Day 30: Milwaukee, WI
Nau mai
Yesterday we finished our tour in Milkwaukee, Wisconsin.
Bus driver John pulled us into the Henry Maier Festival Park just before 10am. We only had the stage until 11am to complete load in and soundcheck. The division of labour was automatic at this stage with most of the tour party rushing through the setup while a couple of us cleared out the bus, double checking every bunk, cupboard, and drawer.
We said a brief goodbye to John and he climbed aboard Moonshine to begin the long solitary journey back to Atlanta.
Everyone in the vicinity stops to pay their respects as John’s glorious white coach leaves the festival grounds.
Setting up on the Briggs & Stratton Stage
With some quick work from our tech team we were up and running by 10:55am and were able to run through a couple of songs, more than we get to do at most festivals.
We now had eleven hours to pass until our set time, and a brand new city to explore. I began my journey with a breakfast at a spot called Cafe Benelux, sitting outside in some fierce humidity and enjoying their Jerk Shrimp Pasta, with tomatoes, spinach, yellow peppers, fettuccine, and creamy jerk sauce.
I took myself on an architectural tour of Milwaukee’s downtown, beginning in the Historic Third Ward, a restored warehouse district that is now populated with high end retail and dining.
One of the many handsome brick warehouses that Jon would like to buy and turn into a recording studio.
Other buildings of different colours and heights.
A public flowerbed keeps things cheerful in the theatre district.
This big brave blue building. Empathetic in its commitment to display other surrounding buildings with its mirrored windows.
In the evening we caught a shuttle to the festival. As the sun began to set the wind had picked up and was throwing leaves and trash up into the sky. The sky itself held a menacing mix of threatening colours and it looked like it could break into a full blown thunderstorm at any moment.
The entrance to Summerfest. Milwaukee is extremely committed to the festival lifestyle. Summerfest runs for three weekends every year and this permanent festival ground is in use by various events almost every week that it isn’t snowing.
A reasonably successful tossie - great angle but poor lighting.
Hyped up and ready to go on stage for our final set of the tour.
We had a truly excellent Summerfest. The crowd were warm and hugely energetic. As we played we could see in the distance the excellent piece of Milwaukee public transport infrastructure the SkyGlider chairlift with its colourful cars, carrying passengers up and down the festival grounds. The crowd loved the SkyGlider and we loved it too. For a while it looked like our set might be hit by a thunderstorm but luckily it passed us by. We could see lightning striking in the distance as we headed back to the hotel later on.
We had to take half the seats out of this van but we managed to fit all our gear and passengers in for the trip to the hotel.