Daily Update - Day 1
 

Thursday, June 28, 2001

It’s been a long year, hasn’t it. Well, maybe not! It seems to me that the final weeks went by very quickly. Maybe it’s because I’ve been so damn busy. OK, enough of all that BS, IT’S HERE. Finally it’s here, so let’s get going.

I took off early to get to the Fest before it got too crowded, more or less so I could park where I normally do. Had to stop for a battery for my camera, because I couldn’t remember the number of the battery the night before when I tried to get one. Well, I only use the thing once a year! Unfortunately, that wasn’t true this year! More about that later.

I got down there, found a spot in my beloved parking structure. Of course, in the most illuminated area and I had to change clothes right there. Well, I’m not shy, so who cares! As I was rubbing on sun screen I was wondering what spot I was gonna miss, but today it looks like I must have done a good job.

All right, off to the gate, in on a pin, take a leak, get a beer. Which one, you might ask? If you followed this, sad but true, ongoing saga of mine on the website last year, you would know the answer to that, a Point Amber.

The weather? I would say that you couldn’t ask for much more. Bright sunshine and a slightly cool breeze in the alleys. Just perfect…….It seemed like the beginning of a long, fine day.

So what was on my mind this fine day as I entered the grounds for a new 11 days of festing? Of course getting to the Harley stage and meet the gang and most of all, my favorite ladies! Also, I wanted to snoop around to look for any changes and someone mentioned that someone might buy me lunch!


Lucky for me, I could, sort of, check out the grounds while walking to the Harley stage. No major changes to spot and Sprecher don’t have Pub Brown Ale this year either, too bad. And they still serve bubbly. Yuck.   

Finally got to the Harley stage and found my favorite ladies, the lovely Miss Fitz and the lovely Miss Jenny. Yeah, and I got some nice hugs from both ladies. Wait a minute, you’re not gonna make a big deal out of getting your first hug from Miss Fitz, you might ask? Well, it is a big deal, but if you had bothered to show up for our “half way” Summerfest reunion in December, you would know that I got a big, warm, wonderful and loving hug from the lady on that occasion! And yes, it did make a lasting impression, as you may have noticed! Later, Miss Regina showed up and I got a pic of the three beauties together. Just wonderful.

After that, everything was down hill! Ah, maybe not! As usual time was spent table dancing, drinking MGD and listening to cheesy, but decent, cover bands. And from time to time moving from the Harley stage to the Miller stage and back. Oddly enough, no other stages were visited (by me) during the afternoon. And the beer was flowing, it was like everybody was buying beer for everybody! And of course there was the regular visits to the various food stands. And once in a while, I took a break from MGD and got a (Riverwest) Stein.

I forgot to mention lunch, I guess it was all the talk about my favorite ladies. But it’s probably good that I’m still more interested in girls than in lunch, huh! Never the less, my absolute first meal at this year’s Summerfest was Fish Fingers from Crawdaddy’s. That wasn’t much, but the beers kept rolling in, so additional culinary experiences got postponed.  Later in the afternoon, I did sneak over to Martino’s for a Chicago Style, couldn’t wait ‘till closing!

One thing that I was kind of sorry about was all the “no shows”, Opening Day regulars that didn’t show up. What were they up to? Working? Come on! It’s the ‘Fest, it’s Opening Day. You be there!


The Beach Boys were on at 8:30 at the Big Backyard. I didn’t really want to see them, but a group from the Harley stage crowd was going, so I went over there too. That was a pretty good show! With original BB Mike Love in the foreground, semi-original member Bruce Johnston on bass and a bunch of new guys, they kick ass!

First we stood back where benches start and I took a pic from there, but I wanted to get a close-up so I plowed through the masses to get closer to the stage. When I got to about 3rd row, I got the camera out, only to find out that the damn thing was full. I didn’t quite understand, because I only took a few pictures earlier. Shit, I must have forgot to erase whatever I had in there. And I did not risk erasing single pictures, because last year I screwed it up and erased ALL. So no more pics today!

I did not expect to last this long without rest, but it’s close to 11 pm and I am in good shape and on my way to see Cheap Trick at the Rock stage. It looks like I’d lost everybody else at this point, but that’s OK, it was late. On the way to the Rock stage I vaguely checked out the fireworks and got Fish and Chips from John Hawk’s.

As expected, the boys from Rockford rocked (no pun intended). They are always a sure thing, when you want to get rocked. Fine ending to a beautiful day! See you tomorrow!