My Hiney was Kicked by City Stages

I was oh so excited for City Stages (www.citystages.org) this year. Birmingham’s annual music festival closes off the streets of downtown, transforming the greater metropolitan area into fair food (everything you can imagine, fried and on a stick,) music, and people-watching heaven. Usually the line-up includes one or two big acts (i.e. Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, etc.) that will motivate me to go through the hassle of getting downtown, finding a place to park, and then dealing with the hordes of people who come out of the woodwork once a year.

But this year was amazing. There were bands booked that I couldn’t believe. Diana Ross, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Roots, Galactic, Buddy Guy, North Mississippi Allstars, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, The Wailers, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Shooter Jennings, Citizen Cope, The Flaming Lips. For weeks now I’ve had my schedule written out and organized by time and stage. I even decided to take my excitement one step further and volunteered with the Alabama Environmental Council to man some recycling bins.

Friday night I partied like a college kid. We received VIP passes from a friend, which entitled us to drink for free, and the people at the VIP tent would serve you two drinks at a time. Yeah. I was drinking, dancing, screaming, singing, and having heart-to-heart conversations with strangers. Most of the evening was pieced together by reviewing the photos taken on my camera. I was definitely in rare form. I paid for it all day Saturday, too.

I dragged my butt off the couch for round 2 on Saturday, and was not in the greatest of moods. The recycling duties were not difficult, but did involve standing around for four hours encouraging rednecks to recycle. Luckily, some friends joined me for a few shows and then, nearing the end of my time digging through garbage, Dirk came to meet me with his friend, Grant. Then Tim, who kept giving us VIP passes, decided to grace us with two backstage passes to Ben Harper. Dirk and Grant grabbed them up and took off! I was heartbroken! Ten minutes to go of my volunteer duties, and now my boyfriend who had just earlier that day declared that, “Ben Harper is about as gay as Jack Johnson,” was going backstage, and I, a true fan, was emptying trash bags. Wonderful.

It all worked out in the end, though, and Dirk was able to borrow another pass and send someone back to get me. I even got in the pit for a split second! We felt very special.

I was planning on heading back down yesterday, but my age showed up and reared it’s ugly head. Mentally, I was ready to go, but my body wouldn’t let me. It might have had something to do with the lack of sleep and the flowerbed I decided to spend the morning planting. Anyway, Dirk and I got a few good movies in (everybody rent “Lars and the Real Girl!”) and I finished my book (EVERYBODY MUST READ “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union!”)