A Funny Story

We have a thing in Milwaukee called Summerfest. Summerfest is the World's Largest Music Festival and is a little secret not too many people outside of music circles know about Milwaukee. It is truly one of the gems of Milwaukee and actually has been confirmed as the World's Largest Music Festival. There are 8 large stages of music across the grounds, a few smaller stages, and one 25,000+ seat amphitheater for the very large acts. This year that would include the likes of Toby Kieth, Kid Rock, Katy Perry, Britney Spears and Sugarland. The smaller stages still hold well over a few thousand a them and attract acts like Meat Loaf, REO Speedwagon, Jackyl, Third Eye Blind, Maroon 5, Peter Frampton, Goo Goo Dolls, and one of my favorite local bands, The BoDeans. Plus tons of other nationally known acts.

Typically a stage will have 5 acts on each day with some up and coming acts just hitting the national scene and some local bands as well. Every year I love to look at all the band names as some are really funny (The Bare Naked Ladies played on year before they were known, that caught my attention). Some great names from this year that I liked was:
Rabid Aardvarks
100 Monkeys
h2-oh
Screamin' Cucumbers
Me Talk Pretty

And many, many more great names!

Here is the funny story that happened last Friday evening right outside Summerfest. I was going for a small bike ride with the girls along the lake near the Summerfest Grounds. You can bike along the lake right between the festival grounds and Lake Michigan on a path and island. You can also bike behind the Marcus Amphitheater and behind the Classic Rock Stage. It was about 7:45PM when we went back there and there are not too many people except for a few road crews for some of the bands. On this particular night, Styx was the main act on the Classic Rock stage. Outside throwing a football around was Tommy Shaw of Styx. We ended up biking past him and stopping to talk for a bit. He was very gracious to talk to us for a few minutes. As we talked, my youngest daughter, Katelynn, asked him "Are you a ROCK star?" She said it in such a cute way. He replied with "Well, some might think so" (nice to hear a guy like him not taking himself too seriously). Katelynn the asked him if she sang any songs she knew (Katelynn is only 5 so she would exactly know Styx music). He the started singing a few lines from the song "Renegade" for her. She smiled and then suddenly lunged at him giving him a huge hug around his legs. She was surprised but didn't seem to mind. I had to almost pry her off him and she held on so long.

We wished him well in his show that night and finished our bike ride and was able to find the Styx CD in the van so I could play the songs for the girls.

If you are ever in Milwaukee during Summerfest (last week of June/first week of July), I suggest making a stop in. I will be there tomorrow with the girls for a few hours.

Keep on Running!!!