Oakland, MD – “Two Cups and a String” – The Oakland Main Street Festival – July 27, 2001
The boys and I went to see my dad play in Pittsburgh last night (which as usual was FANTASTIC. He’s just so good!). Today, we are playing at The Oakland Main Street Festival.
“It’s like two cups and a string.” Says Kenny, sizing up our stage.
“What is?” I ask
“Our production compared to your pops.” he correctly points out. I wince.
“But, may I point out, we too are playing a shed,” Soucy butts in, “The produce shed.” Indeed, we are once again headlining a produce stand but as Soucy optimistically reassures us—a shed, is a shed, is a shed.
The ambiance at the Oakland Mainstreet Festival is something out of a children’s book. Enchanting kids drift by tethered to brightly colored balloons. They’re coated in strawberry ice cream—eating it, wearing it and painting their parents with it. Watching them, I’m instantly escorted back to my own childhood. I remember how watermelon tasted metallic the first time I tried it. I remember wondering why eyes bled water when someone’s feelings got hurt, and why the moon seemed to follow me around — loyal and dependable, like a dog on a leash.
Lost in memories, I paint my nails, propping my feet on the stage monitor. Dino says the color reminds him of strawberry jam. I eat corn on the cob and shoo fruit flies away from the shiny lacquer of my freshly polished toes. Boats slip by on a glassy lake and a coal train whistles by every 30 minutes or so. I feel like we’ve wandered onto the set of Little House on the Prairie. Everything is so quaint and beautiful and untouched here … well, except for that new Wal-Mart that’s gone up on the hill and is sucking, like a weed, the life right out of this little town.
There’s a storage shack we’re told we can use for a green room. It was recently built for a town production of Anne Get Ye’r Gun and has no electricity or running water, but we’re welcome to it. Thankfully we don’t need it for any reason. However, Delucchi and Dino use it to smoke up in between sets and manage to get themselves locked in which delays the start to the second set significantly as we have to go looking for them.
Kenny’s right, our gig is two cups and a string compared to my pop’s. But as Soucy points out, at least we’re playing a shed. Anyhow, It’s not the size of the shed that matters so much as the spirit you bring to it and while ours may not be a stadium, and may lack in the pyrotechnics department, it has heart. Our production is raw and real and full of soul … and fruit.