Bourbon, sunshine and rock n’ roll

The girlfriends and I try to go to at least one concert per summer, and this year we decided to get a real bang-for-our-buck by going to an actual FESTIVAL – Bourbon and Beyond in Louisville KY (a little over an hour’s drive for us).

This festival goes for 4 days, at the Louisville Expo Center, better known as the site of the Kentucky State Fair and Freedom Hall, a concert arena where I first saw Peter Frampton in 1979 (cough cough)! The previous year, 140,000 people attended over the 4 days. While I was on a cruise in New England then, I don’t know how the weather could have been any better than this year, and I’m guessing the total attendance was exceeded. There were 60+ musical acts performing, and probably a couple of hundred bourbons for sale by the drink.

We girls chose Friday to attend (having neither the stamina nor the funds to do multiple days), mostly to see the 80’s MTV idols Duran Duran. We got a hotel right next to the fairgrounds, and the Hilton Garden was a great choice, although we paid top dollar for the room.

I hadn’t been to a music festival in decades, and most of the photos I see are from the UK, where rubber boots seem to be a requirement, with mud up to your knees, and “festival wear” that looks very bohemian, or like hanging with Stevie Nicks on a Sunday afternoon.

We were expecting blazing sun, with a drought that’s lasted for weeks and temps expected around 80 F (26C). There would be LOTS of walking. We opted for comfort and left our hippie outfits at home – shorts, t-shirts, sweatshirts, sneakers (2) and sandals (1). I wore a straw hat. None of us regretted our choices…

We rented a locker for $30 for the day, which was well worth it. We put our sweatshirts in it after the day warmed up, and were happy to get them back when the sun went down. The locker also came with phone charger hook-ups.

I was extremely impressed with how well-organized the whole festival was. We registered online, and were sent wristbands with a microchip. Before arriving, we activated the chip, using the festival’s phone app, with option to connect our bank card (2 of us did, one used the card onsite). All transactions were cashless. When purchasing anything at the festival, you touched the chip to a pad to pay.

The best example of organization, however, was when I left my sunglasses at a drink vendor while rushing to get back to our spot before Duran Duran started. I realized I’d left them, but when we stopped on the way out, they were closed up. The app had a Lost and Found feature, and I logged into the next day. There were categories of what you’d lost (electronics, clothing, glasses), and you marked on the map where you thought you’d lost it, as well as date and time. Then there were photos of what had been turned in (this was 8 in the morning, and I’d left them around 9 the evening before). There were my glasses! I clicked the image, and was asked for identifying features (glassesshop.com on earpiece), and I “filed my claim”. I got an acknowledgement immediately, then one the next day saying my claim had been approved, and asking for my shipping info. For $13, I got my $100 prescription sunglasses on Wednesday! Utterly amazing…

Instead of food trucks, there were long banks of booths serving everything from pizza, barbeque, asian noodles, “chicken on a stick” to Greek food in pitas. As expected, prices were high. Mixed drinks started at $14, with nothing I wanted over $20/drink. Food ranged from $12 for a slice of pizza to $20 for a (paper) plate of food. Again – this was expected.

It was impossible to count how many booths and tents there were selling bourbon. The largest tent where bands were playing had @20 bourbons along the back wall, with 2 cocktails made with each. A booth selling rum had a tattoo artist doing sailor tattoos on the spot. At those prices, most people would have to take out a second mortgage to get too inebriated! I can’t say I saw anybody really blatantly over-served. There were plenty of places to fill your water bottle, and we stayed ahead of dehydration, also helped by packets of Liquid IV – which I find far superior to Gator-ade (not an ad).

Sunscreen was essential, and we re-applied regularly. I also would’ve been miserable without my straw hat. Shade was definately at a premium, and all the big tents were full. We discovered the Knob Creek tent, with plenty of shade, ginger ale for a mixer (not available other places) and a generous bartender.

The main venue had twin stages, side-by-side, with large areas for standing/sitting/chair in front. The beauty of this is while one band was performing, the other was setting up, so you never had more than about 5 minutes between acts – no waiting 45 minutes while equipment is swapped out = brilliant. A stage in another area was set up the same, with culinary demos on one side and bourbon discussions on the other. I admit watching other people cook and drink in the blazing sun was not very appealing, when I could be eating and drinking my own self!

So how about that music, eh? We’d run through the lineup in the car on the way there that morning, listening to songs by the groups we didn’t know and deciding what to follow. Once there, I was impressed by an Irish band called Inhale that reminded me of U2. I liked Hozier (Take Me to Church) and Bastille. I didn’t think I was familiar with The Killers, but recognized a couple of songs. Their lead singer reminded me of a young Springsteen with his energy, but with a “better” voice, better dressed and Ivy League looks (what a contrast, eh?)

Of course, it was Duran Duran we were REALLY there to see, the MTV darlings of our post-college years. As their set was about to start, I noted 4 women in front of us, about our age, growing more and more excited. The one in the beige top turned around, looked us over and said to me “Are you HUNGRY? Hungry like THE WOLF”?!?!?

And there they were – definately older (and wiser?), but with the voices and sound we loved. I’ve been so several “geezer” concerts in the last couple of years – Elton John, Jackson Brown, Hall & Oates and James Taylor. All their voices had diminished over the years (as one would expect) and their shows were buoyed by huge bands and banks of backup singers. But not Duran Duran! Simon’s voice and the others are still strong and true, holding up under a punishing tour schedule. I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it.

We left a few songs before the end of the final set of The Killers, for our (very) long walk across much pavement to our hotel (was that a wonderful shower!) My step counter racked up 21,000 that day, and it felt like every one of them.

There were no sore heads or dodgy stomachs the next morning, so all our strategies paid off! We did look out the window that morning, to the festival grounds where they were gearing up to do it all over again, and were very grateful that we were NOT! A short drive to a huge breakfast and lots of coffee at Wild Eggs was just the ticket, and we were all home by noon on Saturday.