A Night to Remember

It's been a few days since I've written. We spent the weekend in the U.P. and I try to limit my use of electronic & mobile devices when I'm in the northwoods on 'vacation.'

So Thursday night I had an AWESOME AWESOME experience. What follows are the true events of one of the most amazing nights in my recent memory.

John and I, along with Jenny and Curt, went to Oshkosh to see Jack's Mannequin & Ben Folds perform at the UW-Oshkosh campus. Before hitting the road we stopped for a quick dinner. When I walked up to the register the girl working looked at my Jack's Mannequin t-shirt with surprise and said, "I love your shirt!" (I guess she didn't see John's when he went up before me.) I told her that we were on our way to see the band. She couldn't believe that there was a show nearby that she hadn't heard of because she's a huge fan. As a matter of fact, she told me that she had even met the frontman, Andrew McMahon, a few times. That sounded pretty neat to me, considering my love of the band's music and Andrew's inspirational story (he recently battled leukemia.)

Since the show was general admission we arrived early, but still stood in line outside the venue for almost an hour. Once inside, we discovered, to our dismay, no alcohol was being served. I guess that makes sense on a college campus. We did find great seats though. There was an open floor area in front of the stage as well as many rows of bleachers. We opted for a spot on the bleachers right behind the sound and light guys. I figure the closer you sit the the people controlling the sound, the better the sound will be. Plus, we really did have an awesome view.

As the show began we found out that Ben Lee was going to be performing as well, which was a pleasant surprise. Coincidentally, John had played a Ben Lee song for me just a few days earlier. He performed with just his acoustic guitar and his iPod. He set the perfect mood for the evening with his kooky songs.

After Ben Lee (and a very long break) Jack's Mannequin came on stage. I cannot put into words how much they rocked. It's one of those, you-had-to-be-there kind of things. Ever since John introduced me to the band about two years ago, I've been absolutely in love with their music. Piano-based rock with awesome vocals and clever lyrics - happy, lovely music!

Then, after Andrew and the rest of the Jack's crew rocked my socks off, Ben Folds and his three-member band took the stage. Ben Folds is a very talented musician and writer. I was really glad that I had listened to one of his albums several times in the weeks leading up to the show because I was familiar with several of the songs he performed. A few times, he did neat tricks with his piano, such as putting a pan lid on top of the strings to give the keys a muted, tinny sound. The unfortunate thing is that he played too long, in my opinion. They were on stage for over 90 minutes and towards the end the songs were putting me to sleep. At the end of the encore though, Ben did get the crowd to sing a neat round.

We got out of the steaming hot building right after the end of the show, in desperate need of a cold beer. We drove around some campus streets for a bit and found the bar Molly McGuires. Save the blasting ghetto dance music, it wasn't too bad there, especially since all drinks were apparently only $1.00.

Upon deciding that we had enough of that place (cheap beers just don't taste as good as those $3.50 ones) we checked out a few other places within walking distance. None seemed that interesting, so we got in the car to find a different area with bars.

Now, to make the next part of the story as short as possible, we basically got in the car, drove around for 40 minutes, did Y, X & W turns in front of a sheriff while in search of a supposed strip club, got on and off Hwy 41, and somehow ended up in the exact same place!

Since we were running out of time to get another drink, we just stopped there and ran across the street to a bar called Kelly's (but not before going the wrong way on a one-way street TWICE!) Curt went up to the bar after he decided that he was getting shots for all of us. He asked what we wanted and I told Jenny to have the bartender make us a "Jack's Mannequin." Since Jenny's shot of choice is Jack Daniels and because of the awesome band we had seen that evening, I figured it would be funny to see what the bartender would come up with when presented with this challenge.

When the bartender finally came by us, Jenny said to him, "We need four Jack's Mannequins." He gave a funny look and Jenny said, "It's on you to come up with it." The bartender said, "You mean "Dirty Girlscouts?" to which Jenny replied, "No - we want you to make one up." The bartender then said [wait for it...wait for it...], "But that's what they've been drinking all night."

Wait! What? Who!? The Band?!?! "Yes, they've been here all night," he said.

So it turns out that three members, Andrew, Jay & Jonathan, of Jack's Mannequin were sitting just feet away from us. John introduced himself to Andrew and told him how inspirational he is. I also met Andrew and shook his hand. I told him the story about the girl at the restaurant and how uncanny it was that I ended up meeting him that same night. He was so genuine and nice. We took some photos with him and left him alone.

Both Jenny and Curt got to talk to the drummer, Jay, for a while. He and Curt talked about record collections and tours. Jenny was very impressed by what a nice guy he was. We didn't talk to to the bassist, Jonathan, at all because his was hanging with a lady friend the whole time. After the bouncers had called bartime and were trying to kick everyone out, Jay decided to buy all of us shots. I think they were called Applesauce - weak, but who cares!!

So those are the events of last Thursday. It's so crazy that things happened the way they did, that we drove around for the better part of an hour but ended up in the same place, that I said something to that bartender about the band. What an amazing experience!