Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Saturday was the busiest day for us this Halloween weekend. The Gryphon and I already had plans to go to a costume party that evening, but then an old friend of mine from grad school, whom I'll call The Guitarist, contacted me at the last minute to see if we'd like to meet up with him to see a band playing in Manayunk.

Now, The Guitarist lives in Baltimore, and I hadn't seen him in person for at least two years, so I jumped at the chance. The Gryphon, who's always up for a new experience, was happy to go.

This meant being ready to head out the door a little earlier, which wasn't too difficult. I'd already ironed the dress for my Stepford Wife costume with spray starch to make it look crisp. So it was just a matter of putting it on, adding accessories and doing my makeup and hair.

For days my hair had naturally fallen into almost perfect ringlets on its own. But this day was damp, and my hair was misbehaving. I finally whipped it into some sort of shape. I had The Gryphon take a couple pictures of me before we left the house.

On our way to see the band, which was playing at the Grape Street Pub in Manayunk, which was ironically not on Grape Street, The Guitarist called us. We were five minutes late, and he wanted to know where we were. We told him we'd be there soon.

Parking wasn't too difficult; we were only about a block away. When we got to the Grape Street Pub, at first we didn't see The Guitarist at all. I had to call him on my cell phone. He said, "Oh, we're on the tour bus. We'll be right in."

Tour bus? He hadn't mentioned that he knew the band. Soon, he was ambling inside. After I gave him a hug, he introduced me to his new girlfriend, The Music Critic. It turns out she knows the band from having reviewed some of their concerts. This was apparently how they ended up on the tour bus when I called. As it turns out, they'd driven up separately but were just getting the tour from the lead singer.

We went inside and grabbed a couple drinks in the back room, which was the only place you could get alcohol at the all-ages show. The opening act was very straight up hard rock, which didn't interest me too terribly much. Most of the concert goers were underaged, so we had the room to ourselves.

I was one of the only people in the pub in costume, except for one of the waitresses, who had a Japanese dress and chopsticks in her hair. But that outfit looked like something my sister would wear just any time. In fact, she wore chopsticks in her hair when we went to see Michael Moore speak last weekend.

As the opening act played, we caught up on what had been happening to us in the past year or so. I talked a lot to The Music Critic, who seemed to have a perfect personality to match my friend: outgoing, vivacious, intelligent, funny. I mean, what better match could there be, really, than a musician and a music critic?

The Guitarist had pitched the band, Pepper's Ghost, as guitar rock with hints of Bowie and Beatles influence. But to me, what I heard when they started playing was a big T. Rex influence. In fact, the lead singer sounded a lot like Marc Bolan. I mentioned this to The Music Critic, and she agreed.

When Pepper's Ghost started, we moved into the main room, but were confined to the small balcony where you were allowed to have alcohol. At first, we couldn't find a place to stand, because everywhere we stood we were in front of people, one of whom, a middle aged woman in an oversized flannel shirt, got really mad at us and told us off.

But we moved to the back, where we wouldn't disturb anybody, and leaned against the back wall. We still had a great view of the stage.

The Guitarist and The Music Critic are in the early stages of their relationship and were being really affectionate, really cutesy. I got a couple pictures of them, which were especially cool because they looked so cute together, and yet she was wearing devil's horns for Halloween.

The Music Critic returned the favor by taking a nice photo of The Gryphon and me.

I really loved the band and could see why The Guitarist was so excited about them. I got up close with my digital camera and got a few pics.

The show was deliberately planned early so that people could still go to their Halloween parties afterwards. It was actually over by about 7 p.m. Then we were all going to get some dinner at the Manayunk Pub nearby. First, we had to collect The Music Critic's friend. She was pretty tipsy already and didn't want to leave until she said good-bye to the band. So we had to go back and find them.

These guys are all in their 20's, wide-eyed and excited about the possibilities ahead of them. The lead singer wanted to show off his tour bus, which they'd just revamped from a mini bus. They'd painted it all silver and had done a lot of work inside with cabinetry and such. There were four bunks in the back. It really looked like a comfortable way to do some serious traveling.

I congratulated the lead singer on his handiwork. He'd done a lot of it himself and was really pleased with it. I handed him my Wild Violet card and told him to contact me some time and I'd do an interview.

After a little more hanging out, we made it over to the Manayunk Pub. We got a table right away with no problems. Our waitress was dressed as Jessica Rabbit, and The Music Critic was the first one to guess. The waitress was pleased that someone knew who she was, since she'd been hearing all kinds of wrong guesses all night.

I remembered that the meals were huge there, and I wouldn't be able to take anything with us, since it would just be sitting in the car for hours and hours. So I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich, let The Gryphon have some of my fries and left what I couldn't finish behind.

We all chatted about various things, catching up on old times and sharing old jokes, The Guitarist and me. I talked a lot to The Music Critic about different bands. Her friend was pretty quiet, and I thought maybe she didn't want to be there, but I found out later that The Music Critic is her best friend and she's not yet used to sharing her with The Guitarist.

We hung out until about 9:30, when our bill came, before we went our separate ways. The Guitarist gave me a big hug out on the sidewalk that knocked my hat off! We said our good-byes and promised not to let it be so long before we saw each other again. I promised to get them copies of the pictures I'd taken.

Then The Gryphon and I were off to the second leg of our night, the costume party.

More from Halloween eve:

November 2, 2004 - Party Phantoms

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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