Tulip Fest - Ridiculous
Being a lifer to this Albany area it's almost embarassing to admit I'd never gone to TulipFest before. I guess being someone who's lived here as long as I have, it's just assumed that you go every year and do whatever.
Not so much.
The motivation to go this year was simple. A good band that myself and my friend Jess enjoy was playing there this year (Rustic Overtones). You North Adams kids will remember them for sure thanks to Dave's initial obsession with them and then subsequent passing of the fandom off to myself and a few others.
So the plan was in order. Meet up at TulipFest - rock out. Solid.
Since I was up early on Saturday thanks to working an extra shift, I was up and about and got a text from Crystal asking what I was up to. I explained the plans in order and she wanted in too since she also had never been to TulipFest. She's been here since she started college at UAlbany years ago and also never went...and she's lived in the city itself.
We're all inexcusable here. So I tell her when the band is going on and we decide to coordinate and meet up. Sweet - a small gang of friends meeting up at what's sure to be a madhouse.
And it was. So many people descending on Albany it was crazy.
I opted to park at the garage on Eagle Street and take the special shuttle to take me to the park since parking anywhere near Washington Park was going to be foolhardy at best. I stand at the bus stop and notice there's a good number of folks waiting when I overhear this conversation:
Person 1: "How long have you been waiting here for a bus?"
Person 2: "About a half hour now - we called CDTA and they said one was on the way but stuck in traffic."
Oh - delightful.
About ten minutes later, two buses arrive at the same time. How convenient. The ride from the bus stop to the final destination at the park on State Street is about 15 minutes thanks to the traffic. Think about that - a potential 45 minute wait to get just across Albany. Wow. Words escape me on this.
What's worse about this is that this wait time cut into seeing the Rustic Overtones. By the time I arrived at the park, they were deep into the set and I caught all of about four songs. I text Jess to find her, but she's in line to get food. I text Crystal to find out what her ETA is as she's decided to find parking somewhere near by and she's traversing the one way streets near Albany Med looking for a spot.
Oh dear.
Once the mini-gang was assembled it was in time for the start of the Spin Doctors set. Now, mind you, I know the Spin Doctors haven't been around nor relevant for about 15 years now so I was just as shocked as you folks are that they were the headline act for TulipFest. They did not live up to being a headline act whatsoever.
Shocking - I know, but hear me out. This is a band who fell off the face of the earth and was living off of having, pretty much, three big songs, one of which was a real huge hit (Two Princes). So, you'd assume that they'd save one or even two of the songs for their eventual encore performance.
Not so much.
They spaced the three songs out so that you heard one kind of early, one in the middle and then finally Two Princes at the end of the set. Sort of makes sense I guess. Problem was, the crowd was not into it AT ALL. In fact, the lot of us spent the time people watching and commenting on everyone like it was a Seinfeld skit. This is where we determined that only the most terrifying of folks really come out for events like TulipFest.
Nearby, there was a pack of approximately 50 year-old white trash drunks reveling in the day. Earlier on as I'd been milling about waiting for everyone to arrive, these same drunks nearly got into a fistfight with one guy who, also drunk, made the mistake of walking in front of them. They yelled to the guy to get out of their way and soon a loud discussion over park property rights was underway. It went like this:
"Hey buddy! Get out of the way - we're watching the show!"
"Hey! I was here first - this here is MY area." As he crudely gestures to a circle of land in his immediate area that may or may not have included all of Washington Park.
They blathered on and on for another few minutes until they both seemed to have mutually forgotten what they were arguing about and the one guy staggered off drunk somewhere else. Crisis averted.
The most scary of the bunch was a guy that best resembled Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force spending the better part of an hour wrestling/harassing/molesting a kid who was about ten years-old with a 20 ounce Mountain Dew bottle.
When I say he was harassing him I mean poking, sticking, prodding and even poking the kid in the rearend with the thing. At least three times our little group (now with Jess's friend Bill joining in) all turned our heads with the, "Oh my God, should we be asking a cop to ask what the hell is going on" look. At one point I commented with high hilarity ensuing that perhaps it was a set up for NBC's Chris Hanson to come in and ask Carl to have a seat.
It's tough to describe this without any photos or video and for that I apologize, but I think if I were to be photographing or videotaping any of this I may have been considered an accessory. The entire thing was just full-on CREEPY.
Once the music died down, Crystal and I parted company with Jess and Bill and everyone else there and we were starving at this point so we headed off for greasy goodness at The Orchard in Albany. The Orchard is a favorite for both of us and by the time we'd gotten there it was rather busy but there was only two of us so it should've been decently short wait. The hostess told us it'd be about ten minutes.
