March 25, 2011

BOSTON 2011: HIGH HOPES & GOOD INTENTIONS CAN'T REPLACE FILM

I had big plans for our annual St. Patty's Day trip to Boston this year. I was super pumped to shoot the Dropkick Murphy's show at the House Of Blues. That fell apart at the last minute and so no dice on that one. Despite my friends complete hatred of having their picture's taken, I figured I'd class things up this year. I brought my Canon AE-1 and a roll of Tri-X along to capture all of our drunken belligerence in gloriously beautiful black & white.

But it might have been a good idea to make sure the film was engaged in the take up before snapping away. Probably would have been less of a shock when the film came back from the lab blank.... So what DO I have to share from my Boston trip? A couple of crappy pics from my phone, a twitter feed of drunken outbursts and a handful of stupidly wonderful stories to pass around the table. Here's a taste:
  • Shitfaced by 7:30pm Mike got kicked out of the House Of Blues for vomiting in the trashcan before the Dropkick Show even started. Our first day in Boston ends with a bang or a whimper...
  • Drinking starts at 11:00am the next day with microbrews across from Fenway Park where Vinny is chastised by the waitress for tricking her into serving him to 24oz glasses of beer so he can double fist. Jokes on him since the beer tastes like shit.
  • Mike and I are graced with Tommy's presence for gluten free dinner at PF Changs. Drunken Zombie Tommy mutters "Someone really needs to ride those dragons..." the whole night in reference to the 15ft tall dragon sculptures outside the restaurant.
  • Instead of going for prime rib at Durgin Park, I opt to eat french fries and consume abusive amounts of Magners at The Black Rose.
  • Also at the Black Rose, Tommy tears open his hand when he punches a pint glass into a thousand pieces. Instead of kicking us out, they bandage him up with gauze and hand him plastic cups of Guinness the rest of the night. An upgrade from our last visit to the Black Rose which resulted in us getting kicked out for holding a "Who's Cell Phone Breaks Into More Pieces When You Throw It Against The Wall?" contest.
  • For the first time in eight years I successfully order a drink by myself at LIR ending for now their entire waitstaff's boycott of me which have arose from belligerently yelling for more Guinness and then falling asleep on the bar, or so I'm told.
  • Mike helps me get totally annihilated on gluten free beer at The Otherside Cafe, before bowing out and sending Vinny over as a replacement. We meet up with Mike again at McDonald's where I try to steal and eat some fries. 
  • I order and eat a B Good burger combo on the way back to the hotel before passing out on the floor with no rememberance of ever doing so when I awake the next morning. I'm told it was on a gluten free bun.
With my phone in hand the whole time, one button now allows me to embarrass myself on multiple platforms so most of this was documented on twitter and facebook in real time, fantastic. It was an interesting conversation at work on Monday.

While the shows have changed greatly from years past, The Dropkick Murphys are always a good time. It was nice to see how much they take care of their fans as their stage manager had bottles of water passed out by security multiple times to all the kids in the pit. Plus got to see Against Me! for the second time in one week, good deal.

I have no love in my heart for the House Of Blues venue chain however. When it was still The Avalon, the second floor mezzanine was a free area that anyone could gather in and get some air, be it for picking up merch, grabbing a drink at the bar, or watching the show from one of the limited views near the balcony. Since then House Of Blues has made the second floor mezzanine a paid ticket area. If your ticket is for that area you cannot move anywhere else, leaving some poor souls a showlong view of the third mezz overhang or the back of the heads of people lucky enough to hug the railing. Sure it gets another 500 people in the door but they don't actually get to see the show. Gotta get that money don't ya HOB.

Our Boston trips are more or less four days of alcohol fueled shenanigans but it always good times with good people. I don't get to see my Jersey family as much as I would like but when I do nothing has changed. We'll see what next year brings.

Also, Vinnie and Jeff missed Bruce Springsteen sitting in with the Dropkick Murphys because "we didn't need to stay for the encore."



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