Last Friday we were going to have a mellow at-home evening, and then I checked my Facebook news feed and saw that our friends’ band, Bethesda, was playing a set at the DIT (Do It Together) Festival in Kent. We had not seen Bethesda in months, and this was an opportunity to see them at a venue that was not the Akron club Musica, which Mer and I are cool on. So, we suddenly had Friday plans.
The DIT festival is in its fifth or sixth year, and it is a small two-day festival of music and poetry held at the Vineyard Church in Kent. The Vineyard is a very contemporary church that targets the 20-something group that is in Kent. The building was one medium-sized room, and people had brought food to share. It was a good scene. We got there around 6:00, which was when Bethesda was supposed to go on, but these things seem to run behind, and the first band had not yet gone on. We were able to use that time to visit with our friends Eric and Shanna, which was grand since we had not seen them much over the summer.
The first band went on, and they were a bit on the loud-and-angry side for my taste, but I had fun watching the audience, who seemed to be having a good time. There was probably a crowd of about forty people or so, and Mer and I found ourselves in the unusual-to-us position of holding down the old side of the audience. The crowd was almost entirely 20-somethings dressed in alternative-lifestyle fashions, which (amusingly to us) end up looking fairly similar. Mer and I actually laughed that we were the alternative set in the audience, since we did not match anyone. It was a fun-loving group of people, though.
Bethesda went on after the first band, and they did four songs. The DIT Festival had ten or twelve bands lined up just for Friday, so the bands only had 30 minutes to perform, including set-up. Bethesda did a nice job. It was a real pleasure to hear them without fighting bar noise, and to hear them through a sound system that was not geared just for loud music. They sounded really good.
Once Bethesda finished up, we hung out long enough to say good night to Eric and Shanna, but then headed out. I had an early morning long run on Saturday, so I did not want to get home really late, and we had come to hear Bethesda. With that done, it seemed good to head home. On the way home, I swung by a smoothie place on the outskirts of Kent, called Robek’s. I got a strawberry/raspberry smoothie that was huge and very good. I did not really need one, but I just figured it was fuel for the next day’s run. I had hoped that folk music would be on WKSU since it was after 8:00, but it was another music program called American Roots Music. Normally, I am ambivalent about the program, but they were looking in depth at the career of Johnny Cash, whose music I respect and like. Listening to Johnny and sipping on a smoothie made for a good drive home.
On Saturday, I drove down to the Valley and met up with Jason and Nate. Jason and I were scheduled to run 20+ miles, which is supposed to be our last long run before the marathon next month. Nate wanted to run about 14 miles with us. We went out at a good clip, and we did our 7-mile out-and-back and got back to the cars, where we said goodbye to Nate. We really had run pretty hard. Jason and I headed north to finish up with a 3-mile-plus out-and-back, and went out hard. Jason mentioned he wanted to work on speed, so after we turned around, I pushed the pace really really hard for two-plus miles, and we used the last mile to recover. That run was so hard, I am still feeling it today, five days later.
I went home and showered, and just as I was getting dressed, Mer woke up. I am pleased that I can get my runs in without messing up Mer’s Saturdays. I was very tired from the run, and needed a nap later in the day, but Mer was at least able to sleep in. Anyway, Mer got ready quickly at my urging since I was in a 2500-calorie deficit from my run and wanted to get some food. We headed down to Akron to my favorite breakfast place, Wally Waffle, where I ordered the special “Ohio State waffle” – chocolate chips with peanut butter chips, with whipped cream on top. It was pretty good, and hit the spot.
On the way home, we swung by several stores so I could look at laptops. I wanted to get a sub-$500 laptop using the $260 of reward points we had built up on our credit card. I agonized over the various options, and looked in four different stores, and went home without a laptop to think things over. I took a nap, and Mer went to get groceries, and when I woke up, I had decided to get a laptop. We had another concert in Kent that evening, so I had us leave early so I could swing by Best Buy to get a laptop. I ended up getting one I was happy with for $425, so we only spent about $150 for a laptop that has been working very well for us.
We then headed over to Kent in a steady rain. We were going to the Kent Stage, which is an old movie theater that was converted over to host concerts about eight years ago. We parked right next to the Vineyard Church, which had night two of the DIT Festival going on. We walked the half-block over to the Kent Stage in the rain, and we got tickets at the door. It was general admission, and Mer saw two seats in the second row center, so we ended up with great seats. We had about a 30-minute wait for the start of the concert, but we chatted.
We were there to see the Canadian duet of Dala, two 20-something women who had met in high school. One of my colleagues, Pastor Rick, is a huge fan, and strongly recommended them to the point of sending down two students who were mutual fans so they could sing one of Dala’s songs for me. It was convincing, so I took Mer out to see them.
They were really good. They had good stage personalities, and were excellent musicians. They both mostly played guitar, but also both took a few turns on the keyboard, and one of them played three songs with the ukulele. Their harmonies on their songs were superb, reminding me of the Indigo Girls, except Dala probably has a sweeter quality to their voices together. The songs were thoughtful and the melodies were good. Mer and I were both impressed, and Mer liked them so much that she would have even made an impulse purchase of a Dala CD if she had had any disposable money on her at the time. A very strong concert, and I look forward to Dala coming back this way another time.