Ten minutes passed - no seat yet.
We see the hostess come out to the bar and she grabs a group of about five older folks. OK that's fair.
A booth opens up at the bar. A-ha, here we go.
No one comes out. They clean up the setting. Sweet this must be it.
Another five minutes pass.
Nothing.
A couple of girls at the bar then ask the bartender if they can sit there. He obliges them without consulting the hostess. Bam - they're set down.
OK that's a little annoying.
Crystal heads off to the ladies room for a moment and a group of folks decides its OK to hawk in on her seat after having watched that she was sitting there.
Unreal. So I stare at them and the guy that was with these two girls - stunned. Crystal comes back moments later and I hear the one girl say to her friends, "Oh, I think we took her seat."
Amazing. They offer to get up, Crystal swears its OK. I get out of my seat to offer up and she shakes me off, besides, it shouldn't be much longer for us anyhow.
Wrong. The hostess comes out again and talks to another older couple as another booth at the bar area opened up and they get sat down. Jeez, what do we have to do here? I look at Crystal and we're now mutually annoyed.
Over a couple of seats there's another older couple who'd come in about 15 minutes after we'd been there. The hostess comes out and talks to them. I look to Crystal and she looks to me with the mutual, "Oh hell no" gaze. She moves in on the hostess and seizes the day.
Perhaps realizing her error/being called out, she asks us to join her in the main dining room as we're magically up next. Good thing. A table clears out and we're seated, finally, a half-hour later.
Incredible.
The wait was worth it, however, as we were soon filling up fat and happy. Hooray grease!
As we were exiting the establishment, there's a guy who seemed to be making a loud fuss at the bar jokingly as he was getting loud with a girl who was at the very least half his age.
Turns out the guy was quite serious about the 20-something girl who had hopped into what he claimed was his seat. Everyone in the bar as well as the rest of us are now looking at this guy incredulously as he yells louder and louder about how the girl had taken his chair just to "talk on her phone" while he was there to drink his face off.
Oh good.
As he continued to yell louder, the heckles of, "Ah sit down! Shut up!" pick up from the peanut gallery. Good thing we were already leaving, as one pack of drunken white trash arguing over public domain seating area was enough for us.
Ah Albany, you make me so... proud?
No, wait, that's not the word at all.
Not so much.
The motivation to go this year was simple. A good band that myself and my friend Jess enjoy was playing there this year (Rustic Overtones). You North Adams kids will remember them for sure thanks to Dave's initial obsession with them and then subsequent passing of the fandom off to myself and a few others.
So the plan was in order. Meet up at TulipFest - rock out. Solid.
Since I was up early on Saturday thanks to working an extra shift, I was up and about and got a text from Crystal asking what I was up to. I explained the plans in order and she wanted in too since she also had never been to TulipFest. She's been here since she started college at UAlbany years ago and also never went...and she's lived in the city itself.
We're all inexcusable here. So I tell her when the band is going on and we decide to coordinate and meet up. Sweet - a small gang of friends meeting up at what's sure to be a madhouse.
And it was. So many people descending on Albany it was crazy.
I opted to park at the garage on Eagle Street and take the special shuttle to take me to the park since parking anywhere near Washington Park was going to be foolhardy at best. I stand at the bus stop and notice there's a good number of folks waiting when I overhear this conversation:
Person 1: "How long have you been waiting here for a bus?"
Person 2: "About a half hour now - we called CDTA and they said one was on the way but stuck in traffic."
Oh - delightful.
About ten minutes later, two buses arrive at the same time. How convenient. The ride from the bus stop to the final destination at the park on State Street is about 15 minutes thanks to the traffic. Think about that - a potential 45 minute wait to get just across Albany. Wow. Words escape me on this.
What's worse about this is that this wait time cut into seeing the Rustic Overtones. By the time I arrived at the park, they were deep into the set and I caught all of about four songs. I text Jess to find her, but she's in line to get food. I text Crystal to find out what her ETA is as she's decided to find parking somewhere near by and she's traversing the one way streets near Albany Med looking for a spot.
Oh dear.
Once the mini-gang was assembled it was in time for the start of the Spin Doctors set. Now, mind you, I know the Spin Doctors haven't been around nor relevant for about 15 years now so I was just as shocked as you folks are that they were the headline act for TulipFest. They did not live up to being a headline act whatsoever.
