouldn't get into the seated area. Oh well.

So I got to the park and it was just awful, so hot and so crowded. I went to the Taste to see Elvis Costello last year, so I knew how it would be crowded, but I still didn't enjoy it. As for the heat, the weather reports had predicted it would be in the 70s. That was all lies; the temperature must have been well into the 80s and it was humid like anything. Ugh. After one of those confusing conversations where I was wandering around with the phone to my ear while unsupervised tried to describe where she was, we finally met up. Meanwhile I'd gotten another call from a couple people whom I'd met in Naperville last August and then seen at the Vic again in December (he actually proposed to her at that show. They said they'd invite me to the wedding and I suggested they hire TMBG for their house band). They'd scammed their way into the seated area and very nicely offered to hold seats for us, so we got in line and hoped. In fact there seemed to be quite a few seats still available when we got in there, but we found our friends and settled in, farther away than I usually like to be, but much nearer than anywhere on the lawn. And I was thinking if most people stayed sitting (it seemed like that kind of crowd) then I'd at least have no problem seeing everything.

Oh, man, it was hot. Things got started pretty promptly with the Old 97s, whom I enjoyed. When TMBG came on Flans encouraged all of us to get out of our seats and come get a better spot, but the fascist security promptly made us go back to our seats. Actually we sneaked into a slightly nearer row for a while. Anyway, as I'd predicted, people mostly stayed sitting so I had a good view nonetheless. Prevenge sounded much better today—I think they'd abandoned their clever complementary lyrics and gone back to the album version of the song. Dan Miller is doing something new and beautiful with the beginning of James K. Polk. And his acoustic guitar was way up in the mix and sounded fantastic.

When They were done we got the hell out of there, and when we were away from the TMBG goodness I remembered again how horribly hot and crowded it was. We were supposed to meet unsupervised's sister, but we went the wrong way because the Taste map we picked up turned out to be a book of lies and we had to fight a long way back up the street we had just come down. Finally we got to a slightly less crowded area behind the band shell where the performers' buses and trucks were parked, and as we walked along I spotted Dan Miller on the other side of a little fence talking with Jamie Kitman. I hesitated, then I suggested to unsupervised that we go try to talk to him. As I said, "I feel like a dork, but I cannot resist." So we went over there and when Dan was done talking to Jamie I called out to him and he came over to visit with us.

I always say idiotic things when I talk to people I admire, 'cause I'm an idiot, so I started off with something like, "It's hot, huh?" Good job, self, that was fucking brilliant. He was nice as usual and agreed that it was hot, then said, "This is your third show, wow." And I was thinking, "Dude, you just did three shows yourself, my coming and just watching isn't so impressive," but I didn't say that to him. He asked me if I was going to Madison too, and I had to admit I was, and then he asked unsupervised if she was coming with me and she said no ('cause she has to work), and then he was like, "oh, you gotta go to Madison!"

We discussed the geography of the Midwest for a bit and then he shook both our hands and we went on our way. unsupervised was now really torn about going to Madison, because, as I pointed out, if Dan Miller tells you you've got to do something, well, you kinda have to do it. She's gonna let me know if she can manage it. I do hope she makes it, shows are always more fun with her.

Three shows in three days was excellent. And not to rub it in for people who aren't as lucky as me, but I found that, after seeing a good show I feel so happy, but then I realize I'm going to go see another good show and I feel even happier. Y'all gotta try it sometime.

Ooh, time to go home and wait for zimbra1006 to arrive!