Another year, another Bag

Paper Bag, that is.  If you don't feel like following that link, or if you don't remember my post from past years, I figure I would give you a quick rundown.

The Paper Bag is an annual local music event.  A revolving 70+ person band filled with local musicians of the professional and amateur type.  A lot of them, so it happens, are also teachers.  So the concert is always set for the last day of school here in New York. A kind of "hello Summer, goodbye urchins" deal, if you catch my drift.

They run through a practice session the night before, and then they get together for a few hours before the gig starts.  But that's it.  Well, some of the sub-groups get together to practice here and there.  And some of them play in bands with each other all year long. But actually practicing the songs that happen in the show with all those performers?  Yeah...it happens pretty quick.

Gia is a part of a cheesy backup singer girl-group, fittingly called the Cheese Calzones.  For the past four years, she's also been getting her own solo with the rest of the Calzones backing her up.  So much fun.  This year, she did a version of Pink's "U + Ur Hand" which was awesome.  I'm not crazy about the song itself, neither is she.  But she doesn't have a ton of input in choosing the setlist, so she just goes with the flow.

This year the flow meant ripped jeans, funky jacket and these long dreadlock things that she wrapped into her hair.  She looked awesome.  I would post a pic or the video of her performance here, but she doesn't want me to.  But trust me, she looked and sounded awesome.  And the crowd loved her.  Always does.

The one thing that I would have preferred is if she went on a bit earlier in the night.  The show goes from 10PM to 4AM, and in years past she has usually performed in the first 2 hours.  Last night she went on around 2ish in the AM.  There were actually some songs on the setlist after she went on that I really wanted to stick around for, but we decided to get going around 2:45.  We didn't get home until after 3:30, and the sun was threatening to come up before we actually fell asleep.

So Wednesday was a sleepy day, but a good kind of a sleepy day.  Ready for the rest of the Summer.