ROAD TRIP.

Road trips are a quintessential part of Americana and for most people, a long drive means getting the earbuds in place and  a playlist queued up.

It has been a long time since I attended 10 or more concerts in one summer as a fan.  I still go to shows,  but these days, I tend to stay local, not travelling much more than 5 miles.  But I know for a fact that other concert goers are traveling.  It is no longer just Deadheads and Phish fans going to see shows outside of their home markets.  The ethos of traveling from show to show is alive and well with multiple genres of music.   My friend Tommy once journeyed 885 miles from Minnesota to Pennsylvania for a Ryan Adams show.  And a bartender I met at has traveled to 8 different states and seen 20 different shows featuring Brian Fallon and/or The Gaslight Anthem.

Even with my travel at a minimum, my friend Matt who is producing a podcast called, "So There I Was" has me thinking about some of my road warrior stories from the past.  In the summer of 1995, my coast-to-coast concert experience was seeing the Beastie Boys at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA (with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and The Roots) on Friday, May 19 and then 2 weeks later on Friday, June 2, watching them live at the Velodrome in Los Angeles, CA.  Of course, prepping for road trips back then involved choosing the playlist and for me, in 1995, this meant using my walkman to play my mix-tapes.  My friends and family probably joke that I would still be doing the same thing today, but that is a separate blog entry!  

Despite my infrequent travel to shows, I still love a good road trip and enjoy putting thought into the music listened to during the drive.  My most recent travel involved a trip to Canada, and surprisingly I did not put together music for the ride.  But the music gods were smiling on me, and I was lucky to get the following string of songs to start me off: George Ezra “Budapest” -> Alt-J “In Cold Blood” -> Allman Brothers Band “Ramblin’ Man” -> Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Impression that I Get” -> Weezer “Feels like Summer” -> Son Volt “Back Against The Wall” -> The Wood Brothers “Ophelia” -> My Morning Jacket “Off the Record (live)” -> Aretha Franklin with Ray Charles “Spirit in the Dark (reprise)”.  And that was just the first 30 minutes. 

For my family’s next vacation, my 7 year old son is already planning his own road trip playlist.  Maybe he will be my +1 if I ever make it to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Thanks for reading.