Here’s something I’ve been wanting to post for forever but never did. Every year around the end of August, I get a notification on my phone reminding me of a memory. You know those memories that come up on whatever app and remind you, “hey, old person. Here’s a reminder that your life is a blink in time, sit back and try not to cry.” And whenever they pop up I get happy, but like most memories, the sadness hits the same.
The pandemic, the quarantine, basically all of the past two years or so has been such a trial for so many people. I could go on and on about so much of that but please do not get me started. So much has changed and so much will forever be changed. But we’ll always have our memories. Memories of normal, better days, with no worrying and stressing. But that’s not to say things won’t be normal again. Hopefully sooner rather than later, it will be.
The photo memory that popped up was from the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival. For about 3 years straight we watched Blue October perform at Eat to the Beat. “Quick rundown”: Disney’s Epcot hosts an International Food and Wine Festival every year where you get to sample food from other countries. That in itself is worthy of its own post, but they used to have a concert series where every week, different bands and artists come and perform mini concerts of 5 or 6 songs for attending guests. You were able to make the line to get into the venue where there are seats, or just watch from outside the venue as it’s an amphitheater open to everyone.
Notice the past tense. This year, I think, is the first year they stopped the Eat to the Beat concert series. They used to have bands like Everclear, Smash Mouth, Boyz II Men, 98 Degrees (don’t judge me and my boy band days), and of course, Blue October, among many other big names old and new in the music scene.
But in Disney’s apparent attempts on cutting costs and lowering the quality of the guest experience while at the same time raising the prices (oh, I’ll get more into that another time), they cut out the popular Eat to the Beat and replaced it. Now, guests can enjoy the America Gardens Bandstand concert series, which features local bands from across central Florida performing songs of yesterday and today. Hey, that’s awesome for those bands!
A big break, I’m sure. But… Well, you’ll see why I’m sour about this.
Man, I just can’t give quick run downs, huh? So anyway, The first time we went to see Blue October was about 3 years ago. We decided to make it a date night and left the kids with grandparents. That’s so weird saying that. To think, we used to have date nights.
While enjoying the show, we felt bad because it was something we thought the kids would’ve liked. It was the band’s first time playing there at the Festival, and they said they can’t wait to come back. Here’s an awesome vid from that performance where the super awesome Ryan Delahoussaye, the violinist of the group, gave a little Disney twist to his solo on Italian Radio. It was so epic and it seemed like a surprise to the rest of the band as well.
So we felt horrible that we experienced it by ourselves. I know, totally negating the whole date night thing. You know that’s how it rolls. “FINALLY! A night without the kids!” Then you spend the entire night talking about the kids. Anyway, the next year we brought the buggers and it was blast for them. I’ve mentioned before how Blue October’s song “Home” was our anthem. It’s one of those songs that resonates so much with life for us.
The kids love listening to it and for a few milestones in our lives (picking up and moving back to Florida, and more recently my cancer diagnosis/cure last year), it was really a hard hitting song from an emotional standpoint for us. So when they started playing it, it was great to see the kids react and sing along and get all into it. I wish I was able to capture that, but it was dark. I managed to get the back of their heads a bit though. Check out the vid!
We’ve been to see them a total of 3 times. For 3 straight years we made it a point to go check out Blue October and for 3 straight years it was a blast.
We were happy to have that tradition going and the last time we went we hung around after the show and managed to get Justin’s autograph! We got a selfie too with him but it’s such bad quality from it being dark and such, it’s not worth sharing. But it happened! And it’s a memory we’ll all share happily. After the show, the kids were kids and made their way to the stage despite us telling them no. The stage crew was wrapping up and I don’t know if they pestered them for anything or if it was out of the goodness of his heart, but who looked like the main stage hand gave the kids a copy of the set list for the show!! You’d think we would’ve had Justin autograph that but we asked him to sign the program for the Food and Wine Festival instead. It’s upside down because by that time it was dark but whatever, here it is!
I get to thinking about it and how it was so perfect for the kids to go and enjoy a live show and then just go on exploring Disney. It’s such a bummer Disney cut out Eat to the Beat. I really hope they’ll bring it back one day, maybe after everything with covid goes away.
The band always seemed to be so happy and fortunate to be there. They always had their families hanging out right next to the stage so you know after the show they all went around and had a blast enjoying the parks. You can see in the video above of the “Home” performance, the interactions between Justin and his kids during the end of the song. I managed to find a few other videos in the cloud from us checking them out. The one thing that always stood out and made it all feel even more special to me, was Justin’s talking to the crowd between songs. He always made things feel more personal, blurring the lines between us in the crowd, and them on the stage. Bringing up things about their Disney experiences and how happy his kids were to be there. It was always a pleasure listening to those little bits of their enjoyment between the songs. Here’s a few of the videos, I put them on Instagram just now.
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Well thanks to whatever app that was for constantly reminding me of all of this. The wife and I used to love going to concerts. We were never the type to be jamming and going crazy with all the songs (I’m still really sorry if I offended you, David Draiman from Disturbed. I didn’t think you’d really stop the entire show because I was sitting down during Down with the Sickness. We bought V.I.P. tickets, we had an option to sit! Thanks for the autograph, though!). We just liked going to enjoy the live music. And Blue October is absolutely perfect for that. Yeah, they have some songs that aren’t exactly kid friendly, but at Disney you know that’s what they’re sticking to. And it was always great performances with awesome energy. Hopefully one day we’ll all get to rock out with the mouse again.
