Last weekend Jess was up to visit and we took her to Northampton. We saw a sign for a Decemberists concert so I went in to see if they still had tickets. I bought some, assuming it was in Northampton, until they started talking about no refunds if we got rained out . . .
The Iron Horse group recently bought a new venue. For those of you not familiar with the Pioneer Valley the Iron Horse group ends several venues in Northampton which host really good, diverse acts, my parents say Ray Charles at one of their venues. Anyway, they bought an abandoned amusement park (previously known for concerts, fire happy teens, bumper cars that lit on fire and rattle snakes in merry go rounds . . . of course my family frequented it back in the day) in the hopes of turning it into a seasonal amphitheater. In order to show the town of Holyoke that they can successfully throw a show they threw up a temporary stage and had two shows this summer. Saturday night was a free show of local acts and Sunday was the Decemberists (it was the last night of their tour). It's basically a hill with a dirt parking lot with one access road. In other words awesome. It felt like everyone knew each other, there was a great sense of community, and I actually ran into a girl I worked with at the Clam Box. Three reasons I new this wasn't your typical venue: 1) people brought books to read including one guy with a copy of the Lord of the Ring 2) there was a very long line for the Magic Hat booth, no line for Bud Light and 3) there was a Bart's ice cream truck (awesome local ice cream company out of Amherst).
Per Colbert the Decemeberists can be classified as "hyper-literate prog-rock" and they did not disappoint with their last album, a high concept rock opera about a fawn who falls in love with a fair maiden and then must battle the fairy queen for her. Yep, excellent. So since this opus is basically one continuous song they just played the whole album straight through. Which was cool, and I've never had a band do that. Faves included the Rake's Song with almost everyone in the band playing timpani. To give you an idea of what the band thought of the absurdity of this venue as well as a relieving hint that Colin Meloy is aware that his music is weird the "worst song he ever wrote". Graham appreciated that the band was seconding what he has always said about Western Mass after many misadventures involving me and country roads (I promise I will blog about that in a later post).
It was amazing, if they get the proper permits and such we need to go see a show there with more people, it was just a great time. Here are some pics I took on my cell because I foolishly forgot my real camera:
