DMB Summer Tour 13': Saratoga Springs

My traveling for the summer kicked off in Saratoga Springs, NY. On Friday May 24th my friend Kevin picked me up early in the morning and we were on the road. Four hours later we arrived at our campsite, Pop's Lake Campground. A few months prior to this, we arranged for multiple people from the DMB Family to all stay at this camp site. Unfortunately when we arrived, it was cold and raining. Every year prior to this, it was beautiful weather. We didn't let the weather bring us down though, we were there for DMB and that made us smile either way. After we set up shop at the campsite, we all headed to downtown Saratoga for dinner. This was one of the coolest experiences of the weekend. We had 25-35 members of the DMB family all in one spot. Getting everyone together and seeing some old friends was very cool. After dinner we stayed for awhile to catch the DMB cover band playing at the bar and then headed back to camp to rest up for the show the next day.

On Saturday I woke up to the smell of Bacon. My good friend William was cooking us a feast of maple bacon, Canadian bacon, and eggs! After breakfast we spent most of the day hanging out, listening to music and having a few drinks. Once again, the weather was cold and raining but we made the best of what's around. We headed to SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center) around 4 to meet up with other friends. For anyone that hasn't been to SPAC, it is a beautiful venue. Located in a state park, there area is just a great place to see a show. Once inside the venue we got together on the lawn to see friends and take pictures. Before we knew it, the house lights were off and the band was on stage. I ran up to the balcony with my friends Grace, Jacob and Ashlie to get to our seats. DMB went on to open with a twenty minute version of Seek Up. The biggest surprise of the night for me was when the band played Joy Ride. It is a song that isn't played often and I had never heard it before. Some of my other highlights of the show were So Right, Idea of You, Say Goodbye, What You Are and the Little Thing tease in the encore. After the show we attempted to go to Boyd Tinsley's gathering but the crowd was too large so we headed back to camp to call it a night.

On Sunday I once again woke up to the smell of bacon frying! I must say, William is one hell of a cook! On this day we had better weather and decided to head to the venue early to tailgate. We met up with a bunch of DMB family around noon and had a giant tailgate inside the park. I was able to meet some new friends as well as see a lot of old ones. The highlight of the tailgate was when my good friend Ian showed up wearing his Superman costume. After the tailgate we all headed inside the venue. A lot of us decided to just get lawn tickets, so we had one big lawn party! The band came on and blew us away with their first Tripping Billies opener since 2009. Then they continued to blow our minds with their first live performances of JTR, Recently and Water Into Wine since 2010. After Ants Marching, the last encore song, we started to head up the hill to leave. We then turned around and heard the crowd screaming and the house lights still weren't on. We ran back down the hill, passed the security that wasn't paying attention, and into a row of seats that were close to the stage. All of a sudden the band came back on stage and busted out Halloween...DOUBLE ENCORE. The band has only done a double encore a few times in their 20+ year history. It was epic to say the least.

Although the weather wasn't great, Saratoga was an awesome time. There was a lot of memories made with some great friends and music. The next day we packed up and I started my journey for Toronto, which will be my next blog post!