What a great start to the weekend! IceQueen had the day off work today so we just kicked around the apartment until later in the day, then we headed to Prospect Park to see a couple of bands play at the soundshell (Prospect Park is only about 15 minutes away on the subway). 2003 is the 25th anniversary of 'Celebrate Brooklyn!', one of New York City's longest-running, free summer outdoor performing arts festivals (there's concerts and other things every weekend and week days for about 2 months straight! Check out the schedule). Although this concert was free, there was a $3 contribution request at the gates, which I think would be viewed as something like not tipping if you didn't make the contribution - it's not mandatory, but you'd be frowned upon as a major tightass if you didn't.

There were two bands playing which we checked out on the internet before we went. The first was Shannon McNally backed up by The Five Points Band. Wow what a voice she has, really really good - she has toured with the likes of Stevie Nicks and John Mellencamp to give you an idea of what level we're talking here. Some of her music is slightly 'countrified' (the songs we heard anyway), but not to the extent of being classed as stereotypical country music, not by a long shot (fortunately, heh). Capitol Records signed her in 1997 and wanted to turn her into the next Allanis Morissette, but she went with her own style and wouldn't sell out. Good to see.

You can check out her website at shannonmcnally.com, the site is in flash so takes a while to load if you're on dialup, but it has some of her music on it so you can get a taste of how she sounds.

The second band was Stephen Malkmus with The Jicks - a bit of a legend in the indie rock world. They were really good, and obviously pretty popular. Malkmus founded the band Pavement that were real big in the late 90's (in the underground indie scene anyway), which may ring a bell for some of you. Unfortunately it started to rain fairly heavily with thunder and lightning (although still humid as all fark - summer storm) so IceQueen and I decided to bail about halfway through their set. I'll add that the rain had little effect on most of the crowd though, a testament to how good the music was.

IceQueen found their website before we left the apartment and played one of their songs so we knew what we were in for; she immediately said to me, "Wow, this is definitely your kind of music!". I tell ya what, when they came on stage and started playing, it was just like being back in Dunedin at Otago University again (more than a decade ago) and hearing some of the better garage bands that have culminated into what is generally known in NZ as 'The Dunedin Sound'. They reminded me a lot of The Verlaines, one song in particular that sounded like one of Verlaines best songs (imho) called 'Death and the Maiden', complete with the tempo change in the middle with the keyboard music before reverting back to the original tempo of the song. Weather permitting, we're going back to Prospect Park tomorrow.