NOTE FROM DOM: I'm breaking this into six "chapters" so the screens won't scroll seemingly forever. Also, I'm gonna do this as a first-person account, almost as if I were keeping a journal (I wasn't), but hopefully more interesting to read than someone's diary.
Chapter 2: I'd live there
I arrived in Indianapolis via Greyhound bus on Thursday, Aug. 10, at about 3 p.m., a bit more than 17 hours after I had boarded my first bus in Mount Laurel, N.J. Within minutes of wandering through the Indianapolis bus depot, I met the blue-ribbon dumbest cab driver in the freakin' world.
Luckily, at the Best Western Castleton Inn – where me and said cab driver arrived a comical 40 minutes later – I met Thomas and Sara of the band Miller Howell in the lobby. They just so happened to be:
1. staying in the room across the hall from me; and
2. scheduled to perform on the same day and at the same venue as me; and
3. car travelers who offered me a ride to the 2006 Midwest Music Summit (MMS) Kick-off Party later that afternoon.
It would save me a cab ride, and I got to meet two very nice fellow musicians. Gleefully, I accepted.
The Thursday events at the MMS were my chance to meet the Broad Ripple Village section of Indianapolis, which is the northern part of the city and the home of most of the MMS venues. I was very impressed. You know the old saying, "It's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." Well, Broad Ripple Village is the kind of place that would be wonderful to call "home." It doesn't feel urban at all, yet everything is easily accessible by foot. Plenty of eateries, hang-outs and shops are not only in close proximity to one another with comparatively tame automobile traffic, but they're also accessible from residences.
The closest local comparison I can make is to the Manyunk section of Philadelphia, but even that's a stretch. Manyunk still feels urban, far too busy and has an interstate within eyesore and earshot. Broad Ripple Village seems closer to the downtown of a South Jersey borough, but multiplied over a larger geographical area. Hard to describe in words, but if you get a chance to land in Indianapolis someday, visit the northern section known as Broad Ripple Village.
Rapidly, I developed a good feeling about the festival, simply knowing the great atmosphere of the physical location.
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