Saturday, July 30, 2005

Night Out on the Town

Last night my honey and I went to catch the Friday night concert of the Cocheco Arts Festival. The concerts are held at the Rotary Arts Pavillion in Henry Law Park in downton Dover. It's a pretty nice place to go see a show, and it's free. The "headliner" last night was Pondering Judd, a roots rock band from the area that is one of the best bands around. My desire to see them play live is what helped me to live through the set of the 80s cover band that preceded them. Thank god I had my boyfriend there to whisper snarky comments to or I would have combusted as they went through their set of Def Leppard, Pat Benatar, Bon Jovi, etc, etc, ad nauseum. I'm sorry, but the majority of 80s pop music sucked badly enough while it was happening. I don't want to be made to live through any sort of "revival" of that crap. Much of the audience must have been insane because many of them packed up and left after the first band. Or maybe it was just past their (or their children's) bedtimes.
The last time I saw Pondering Judd they had a different lineup and a mandolin player. Now they have a new drummer and local legend Hank Decken on all kinds of guitars. They put on a great show. There was a little boy named Pete, maybe four or five years old, who came up on stage with his acoustic guitar to rock out with the band for maybe half the set. He stole the show for a song or two but by the end of the set he was still there and I hardly noticed anymore. That's a damn good band that won't be upstaged by a little dude with some serious rock and roll stage moves. Pondering Judd will be playing the same spot on August 11 from 12-2pm for the lunchtime Shark in the Park series. I'm going to make a point to get down there to see them again.

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