Ah, another busy week went by with little time to blog! Time to catch up!

Friday the 31st and Saturday the 1st

Friday we headed over to Kent, to the Robin Hood bar. It is a college campus bar, right across the street from Kent State University. Our friends’ band, Bethesda, was playing that night, and they brought along some other bands. We like to support them, so we went.

The Robin Hood is mainly a bar – the performance space is at one end of the building, and the area for the audience is about 20 feet by 20 feet. Still, it was an upgrade from Musica – the actual bar was at the other end of the building, so the drinking crowd did not get in the way of the music crowd.

Mer and I got there in the middle of the first of four sets. The band on stage was a fill-in band that was unknown to our friends. They were very loud. That seemed to be a theme for the evening – the guy running the sound board seemed to prefer very very loud, sometimes at the expense of the actual music. In the case of the first band, I think they were very much into the loud scene.

The second band was a good story – Eric and Shanna’s pastor used to be a heavy metal guitar player for a well-known band. He quit the group when he met Jesus, and had not played in a band since then (about 15 years). This night was the premier of him and his new Christian rock band. Again, they were very loud, but it is a great story and the musicians were quite good.

The third band probably had a good sound, but they were turned up so loud that Mer and I took a walk around the block and then stood outside. Outside was an interesting place – there was some sort of formal party going on in the upstairs of the bar, and a parade of Kent students went walking by. I have to admit that Mer and I were a bit catty watching the people going by. Generally, the young men were dressed to the nines in suits, and the young women were trying very hard not to fall out of both ends of their dresses at the same time. Note to young women: if you have to hitch your dress up on the top and down on the bottom multiple times, it is not overly attractive. Just sayin’. There were a few nice dresses that we both admired, and the young men did look very fine in their suits.

Sometime around 11:00, Bethesda started to set up. They played for about 30 minutes, so we were done around midnight. I really like Bethesda’s sound, but this night they were mixed wrong. The lead vocals were almost okay, but the backing vocals were almost non-existent. At least two of the instruments (keyboard and pedal steel) could not be heard much if at all. It was a little frustrating. Still, I am very happy to support Eric and Shanna – they are fun people, and next time the sound will come together correctly.

Saturday, we headed back to Kent, to Kent State. Mer cashed in on her CVCA Auction-won tickets to a Kent State production of Grapes of Wrath. This is the second time we have seen Grapes – last time was a couple of years ago at the Weathervane Community Theater.

The production was pretty good. The set was simple, with two levels for different heights, a set of stairs, and a couple of washbasins/tubs at the front of the stage. The main prop for the production was a truck that could be wheeled about the stage, and much of the play happens on the truck. In between each of the many scene changes, the extras came on and played and sang period piece music – that was effective.

The acting was very good. I liked the man playing the main character very much – he was tall, very lean, and gave the impression of having seen some hard times. He had a slow and deliberate way of talking, with a slight accent, and that worked very well. The actors around him were also very good, especially Ma Joad, who had a commanding stage presence without overshadowing everyone else on stage.

The story is always good for getting my pro-union side up. Seeing people mistreated as the characters in this story were makes me mad, and that is always worth being reminded of. People deserve some measure of respect, even when poor.

Mer and I both thought the production was done about as well as you can pull off the play. The problem with The Grapes of Wrath is that it is a complex book that was turned into a stage play. This forces many, many scene changes, and that feels long at times. Mer recently expressed an opinion that good plays written as plays will usually be much better than good books turned into plays, and I have to agree.

So, it was an interesting weekend in Kent!