Silly rabbit! Tripping's for teenagers!

The drive to Chicago was pretty uneventful. Iowa is a silly place. They shouldn't put a sign that says, "Hey, this lane will take you to I-88!" when the lane does no such thing. So the route that I had planned to take got thrown out the window just over the Illinois border (why hello there, Mr. Mississippi River, nice to meet you!) and I was hoping the road signs would provide enough information to get me to the hotel. Well, the signs got me into Chicago at least, and I managed to avoid all the toll roads somehow, so I had that going for me. But then I got lost in Chicago and/or the suburbs north of Chicago, one of which I was supposed to be staying in. After some bad guesswork and some slightly less bad guesswork, I stumbled upon my destination. The North Shore Doubletree in Skokie, IL. Pretty nice place, really. Apparently they get a lot of business from big shot business types. However, they must have seen that we were only paying $40 a night for a room (split 3 ways = heck of a deal!) and gave us a room that they felt was appropriate for that price. Room 307. Except that the sign that said "307" was gone, and so the number was scrawled in a barely noticable fashion with ballpoint pen on the wall next to the room. Also, two of the lights in the room didn't work. It wasn't too big a deal though. As long as there was a place to sleep I wasn't going to complain. Friday night we took the train downtown and wandered about the hipster district for awhile, which was as silly as it sounds, and then got some pizza and ate at the hotel.

Saturday was day one of rock music. I kind of heard Head of Femur while I was standing in line to get into the park. As far as I could tell they were still a whole bunch of people making mediocre pop music. I was still in line for most of Pelican's set, but they sounded really good. I got in and saw their last few songs from a distance. I wandered over to watch AC Newman, who put on a pretty good show, after he realized that his guitar was a full step out of tune. Andrew Bird made a guest appearance to do some whistling, which was neat. Then Magnolia Electric Company pretended to be Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and it was pretty good. Way better than the reviews of their live shows that I've read. I listened to Four Tet from afar and enjoyed him more than I thought I would. Broken Social Scene were really good. Yep. The Go! Team were okay, but I very much prefer them on album. I wandered about the record fair and other whatnot during Prefuse 73 and Death From Above 1979, since I wasn't too interested in them. I heard some of DFA's set from a distance, and they're mostly not my bag. I like a couple songs on the album okay, but that's about it. Then the people I rode to the show with wanted to leave, so I didn't get to see Tortoise, to my slight dismay. Eventually we decided to eat, but by that time everything near the hotel was closed (even IHOP! What the heck kind of IHOP closes?)
so we found a 7-11 and I ate some kind of sandwich and some powdered sugar donuts. Because when I go someplace like Chicago, I pull out all the stops, you see...

Sunday was more rock music. When I got there, there were somehow no lines at all, which was pretty wild. I missed most of Thunderbirds are Now! which is okay with me. I watched Dungen, who is this Swedish guy who I guess does pretty much everything in the studio, but has a band help him on tour, and with whom I was not previously familiar. Despite having the name Dungen and being Swedish, they really weren't metal. They did rock pretty hard though, but there was also a touch of psychedelia that apparently is more evident on the album material (which I haven't heard yet). I was very impressed with him/them/whatever to say the least. I didn't pay attention to Xiu Xiu at all because Xiu Xiu are just not my bag of chips. I payed very little attention to Out Hud also, as I was over at the other stage anxiously awaiting the Hold Steady. Finally Out Hud finished and the Hold Steady proceeded to rip my face apart and it was so awesome you wouldn't even believe it. Then Andrew Bird played, and although I like his new album a whole lot, it seemed to drag in this setting. He seemed sort of stiff and not comfortable at all and maybe that took away from the performance. Who knows? Not me, that's who. I wandered off during Deerhoof, because they've mostly never really caught my ear. I watched the Wrens kind of from a distance, and they were really good even then. I imagine they would be pretty face-ripping in a small venue. Then I had no chance of beating the crowd to Les Savy Fav. They sounded pretty good from far away, and I could see that Tim was stripped down to some way too small shorts, but I missed any specific antics that were almost certainly there. My group of folks decided to take this opportunity to get more decent standing spots for the Decemberists, who were okay, but not nearly as good as my expectations. They also did some silly gimmicky crap that was on the annoying side. Then we left and ate Mexican food.

Overall, the whole thing went really well and was a whole lot of fun. Everything was on schedule and flowed well and etcetra. They were also really lax with bagchecking and letting people bring in food and water, which was pretty nice. In summation, the whole shindig was well on the awesome side, and I met some really freakin' great people who I certainly hope I will stumble across again in the future.

Then on Monday came the long drive home. I must be getting really good at spacing out, because driving all that way all by my lonesome really didn't bother me that much. There was a mishap on the way home. I had gotten not very far into Iowa (about 10 miles west of Davenport or so on I-80) and all of a sudden my front driver's side tire decided to not hold air anymore, and that getting ripped apart was more its style. I didn't realize this until all of a sudden the corner of the car I was sitting in seemed way too low, I heard a terrible grinding noise, saw a trail of smoke behind me, and detected the scent of strikingly hot rubber. So I thought the best thing was to slam the brakes and jerk the wheel onto the grass median. I slapped on the spare, and slowly made my way to the next exit, which wasn't very far off. I stopped in front of some random house on the road that I'd exited on to, knocked on the door, and asked the guy that answered where I might find a new tire. He said that the nearest place was back in Davenport. So I made my way back there and after meandering up and down a few roads I found a place that looked like they could change a tire. I stopped in told them I needed a new tire put on. Some fellow pushed some buttons on his computer and said he had a tire that would cost about $70 all said and done. I told him that would work, and they went to work. A few minutes later the guy comes back out and says he can't find the one tire they were supposed to have left of that variety, and that I might need to take the next one up which would be a decent bit more expensive. I started thinking, "Oh boy, they're already got my car in the shop and now they're going to find out how badly I want to get home." BUT THEN a few minutes later he comes back out rolling a tire next to him and says, "I looked around and I found this used tire that's in really good shape if you want it!" I took a look at it, and it was indeed in excellent condition. I told him sure, and he said, "Good, this one will only cost you $35 bucks," and I was like, "whoa," and him and the guy that fixed everything up were very friendly and did good work. So that was significantly less awful than it could have/probably should have been. So I got back on the road and got to Omaha just in time to catch Mr. 1986's last show, which was really really amazing and then drove home, slept, ate a spicy chicken sandwich, and typed a way-too-damn-long livejournal entry.

Maybe I'll post some pictures later if I get around to it/feel like it