Shocking - I know, but hear me out. This is a band who fell off the face of the earth and was living off of having, pretty much, three big songs, one of which was a real huge hit (Two Princes). So, you'd assume that they'd save one or even two of the songs for their eventual encore performance.
Not so much.
They spaced the three songs out so that you heard one kind of early, one in the middle and then finally Two Princes at the end of the set. Sort of makes sense I guess. Problem was, the crowd was not into it AT ALL. In fact, the lot of us spent the time people watching and commenting on everyone like it was a Seinfeld skit. This is where we determined that only the most terrifying of folks really come out for events like TulipFest.
Nearby, there was a pack of approximately 50 year-old white trash drunks reveling in the day. Earlier on as I'd been milling about waiting for everyone to arrive, these same drunks nearly got into a fistfight with one guy who, also drunk, made the mistake of walking in front of them. They yelled to the guy to get out of their way and soon a loud discussion over park property rights was underway. It went like this:
"Hey buddy! Get out of the way - we're watching the show!"
"Hey! I was here first - this here is MY area." As he crudely gestures to a circle of land in his immediate area that may or may not have included all of Washington Park.
They blathered on and on for another few minutes until they both seemed to have mutually forgotten what they were arguing about and the one guy staggered off drunk somewhere else. Crisis averted.
The most scary of the bunch was a guy that best resembled Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force spending the better part of an hour wrestling/harassing/molesting a kid who was about ten years-old with a 20 ounce Mountain Dew bottle.
When I say he was harassing him I mean poking, sticking, prodding and even poking the kid in the rearend with the thing. At least three times our little group (now with Jess's friend Bill joining in) all turned our heads with the, "Oh my God, should we be asking a cop to ask what the hell is going on" look. At one point I commented with high hilarity ensuing that perhaps it was a set up for NBC's Chris Hanson to come in and ask Carl to have a seat.
It's tough to describe this without any photos or video and for that I apologize, but I think if I were to be photographing or videotaping any of this I may have been considered an accessory. The entire thing was just full-on CREEPY.
Once the music died down, Crystal and I parted company with Jess and Bill and everyone else there and we were starving at this point so we headed off for greasy goodness at The Orchard in Albany. The Orchard is a favorite for both of us and by the time we'd gotten there it was rather busy but there was only two of us so it should've been decently short wait. The hostess told us it'd be about ten minutes.
Ten minutes passed - no seat yet.
We see the hostess come out to the bar and she grabs a group of about five older folks. OK that's fair.
A booth opens up at the bar. A-ha, here we go.
No one comes out. They clean up the setting. Sweet this must be it.
Another five minutes pass.
Nothing.
A couple of girls at the bar then ask the bartender if they can sit there. He obliges them without consulting the hostess. Bam - they're set down.
OK that's a little annoying.
Crystal heads off to the ladies room for a moment and a group of folks decides its OK to hawk in on her seat after having watched that she was sitting there.
Unreal. So I stare at them and the guy that was with these two girls - stunned. Crystal comes back moments later and I hear the one girl say to her friends, "Oh, I think we took her seat."
Amazing. They offer to get up, Crystal swears its OK. I get out of my seat to offer up and she shakes me off, besides, it shouldn't be much longer for us anyhow.
Wrong. The hostess comes out again and talks to another older couple as another booth at the bar area opened up and they get sat down. Jeez, what do we have to do here? I look at Crystal and we're now mutually annoyed.
Over a couple of seats there's another older couple who'd come in about 15 minutes after we'd been there. The hostess comes out and talks to them. I look to Crystal and she looks to me with the mutual, "Oh hell no" gaze. She moves in on the hostess and seizes the day.
Perhaps realizing her error/being called out, she asks us to join her in the main dining room as we're magically up next. Good thing. A table clears out and we're seated, finally, a half-hour later.
Incredible.
The wait was worth it, however, as we were soon filling up fat and happy. Hooray grease!
As we were exiting the establishment, there's a guy who seemed to be making a loud fuss at the bar jokingly as he was getting loud with a girl who was at the very least half his age.
Turns out the guy was quite serious about the 20-something girl who had hopped into what he claimed was his seat. Everyone in the bar as well as the rest of us are now looking at this guy incredulously as he yells louder and louder about how the girl had taken his chair just to "talk on her phone" while he was there to drink his face off.
Oh good.
As he continued to yell louder, the heckles of, "Ah sit down! Shut up!" pick up from the peanut gallery. Good thing we were already leaving, as one pack of drunken white trash arguing over public domain seating area was enough for us.
Ah Albany, you make me so... proud?
No, wait, that's not the word at all.