Best Birthday Ever

So my birthday honestly got off to not the best of starts.  I went out to eat with my friends at one of my favorite bars and it was horrible. I really expect so much more from Tap House Grill.  I really have never been disappointed by them up until that point.  Everything I’ve had there thus far has ranged from really good to just okay.  This time they were out of most of the beers that I wanted to try.  Additionally, I think they served us the most horrible wings on the face of the planet.  I mean honestly for that I would have come out better going to a TGI Fridays.

Super Awesome Birthday Cake

That little blip aside I did have a totally awesome birthday cake, so I can’t really complain about things too much.  It was a San Francisco 49ers cake.  I loved it.  It had the logo on top and the names of players along the side.  I started to drive to Detroit, and along the way a small rock hit the windshield of my car giving me a little crack.  I’m all but ignoring said cracks, and eventually I will have to get the entire windshield replaced, but I just let my insurance cover the glass repair people filling in the cracks to prevent them from spreading.

Sicilian Pizza at Buddy's

When I got to Detroit we stopped for Pizza at Buddy’s.  I saw it as being listed as one of the thirty best slices of pizza in the nation so I had to give it a shot.  I was getting a little nervous about the choice as I got close to the place in what didn’t exactly seem like the best of neighborhoods.  Still the big signs that were advertising the various awards the place has gotten drew me in.

There were a few things that surprised me about the place.   One was that they had pretty good quality local craft beers on sale for only $4.50 each.  The place was very straightforward well priced and not too fancy.  Another surprise is that Buddy’s decided that Vegan people shouldn’t be allowed to starve and they offered a vegan pizza.  I decided to go for the New Yorker.  It seemed simple enough and you have to be able to nail the basics.  Though my favorite pizza topping hands down is mushrooms, I don’t really get mushrooms on pizzas from every pizzeria because it usually ends up in a bit of disappointment.

This pizza was pure bliss.  The crust was nice and crisp.  The sauce had a nice kick to it without being too herbaceous or spicy.  I was instantly a fan.  Detroit style square pizza deserves it’s own notoriety alongside the ranks of Chicago and New York style.  The great thing about the pizza was that it was that the cheese goes all the way to the edge and gets a little crispy at the edges.

The New Yorker at Buddy's Pizza

From there we went to the concert.  We probably should have stopped at the hotel first to check in but It was kind of close to 8 and the show started at 7 and I didn’t want to chance missing any of Robert’s set.  The shelter, where it was held was a small venue.  It had a decent bar.  The prices at the bar weren’t exactly as cheap as I expected them to be either.  Long Islands for $7 is nearing Chicago prices.

We got there well in time to see both opening acts.  The first one had a pretty decent sound but the most memorable thing about the band was the extremely long dreds on the lead singer.  Still they sounded alright.  The next group up was Ghost Beach.  They somehow make things work without having a bass player at all in their band.  I think it is more or less because of the strength of their synth.   The one thing about that particular performance was that the music was so loud that you couldn’t really make out the vocals that well.  That aside they did a pretty good performance.

This was my third time seeing Robert Delong.  It has been one of my weird obsessions musically.  I remembered I first heard the song Global Concepts on the radio when I was driving from Atlanta to Miami after the NFC Championship game(The one that my niners ended up winning in order to unfortunately loose in the Super Bowl on some BS calls against Baltimore but I digress).  Once I heard that song I wanted to hear more.  The track was for free on Amazon MP3, but I decided to go for the whole album with all the remixes.  I must have played that song like 30 times on the drive home.

In between sets, I went to get my face painted.  I don’t think I ever got my face painted as a kid and as soon as she started I was like man this feels weird.  I had the impulse to like scratch my face a bunch of times, but I totally didn’t want to mess up what she was doing.  Later on she said that it was one of the best she’s ever done, It was pretty cool and she was probably right.  Oh, to fill in some necessary information, Robert’s girlfriend does the face paint at the shows.  She is super creative and came up with the iconic X logo.

Later on when I finally decided to look up this character on YouTube, after a bit of random boredom, I was completely blown away.  It was one thing for me to hear this song and think it was pretty amazing.  It was another to watch him create the entire song on his own.  He is quite literally a one man band.  Since seeing that video, I’ve done everything to spread the good news about Robert Delong short of going door to door like a Jehovah’s Witness.

There was something about this performance, that was just amazing to me.  Maybe it was because it was my birthday.  Maybe because I was just a few feet away from the stage from where he was preforming, but it just turned out to be my favorite of his performances, and one of my favorite all time live performances.  It’s crazy to even watch because when you play as many instruments as he does in a show, there’s got to be a lot going through his head. 

In his set, you see him go from Keyboards, to a mic to drum pads, Wii Motes, Xbox Controllers, Joysticks, Drums and more.  What really caught me off guard was when he went to the Acoustic guitar on “A Few Years”.  It is one of his deepest tracks on the album and that addition kind of gave me chills.  It’s incredible to watch him make music the way he does.  I wanted to pee pretty bad during the performance but I toughed it out.  I couldn’t miss even a moment.

Robert Delong is amazing.

After the show I went to track down my friend who had my CD in his pocket that I wanted to get signed.  He went outside to smoke and they wouldn’t let us back in, because you can’t go back inside after the show is over.  I was that version of mad where I was too overcome to be able to say anything at all.  The only thing I could manage to say to this bouncer with a handlebar mustache was “But dude it’s my birthday.”  Probably honestly sounded like a bunch of bullshit at the time, but I just wanted to get my CD signed.

Drama ensued when he walked away from the door to make it look as if he was leaving from the night and he flipped his shit when we tried to go back in.  It wasn’t as if he was standing like two feet away from us when he walked away from the door he could have easily said “I’m going to get something out of my car, don’t try to sneak in I will maybe see if I can let you in to get your CD signed after the crowd thinned out.”  After some shouting back and forth there was some rational talking and he let me in to get the CD signed.

I was so excited that I completely jumped a line of people.   In that moment I wasn’t really thinking about what all of those other people were doing there.  In that moment my excitement matched my rudeness.  I was so happy that I had the chance to get my CD signed (which has amazing artwork btdubs).

Later, we were all still standing outside all stalkerish because my friends wanted the chance to say what’s up to Robert.  Then we all just kicked it and had a drink with him.  It’s kind of cool to see that he was so down to earth.  It is crazy how humble and down to earth he is, that in a couple of hours I went from completely star struck to being like oh that’s just Robbie.  Dude was so cool he even bought us shots.

After a few hours of drinking we went climbing around through a random abandoned building what looked like it was some old theater.  Took some pretty cool pictures but It is kind of a shame that such a place is about to be demolished.  I could see how it could be pretty nice if it was remodeled.
Anyhow Here's a ton of pictures from that escapade:

We finally got to the hotel at about 3am.  They had already marked me down as a no show and were doing the nightly report, so we had about a half hour wait in order to be able to check in.  This was my second stay at the Doubletree Downtown Detroit, so I knew what to expect.  The rooms are huge and value wise, it is one of the  best deals you’d be able to score on a Doubletree.

Vineyard at Cherry Creek Winery

On the way home, I was tried of driving and we made a little stop at a little winery, simply because I got a little tired of driving.  We stopped at the Cherry Creek Winery, and tasted quite a few wines and walked around the vineyard for a  little bit.  Their wines were pretty good but the one that I found the most intersting was the Maria Sangria that had a little bit of chipotle pepper.

Anyway as a bonus I’ve decided to do a little recipe writing in here.