The ATL

I went to Atlanta last week for the CORE Group Spring Meeting. I left early on Wednesday, had an excellent egg bacon sandwich thing at BWI, and took the awesomely convenient MARTA metro from the ATL airport into the city, and then walked four blocks to the hotel. This is the first time I've been able to travel with just my laptop bag and no checked luggage, and it rocked. I felt like I was cheating.

I went to a morning session but all the people I knew well were involved in running the show, so at lunch I skipped out and hit the Georgia Aquarium. It was fantastic! Cute otters, huge whale sharks, happy children and families, and some freaky jellyfish.

Walking back for a 4pm session I called my friend Adam Klein, a singer-songwriter friend from PC Mali. It had been a long time but that's no thing for Adam and me, and pretty soon we had plans to meet up at Eddie's Attic in Decatur for a show by a band I'd just recently discovered, Romantica from Minneapolis. Eddie's is a listening room and as Adam says, even if you don't know who's playing that night, you should go, because it'll be awesome.


Now, I didn't know where Decatur was but I was sure hoping it was easy to get to, and sho'nuff, the concierge at the hotel told me not only is Decatur on the MARTA line, the stop is one block from Eddie's! I gave thanks to the Atlanta city planners and silently cursed the architects of Baltimore's public transportation system, just for good measure. I mean, the MARTA links the airport, the Greyhound station, and the downtown area. Genius!

After the 4pm session I lit out for Decatur, bought some tickets, wandered around the expensive and adorable clothing and kitchen supply shops, and bought two bars of Vosges chocolate for 6.95 each. Adam arrived and we had a nice dinner of mix and match sliders (pulled pork, falafel, fried chicken!) and talked to the guy from the Bittersweets, who were opening. They just moved to Nashville from San Francisco and now they hang out with all their hero singer songwriters. Their set was great, real heartfelt duet stuff.

Then Romantica came on. Adam hadn't heard of them but I knew, if you put the stuff Adam likes in a box, and wrapped it up all nice and shook it around for a bit, when he opened it, it would be just what they were playing. Pedal steel, great lyrics, solid rhythm section, an Irish crooner. My favorite moment of the night was a rocking cover of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, of course made famous by the late Jeff Buckley. They pulled out all the stops and made it new again.

After the show people sort of trickled out, and when the guitarist came by I started talking to him about Minneapolis. Three hours and several few beers later it was 2am and we all had standing invites to crash at each other's houses next time anyone was in town, and I'd discovered the Bittersweets guy had gone to high school with a bunch of my Carleton friends from Amherst. A nicer group of dudes (and a lady) one could not hope to meet. Probably the highlight of the month.

Please listen to these guys and buy their music!