OK. We know it’s been a handful of days since we packed up shop at Flying Dog for the summer, but that doesn’t mean we can’t offer one last recap of all the fabulousness that appearing at the brewery can bring. Thus, behold the following five things we learned from Saturday’s Real Estate/Heavy Lights show on Flying Dog’s front lawn. Because you can only make so many people promise to visit your website before you begin to realize, “Well, maybe we should write something on that website.” Duh. OK. Let’s go.
1. Can’t say this enough, but those dudes in Heavy Lights are some of our favorite people in the entire world (and at least four other planets). Not only was it great to catch up with Ryan and Chris and Derek and Colin and Brian, but it was also great to see how far they’ve come as a live act. They held the stage with as much charisma as anyone from Real Estate did and they looked just as pretty doing it. There were a few people who stopped by our table to ask where they could pick up some Heavy Lights paraphernalia, and to those people, we say this: Click here. You’ll want to own the album. You’ll need to own the album.
2. Without question, Real Estate was the most subdued band the Flying Dog front lawn saw all summer, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t rock (in their own special way) just as hard. They had a long day and despite arriving just a little bit later than they probably would have preferred, they still showed no signs of letting The Road get them down. So, kudos to them for pushing through and giving the Summer Sessions concert series one final great memory of 2014.
3. Koozies! We’re all out! No, but really. We printed a whole bunch-ton of them (somewhere in the four-figures) and between June, July, August and September, they are all gone. As in, kaput. Goodbye. Done-so. We started with the black. Then we went to orange. And now we have nothing. Thus, the question needs to be asked: Which color would you guys like next? There’s a comments section here, and there are also these two things called The Twitter and The Facebook. So, let us know, if you feel so inclined.
4. We’d be remiss if we didn’t send a virtual, huge-hearted THANK YOU to the people at Flying Dog, who allowed us to hang out all summer. There was a lot of wind, a little bit of rain, tons of sunshine, a whole brewery’s worth of rawk (with a “w”), and so much fun that mere words could never do the summer justice. When we started this thing at the beginning of June (more on that next week), we were just some brand new website run by a guy who is losing his hair that had no business being embraced by such a gigantically fantastic imprint as Flying Dog. But the people there allowed us to set up a table and introduce some bands every now and then, and for that, we will forever and ever and ever and ever and always and always and always and always be indebted. If a website could kiss a brewery, consider this that.
5. We’d also be remiss if we didn’t at least touch on hip-hop night, which also happened to be Saturday night, after the Flying Dog festivities ended. The problem? Yeah, some of us ran into a curb and got a flat tire. So, while we had all the good intentions in the world … well, for the most part, they’ll probably have to wait now until the end of this month to be fully realized. Yes, we eventually made it there, but there was no making up for precisely how obnoxious getting a flat tire in downtown Frederick can be at 10:30 on a Saturday night. You’ll have to forgive us.
In any case (and one more time for good measure), again: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you and THANK YOU (notice the all-caps) to the wonderful people at Flying Dog for letting us come out and enjoy this summer with you. If you missed the music, you missed out. And you missed out A BUNCH (again, with the caps). To anyone who stopped by and humored some weird guy with a handful of koozies standing at a table (with a bunch of other fantastically helpful hands here and there) … well, we hope your one visit to www.frederickplaylist.com wasn’t a disappointment and maybe we can barter for a visit No. 2? Fingers crossed.
