9/1 - Great Lakes Brewing Co.

When we sang "takin' it to the streets" we meant it. We were playing in the street, but they had the street blocked off so it wasn't like we were dodging traffic while we were singing, although that would make for a very interesting gig.

It was a great gig. Lots and lots of people. The Brewery was having their October Fest (I know, it's not October), the air show and the taste of Cleveland were all going on at the same time.

Mud used his handy-dandy, laminated, wallet sized poetic license to change all the train lyrics to airplane lyrics to better suit the mood of the day.

The gig started at noon o'clock with the sun at it's blaziest and silly me wore a black t-shirt. Not one of the smartest things I've ever done, but certainly not one of the dumbest either. And as entertaining as those dumb things are, we don't have that kind of space on this blog. I was smart enough to bring the sun screen.

There was a band playing in the courtyard about a hop, skip, and a spit from us and when we started playing it truly became a battle of the bands. It wasn't pretty at all. C-Man talked them into sharing the gig time with us, so it ended up working out okay.

We had our resident cutie. She was just a wee little thing and oh so too very adorable.

We also had visitors from Slovenia. Their fashion police must be on strike, because one of the guys was wearing an orange flowered terry cloth shirt, short shorts and cowboy boots covered in real cow (or some sort of animal hair that looked rather cow-like). His friends decided to do a citizens arrest and took his boots from him, which would have been fine, but they also felt the need to hurl them toward us. A lot less messy than the tomatoes, but a bit more painful.

C-Man ordered food for us about 1/2 way through and they gave him this number on a little stand like you'd see at a banquet table. Our number was 50. We never got our food. It got to be a joke with some of the people there who started teasing us about it and asking if they should go check on the food for us. When the gig was all over, I became the designated food orderer and when I asked about our previous order the bartender exclaimed, "oh you're the ones with the mystery order!" At least she didn't say mystery odor.

While we were eating I noticed this framed section of the wall that appeared to be straw. I took a picture of it, which I'm sure will eventually make it's way to the website, but getting the film developed first will be the key. Anyway, I asked the waitress chick (Ashley) about it and yes, yes it is straw. That's what was used as insulation for the walls . Apparently they've never heard of the big bad wolf. All it takes is a huff and a puff and that wall is history. Oddly enough, there was a working fire place (not working at the time) on that very same wall. Talk about fuel for your fire.

We sampled a couple of their beers, because we're pretty sure that's the law at a brewery.
Oh yeah speaking of the law, the story goes that the bullet hole in the wall behind the bar was made from the bullet that was intended for Elliot Ness. Fact or fiction - you make the call.