Yes, it is true. In another life I have been a rock musician. Less so now that I am also a full time graduate student. But nonetheless, these worlds still seem to intersect in weird, but satisfying, ways.
This past Tuesday, a good friend of mine was in Charlotte playing Van’s Warped Tour this year. I had made plans to catch up with him and brought along a few of my new MBA program friends, grabbing Alex after class, literally about 15 minutes before we left.
We arrived at about 3:30pm to a sea of black t-shirts, jeans, and emo-boy tattoos. Though we missed Helmet’s set (photos from Germany above), we managed to catch up with Page and take him away from the prepubescent circus that was brewing on the tarmac of the Verizon Amphitheatre.
As we headed downtown to find a brewery, I was completely blown away with the dynamic of the group we had. There were conversations occuring in German, coverage of avant-guarde jazz musicians, and plenty of mentioning of David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff himself.
The next 3 hours seemed to simultaneously watch the Yankees / White Sox game, cover the history of Germany’s contribution to pop music, discuss politics and business, sample four different beers, share music stories, and just be human. I cannot recall such a diverse mix of people, ideas, and overall friendliness.
For me, it was as if someone mixed up all the aspects of my life over the past six years and threw them in a bar in little old downtown Charlotte. I met Page in LA, worked with him on the east coast, met my MBA friends here in Columbia, and now there I was with all of these aspects interacting with each other in such complimentary ways, together in Charlotte, NC.
(l-r: Jamie, Diana, and Alex)
I realized that night that life is full of these types of connections and you never know when they will come together in weird strange ways. A good night was had by all and another memory gets stored in that grey matter of mine.