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Published: February 5th 2012
Louisville Drum Line drum circle
The final drum circle at the Louisville marching band competitionLouisville Marching Band Competition
Today’s first event is a slice of Southern culture that I have never seen in person.
Southerners, especially African Americans, take
marching bands very seriously.
They have competitions to show off their skills.
Today was the
one for the Derby Festival.
It began with a traditional African drumming group, followed by the eight competition teams.
They ranged from community groups to universities.
It became one long afternoon of beats.
Teams were judged on rhythm, precision, difficulty, and choreography.
Marching in formations was just the start of it.
People drummed while lying on their backs.
People flipped sticks into the air, in unison, while playing.
Cymbalists spun and danced while they played.
The beats were precisely aligned, of course; to the point some rap groups are probably jealous.
The final event was a drumming circle.
The eight groups formed a circle in the center of the floor and played one group after the other.
The energy of this event was infectious.
During intermissions, a local radio DJ played music.
People spontaneously ran onto the floor
and danced.
Most groups played while walking onto the floor, and continued playing long after they left it.
Participants’ enthusiasm really showed at the end.
They started playing after the winners were announced and the event was over!
It reached the point that the organizers had to tell people to stop drumming and go home!
I spent some time after the event wandering around downtown Louisville.
The area, for the most part, has what one would expect in any regional business center.
The unexpected surprise was the public art.
Louisville has commissioned local artists to design
bike racks.
They range from one consisting of metal bike frames welded together, to a steel butterfly, to a dragon, to stone heads with iron loops on the back, and much else.
Sweet idea.
Derby Concert
The other major event tonight was the concert.
The festival puts on a series of
free concerts every night.
The
big names occur on the weekend.
Note that “big” in this case is relative, since they are playing a festival for either free or dirt cheap.
The concert had two separate
Louisville bike rack
One of 34 bike racks in downtown Louisville that double as public sculpture. stages, one for local acts and one for national ones.
The local acts stage goes all day long, while the national act starts at night.
The national band tonight was
Soul Asylum.
They are one of the many guitar driven bands that became popular in the early 1990s in the wake of Nirvana.
Since the grunge rock phenomenon petered out, they basically fell off the map.
I wasn’t really a fan back then, and I’m not really one now either, so salt accordingly.
The show overall felt like a bad time warp.
They started late, as rockers are wont to do.
The band looked like grungy hipsters, all long hair and self-consciously dirty clothes.
The music was the rhythmic guitar squall that anyone who remembers the era knows well.
At one point, the lead singer actually warned the crowd about the “epic guitar solo” he was about to unleash on them.
At least the band knew their audience, and played their hits early on.
It was as though the last fifteen years never happened!
I wore out on them
Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum, before the lead guitarist unleashed his "epic guitar solo" on us! after about an hour, and went to see the local stage.
A classic rock cover band was playing.
I actually liked them more than Soul Asylum.
Not only were the songs better, they played them with clear energy.
People danced to this band, unlike the previous one.
Perhaps the best moment is when the lead singer mentioned the song that Soul Asylum had just finished, and played his own version! It was better 😊
This time, I spent my time in Louisville at an inn called
Austin's Inn Place.
I thought about going back to Gallery House, but decided the airplane noise and small room would be too uncomfortable.
Austin Inn Place on the map had a nice location thee blocks from the historic district and about a mile from the riverfront.
They also have low rates by historic district standards.
The rooms themselves are nicely done and descent sized, and the free food is quite good.
The inn provides both breakfast and evening snacks.
These plusses need to be balanced against one serious negative, which I did not realize until I arrived.
The local stage
People (in the foreground) dance to the band on the local stage in Louisville The inn sits in an area located between the historic district and a rather bad neighborhood.
It is located within two blocks of two separate public housing projects, and four blocks from the city’s largest homeless shelter.
The owners assured me that the area was safe enough as long as I either drove or stuck to certain streets.
I haven’t had any problems, but it certainly feels risky, a feeling amplified by the five year old memorial to a drive by shooting victim I have had to pass heading downtown.
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