Hum

The scene: Michele acquires some passes to Rockfest, a free all-day show down in Champaign culminating in a reunion set by local heros Hum.
M comes down from Green Bay and Saturday morning we hit the road for Chambana; I passed through town a few years ago but otherwise haven't really been back since leaving in 1996.
We make good time and decide to go get lunch. Off to the Courier in Urbana we go, the food there is okay but they make the best milkshake in town. I'm a sucker for good desserts. Eavesdrop on a conversation at the next table about the definition of dusk. Yeah, that's college; debating the meaningless with big words.
Drive through campus (Green street is worse, more commercially in-your face and devoid of character than the last time), and ditch the car near a park in the vicinity of "downtown", about two blocks from one of my old apartments. Take a stroll, no particular hurry; drop into Jane Addams used bookstore. I am relieved to see that it hasn't changed a bit; M keeps asking me about nostalgia and yes, I admit I am nostalgic for places like this. As we progress through downtown, I am surprised as much by what is gone as I am the places that have survived; restaurants and coffee shops that opened when I was in school are still here, but the bars have all pretty much moved or been re-christened.
We swing by the festival and see that there isn't much of a crowd yet, so continue walking around. Eventually end up at Cafe Kopi for coffee and kill an hour doing a crossword puzzle.
So, the opening bands: Missed The Boat Drunks; saw a little bit of Whiskey Daredevils (blah), Liquid Soul is a rock-funk outfit from Chicago, they were decent but had a less than ideal crowd for their participatory style; American Minor made an attempt to recreate the grunge protion of the Singles soundtrack and failed; and Shooter Jennings is a country group with no sense of irony that played too long and collectively needs to bathe.
But we came there for Hum, and they were worth the trip. It was a decent mix of material, a little heavy on the later stuff but they played it with vigour. There were a few people in the crowd that I would like to have decapitated, obnoxious drunks and a few too many who thought they were at a campfire sing-a-long.
Ran into John F at the end, rescued M from some guys hawking some nonsense, and hit the road.