Live Music - part one

On Sunday night, Matt and I were lucky enough to get a babysitter for the kids and go to a concert in Waterloo.  When we moved here, we were very concerned that our chance to go to concerts was going to diminish since it would be 2 hour (+) drive to any venues band we want to see would play.  So...when it didn't work out for either my Dad or Matt's parents to watch this kids over the weekend to see Local H, Helmet, and Filter in Rochester we assumed that we would miss this concert opportunity.  Matt was particularly disappointed because Helmet is one of his all time faves and he really wanted to see them again.  It had been many years since he last saw them live.  We both really like Filter but we were able to see them last summer on the Summerland tour so that wasn't as disappointing.  When Matt saw that they were going to play a bar in Waterloo we knew we had to go!! 

The first obstacle was finding a babysitter.  I put an ad on the UNI job board and had a couple of promising responses right away.  We hired one gal for Sunday and the second for an upcoming date night in August.  Abbey texted me on Friday and asked if the kids had allergies because she was going to bring them cupcakes from Scratch Cupcakery here in Cedar Falls.  I think that we hit babysitter gold! 

The second obstacle was Maxwell's health.  Friday morning starting about 6AM he threw up and didn't stop until I took him to the ER on Saturday afternoon.  He was pretty dehydrated by that point and we were growing more and more concerned.  Especially when he started to vomit blood.  Thanks to zofran he was finally able to keep down liquids!  By Sunday morning he was eating small amounts of solid food again.  We asked him over and over if he was OK with us getting a sitter and he kept reassuring us he was.  Abbey came and we told her the story.  He was no longer sick but was really tired and weak.  She was OK with it and off we went to the concert.

We arrived at a little dive bar in Waterloo and immediately knew that it this was going to be an awesome venue.  It was tiny.  I am not exaggerating.  The stage was the smallest stage I've ever seen.  Before Local H, Helmet and Filter came on the "main" indoor stage, there were some local bands playing outside on the small side stage.  We sat outside and listened to some pretty good music.  We decided to head inside to grab a drink before Local H came on stage.

Local H