Matisyahu Concert Trip Report

[tbach24]

Yesterday, my brother (Mighty Mouse/MM), our friend (Bobbofitos/BF) and I took a 3.5 hour drive to see a Matisyahu concert because he's pretty much the best current artist (and it's not even close).

MM and BF showed up at my cross-country meet at about 3 (my race began at 3:30). The race was boring so I'll skip it, but afterwards I had two brownies, two M&M cookies, and two chewy bars (PB). Then we went and I showered and they got mad at me because I told them I was going to quickly run into the gym to grab some stuff but I ended up just going back to my dorm to shower (it took less time but because they are about 1/10 as intelligent as I am they didn't understand TE {time expectation}).

We leave at about 4:30. We actually head to the gas station first, and BF complains that the place is trying to charge him a dollar for air so he goes to another gas station. I sit in the back while he and MM fill up the gas and the air and I hear them talking about cars taking different types of gas. We finally leave.

Amazingly, we don't get lost on our way to the Higher Ground, in South Burlington, Vermont. Even more amazing, due to BF's prior experiences driving, we didn't get into a car accident. We listen to a lot of Coldplay on the way up, a little bit of Counting Crows, and some Matisyahu as well.

We can't find the street we're supposed to pull into so we go into a gas station. Inside there's this guy asking for directions to the same place so MM says "are you going to the Matisyahu show?" and he says "no" so we get directions and leave.

Just as we're pulling up at 8:15 (show starts at 9), MM says "I hope it's not 18+" but we decide that's a silly notion. We get inside and it says "please have your ID ready" gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood peter.

We go to Quizno's (first time for me) and me and MM split a large tuna. I get banana peppers on my side and it makes for a great dinner. During the meal MM takes out the tickets and it says "all ages" so that's good.

Tons of random people ask us if we have extra tickets but we make it through and get inside and present our tickets. I figure out why they need to have the IDs because if you're <21 they mark an x on each hand so that you cna't buy alcohol.

We enter the main room at about 8:45 and get about four rows of people (it's all standing) from the stage. At 9 this DJ guy (Balkan something) comes out and plays for the next 1.5 hours. That was boring because everyone just wanted Matisyahu to come out. There are four girls right in front of us, mostly 2's, but then one disgustingly fat girl comes and starts dancing like fat girls do so I feel sick. BF tries talking to this one girl and this is basically what happened (from what I saw [couldn't hear much] and what BF later told me):

BF: So, do you go to UVM?
Girl: No, I'm actually in high school
Girl moves away (BF says that he just cut things off since she could've been illegal but I disagree)

Finally he gets out at 10:30 and the place goes nuts. It was a small venue with a bar on the main floor where tons of people were standing and then another elevated level in the back with another bar. Pretty nice imo. Smelled like marijuana at points, but that cleared up my sinuses I think.

First song is "Sea to Shining Sea" which is really good. He plays various songs from "Live at Stubb's" and his new CD which they said they finished this summer so maybe he has something new coming out. During "King W/o a Crown" I called up our other friend "Gary Stevenson" and he got to listen to that because he's so f'ing lucky. Matisyahu comes into the crown during the "last song" and MM gets to touch him because he's so f'ing lucky. BF is also f'ing lucky, but not for anything that happened that night.

At about 11:45 Matisyahu and band leave the stage and so BF, MM, and I leave the concert, since we're concert n00bs. The guys outside tell us he's going to do more, so we go back in but are in the way back so it's not worth it and leave. Head over to Dunkin' Donuts and I have a wheat bagel w/ butter and a green tea drink. Solid choice by me. We leave DD's by 12:15ish.

We get on the road and I'm asleep by 12:30. At 1:30 I wake up and notice we're not moving. I don't get up from my fetal position in the back seat until they say "it's snowing." It really was. Like really hard, visibility is limited. We decide to go to a hotel.

We finally find one at about 2 called the "Three Stallion Inn." It's not a major place like Holiday Inn so I figure there won't be anyone to receive us. We ring the doorbell and much to my surprise, there's someone there. We ask how much and she goes "175 I mean 195" and we don't care to barter since there's nothing else around. I have to run back like 100 yards to the car like twice more which sucked since it was snowing really hard. I fall asleep immeadiately after my shower even though BF kept talking about how nasty MehnDaMassah is (he really is though, best player ever).

I wake up at 9:15 and head down to breakfast. I have a bagel, some scrambeled eggs, two bowls of special K and tons of OJ. Really good breakfast. At about 9:30 MM wanders down and he eats some stuff. Breakfast closes at 10, so BF being the luckbox he is gets there right before closing. He eats tons of bacon (which was gross) and we split two bagels. We leave soonafter.

On the way back we listen to DMB, who I really don't like, so I complain a lot and sleep some too.

TL;DR

Okay, nice nice.

ZZzzZZzzZZzz

PS: My skills as a writer aren't really growing I guess