Sing, Sing, Sing About It

I thought I'd seen everything there was to see in Ohio.  A lack of inspiration leads to a lack of blog posts, hence the long period of time since my last bit of writing on my time here in this great state.

Tonight proved me wrong though.  Not too far from the small town of Wakeman where I've been staying is another little town called Vermilion.  It's old fashioned, quaint, and nestled in at the southern edge of Lake Eyrie.  Every third Thursday of the month they have a festival of sorts down on Main St. where a bunch of people come out and play all sorts of music.  One of the guys I work with and his wife invited me to join them this evening and so the three of us walked up and down the street, stopping here and there to listen to someone singing a slightly out-of-key version of Bare Naked Ladies "Old Apartment or a pretty good cover of a Nickleback song (see what I did there?). 

The setting was everything you could hope that a small town main street would be: The ice-cream parlors, a soda fountain, family-owned pizza joints, and even a private insurance company with a front window filled with beautiful models of old frigates.  On top of all that, the music was priceless.

As I drove around the crowded streets trying to find a place to park, I heard one guy singing some Johnny Cash and another older, decently overweight man singing along Karaoke style to "Man of Constant Sorrow."  Needless to say, I knew I was in the right place.

When I finally met up with my friends and we made our way through this farmer's market of music, I had only begun to realize how awesome this whole thing was.  We passed the Karaoke spot again only this time there was a girl proudly singing "Adam's Song" in a way that made me think it was not so much a cry for help but rather a middle finger to those passersby who, like her parents no doubt, don't understand her.  *sigh* teenage angst. 

Even better was the band of old ladies with electric guitars semi-rocking out to Christian worship songs. 

The winner by far however was the guy singing "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera.  He drew the biggest crowd out of any of the performers this evening and I'm pretty sure it was the iconic phantom mask and the black hat and cape he wore over a baby blue Underarmor t-shirt and khaki shorts that did it.  Actually he was pretty good and his style only added to the atmosphere. 

I'm pretty excited about this whole thing.  Not only was a it a lot of fun to just go for a stroll and hear all sorts of great music, but I also discovered an area of Vermilion that I didn't know existed.  Definitely some cools places to hang out that I will be returning to.

I was only there for about an hour but it was enough to get me looking forward to next month when the good people of Vermilion will do it all over again.