Did you know there’s a place named Jim Thorpe? I didn’t. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Is that Mauch Chunk?” And if you’re thinking that, you are correct, and you also have Wikipedia opened in another tab. If you don’t: Mauch Chunk was a coal mining town, a company town. Jim Thorpe is buried there. He has no other affiliation with the thing. He was put in the ground there for money. His wife needed the cash, wanted to avoid the potter’s field and the town wanted a boon. And that was 1954. His grave sits on soil taken from Oklahoma, Thorpe’s home, and from the Stockholm Olympic Stadium, the site of Thorpe’s Olympic glory. From 2010 through 2015 the fate of his remains worked their way through the legal system. Family wanted him moved home, but he’s staying right there. And that’s what I learned from Wikipedia.
We were there for a show. There’s a venue in the middle of the woods on the top of a hill and it’s removed enough from everything else that the developers put a little restaurant on the side of the joint. It does a brisk business of perfectly forgettable food. You’re there for the show, anyway. And that was our purpose.
We saw Guster this evening. First time this year. The guy that sat next to me at the show was an old man. He said he has been listening to them since he was in college. So have I. But there’s no way I’m as old as that guy. He’d never seen the band before, though, he knew the first half of their catalog cold. I told him he was in for a great show. This was the seventh time in the last three years, I think. They never disappoint. He seemed to have a great time in his old man way.
Seriously, I am not as old as that man.
Concert photography is challenging. I am not a concert photographer; I’m also not a photographer, but I like these, each is pleasing for their own reasons. I like the rainbow light treatments, and how they silhouette Adam Gardner and Luke Reynolds.
Ryan is cropped off center, which is funny in a bunch of different ways, but in the full light as he stands over his keyboard.
And here’s the Thunder God himself, Brian Rosenworcel, warbling his way through the song of the summer.
(It was “Soak Up The Sun.” I thought maybe he’d reprise his Bonnie Tyler cover.)
From Easy Wonderful:
I’ve got a couple of others. I’ll share a few short clips next week.
Wikipedia also tells me Mauch Chunk is derived from the term Mawsch Unk, meaning Bear Place in Unami, the language of the native Lenape, possibly a reference to Bear Mountain, an extension of Mauch Chunk Ridge that resembled a sleeping bear.
