Hopscotch-ing

this weekend marks the first (hopefully annual) Hopscotch music festival. this badboy has been in the works for over a year. and i'm excited about all the great music that will fill the bars/streets/ears of downtown raleigh. to save a little cash, i signed up to volunteer for the festival -- one night of volunteering = free entry to the shows. it's turned out that i'm volunteering 2 nights: friday and saturday. fine by me. friday i think i'm going to be playing the role of line organizer/assistant bouncer at a yet-to-be-determined bar show. and saturday i get to hang out inside a yet-to-be-determined bar show, probably delivering water/pbr to bands. whatever i'm doin, it's sure to be a good time.

that leaves thursday for me to enjoy some tunes. i will likely be bouncing back and forth between the lincoln theatre (ponderosa, max indian, and american aquarium) and tir na nog (gray young, best coast, and collections of colonies of bees. also, my fave bar in raleigh) with maybe some stops at the pour house or kings.

on top of all the amazingness going on in the night-time, during the day there are free shows at a number of the bars. unfortunately, i have this thing called a "job" so i won't be able to make the day parties on thursday or friday. i do, however, plan to make the most of my saturday afternoon by stopping by tir na nog for the churchkeyIII party --that's alotta -ee sounds-- (free electric state, the dry heathens, hammer no more the fingers +some), raleigh times (the flute flies, the loners, red collar, the old ceremony +some), pour house for a show from trekky records (embarrassing fruits, sharon van etten, midtown dickens, and lost in the trees), and slim's for the drughorse collective where a new band, NUDEHUES, is debuting. there's even a "hangover" show on sunday with one of my local faves, brett harris, and what's promising to be a pretty great chill (and free!) performance of the NC Symphony at the new raleigh amphitheatre.

i'm temped to say that come sunday night, i'm going to be music-ed out. but we all know that's just not possible with me...