Sometimes art sucks you in. I meant to only catch a few songs by the Latin Jazz Project and then head over for the puppet show halfway across the festival but boy did they play a great song. Then they played another and another and before I knew it, it was 5 and the festival was closing. I missed the puppet show and on top of that all the booths and food vendors were closing up shop. I had designs on getting one last bit of food before leaving but when we made it to the food court there was a band playing on the sidewalk in front of it and better than that there was a guy I had saw just last night tearing the roof off at the Battle @ Buffalo and then with his ballet style dance troupe on the main stage a few hours before breaking it down right in front of this band. He was mixing breakdancing and acrobatics just like he did in the battle and we had to stop and check it out. He was flipping, contorting, and doing things I’d only seen on videos before last night.
We stood there for about 10 minutes locked in admiration. When I turned back around to face the food court after the awesome display I noticed many of the food vendors were closed. We were on our way down Elmwood to Caffe Aroma anyway, so it was no big deal. I’d just get a Panini or something there. I dropped a few bucks in the bands’ open guitar case and we continued down the street as everyone packed up their food, art, jewelry and other wares and were inching closer to returning the street of Elmwood to its’ normal traffic of cars instead of feet. Despite being late for things or missing them altogether, I saw and enjoyed a lot of memorable and fun stuff from music, to puppet shows, to dancing, to eats, to art, to the cutest little kids, and to the unexpected.
Often I’d plan to go see one thing, then another and another and I had it all figured out with the festival schedule in my pocket, but some things were incredible and hard to walk away from, plus there were so many unscheduled performers on corners, sidewalks and everywhere else who rocked it and caught my attention while I was in transit from one destination to the next. Suddenly plans changed. Then there were friends all around that I’d have to stop and chat with. So I missed so many things, but I also saw many wonderful things. Although that sounds a lot like breaking even, I feel like I came out ahead.
All weekend I kept saying things like; “well you won’t see that at the Allentown festival.” This from a guy who grew up in Allentown and really used to love that festival like no other. Perhaps it’s because I live in the Elmwood Village now and I have for quite a long time now. It’s my favorite summer festival because of the art, the community and the energy there. Along with the great, there were some really awful bands and art too but you know... I was glad it was there. I was thrilled to see such variety and that both reflects on and reminds me of my neighborhood. I love it here.
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