The show itself was good. I must be getting old because there were parts of it where the beat of the drum vibrated the cartilage of my Adam’s Apple, and when the lead singer hit the high notes, it caused the fluid in my inner to go all wonky. The resulting feeling of dizziness wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, but I may need to take some earplugs with me the next time.
By the way, there are no women in Vampire Weekend even though the song that I have heard most frequently on Pandora seems to have a female vocalist. He is just a man who can hit high notes.
Red Butte Garden is a nonsmoking venue, so I didn’t have to deal with any kind of smoke, illicit or otherwise. The biggest surprises were how soon everyone was there and the type of event that it was.
I got there at 5 p.m. to get my tickets, and the line was already as far back to a yellow gate that blocks a trail that heads back into the mountains. By the time the gates to the amphitheater opened, the line had twisted around, gone up a dead end street and come back down. I was early enough to get a decent seat.
On this occasion, the event was more about socializing than the music. It allowed for some very decent people watching. The socialization was usually about what the group had brought for picnicking. There was a sandwich that looked like it was on ciabatta bread with roasted red peppers and three kinds of meat. The filling overwhelmed the bread yet stayed in place somehow.
There was plenty of wine and beer and cheese (the expensive kind) and crackers. Someone brought pastries. People really pimped out their picnic.