Royal Wood

Saturday night Matt and I went out on a date, like an actual one, with grown ups and no kids. It was dreamy. Well, actually it was weird but you take what you can get.

Royal Wood was playing at St. Matthew's Church downtown, it was such a cool venue. Church by day and host to any number of things at night. We went with Katie and Brennan and sat in the balcony. They have concerts there regularly because of the size and the amazing acoustics. It was the best show I've ever seen, not just because of Royal Wood and Peter Katz, but because it sound so dang good in there with those high ceilings.

But about the weirder parts of the night, we decided it would be easier (famous last words) to get the bus downtown from Katie's place instead of looking for parking on a Saturday night. The bus was twenty minutes late, and the driver could not deal with it. She was on the phone/radio the whole time trying to figure out what she should do to make up for lost time. She then chased down the bus on the same route that was on time, flagged him over and tried to pawn her passengers off on him. When he drove away she honked the horn wildly. She chased him down again and we transferred buses. That was all fine, we were a bit later than we had hoped, the plan was to eat first but our dinner window was dwindling.

We get to our stop in front of the church and next to where we had planned on eating. After a fairly uneventful second bus ride, we thought we were in the clear of strange happenings until the bus driver called after Katie. Apparently he had directed a play she and I were in, in high school and remembered her! So weird. That Katie sure is unforgettable, even the director-turned-bus driver can't forget her, ten years later.

The restaurant was crowded and a waitress directed us to stand in the middle of it and wait to be seated. No one came so we left. How embarrassing. With a lineup outside of the church and not a whole lot of time left, we skipped food and went to get a coffee to warm up and kill some time. We sat at the biggest, most awkward booth and Matt had a bad encounter with a filthy bathroom. Told you it was a weird night.

Then it was concert time, finally. It was beautiful and huge and kind of novel to be attending a show in a church. Peter Katz opened and while I'd never heard of him before, I'm a big fan now. He was charming and told sweet stories and played lovely acoustic music. Once Royal came out, I realized we had seen him outside earlier and then spent the rest of the evening lamenting the fact that we hadn't said hello/gotten a picture or something. Either way, he was fantastic and engaging and I can't wait to see him again.

Next time though, we are driving and eating beforehand. Walking aimlessly in the cold looking for food at 10 p.m. on a Saturday in downtown HRM is not something I ever want to experience again.