chicago: wicker park fest

once again, tales of my running away to chicago. and once again, a super last minute decision. they make life more fun, i've decided. and it's probably good therapy for my problems with change and weird obsessive compulsive and perfectionist problems. so i packed up the car and left saturday morning, headed north by around nine. made excellent time and got to sam's house by around two, who was so kind as to let me and michele stay with her for the weekend. we took the train [my first experience with public transportation!] to wicker park and oh man. milwaukee avenue. swarming with hipsters and scenesters and everything in between.

michele, sam, her little sister caitlin and i walked around for a little while exploring and decided on the kid's zone to occupy caitlin for a while. we then headed over to the south stage to see cavashawn. jesse unfortunately had his bag stolen which has his ipod, blackberry, and a bunch of clothes in it. so cavashawn didn't match today - jesse stuck out in red. but it was a nice change; also interesting was scott's vast amount of chest hair peeking out everywhere. we finally met up with stephanie and nikki and a whole slew of other people that i only sort of know based off of faceboook pictures. well cavashawn put on a great show as always. they had a few sound problems with the mic cutting out, but overall it went well and we all noticed quite a few new fans venturing over to the merch table. it was probably around six at that time and we still had a few hours to kill before treaty of paris played. so we hung out for a while and hipster-watched, got huge lemonades and took a trip to the disgusting bathrooms.

treaty played at around eight thirty and they had quite the crowd. granted it's their hometown and a huge outdoor festival, but it seemed like most people knew the music and were singing along. this was my first time seeing them and it was just as wonderful as everyone has described. i'd met phil at beat kitchen back in january, and chris a few show's back at mojoe's, and finally got to meet mike and dan who were super nice. didn't get a chance to say hey to fonzi, but they'll be in columbia soon; no worries there. chaos of course ensued after the set because every single fan girl was trying to get a word in with treaty, and our group was still standing up front talking with the cavie boys. [please give me a few seconds here, to express my deep love and adoration for scott salmon. what a sweetheart; even more so when he's drunk. ladies and gentlemen, this man knows how to hug so if you ever need one, go find him.] we soon left and made our way back to the el station. A MESS is the only way i can describe it. we'll skip the harrowing details. let's just say that we made it back to jefferson park and went to big top restaurant for dinner. perfect end to a fantastic day.

day two - sam made us some fantastic breakfast, we watched fern gully like fools, and decided we needed to take an adventure. so what did we do? we took filipino food [sam's mom's orders] to the cavashawn apartment. we hung out and gossiped for a while and chelsea made various hysterical comments [all in good fun of course] and we were on our way to a very late lunch by around four. noodles and company the the rescue! michele had to be on her way home since she lives a grown-up life, so we headed home and sent her on our way. sam and i then decided to drive back down the wicker park fest instead of taking the train... BAD IDEA. it took us about forty minutes to find parking and by the time we walked our sorry asses all the way to the gate, then all the way to the opposite end of the festival, company of thieves was already playing and we had both missed our favorite song, oscar wilde. but oh well. we met up with nikki and steph again and enjoyed the rest of the set. next up was margot and the nuclear so and so's, who put on a very good set. they're on those bands that would be a favorite if only i had the time to give them. but regardless i really enjoyed it. we then ventured to seven eleven for massive dr. pepper slurpees, and made our way back to sam's house where we burned cavashawn fliers for our bonfire [once again, all in good fun]. i had made a curfew for myself of midnight; leaving then would get me home by a solid five am. well i didn't end up leaving until two... and got home at a disgusting seven am and crashed hard. fantastic weekend with fanstastic people. i'm sad i won't be seeing cavashawn or chicago for a while. and i mean it this time... no more running away before i move back to columbia. [except for kansas city on saturday, but that's been planned for a while].