Chattanooga choo-choo TRAIN!!

June 6, 2009

After many years of eye-rolling and "uhh, no thanks" the somewhat lame Riverbend Festival, a downtown summer staple in Chattanooga finally brought in an act that we just couldn't turn down seeing. It was only one of our favorite bands of all time (we've seen them live seven times), the fabulous San Francisco-based quartet, Train.

Thanks to Ashlee's mom, Evelyn, for letting us borrow her Riverbend pins for entry into the festival for the night. Since these general admission pins get you access to the festival area, but still leave you a long distance from the stage and no guarantee of what type of loud, strange and/or drunk people you will be sitting next to you, we decided to upgrade to "star seating" for an extra $20 per person and it was worth every penny. The seats were directly in front of the giant stage erected atop a river barge designed specifically for the festival and floating on the Tennessee River in downtown Chattanooga. We had folding chairs with backs and plenty of leg room on a sloping set of steps for theatre-style seating with unobstructed views.

The band took the stage by storm and dazzled the crowd with searing lead vocals by the phenomonal Pat Monohan. They cranked all their favorite hits from the past plus three great new songs from their upcoming album coming out this fall called Save Me San Francisco. Pat also showed his dynamic range with amazing covers of Led Zepplin's Ramble On and Aerosmith's Dream On. The weather could not have been more perfect with mild temps and a beautiful new full moon hanging low in the sky near the Tennesee Aquarium's lighted roofline. A perfect night. A perfect band. A pefect....uhh... well, tomorrow night it's Three Dog Night headlining...so still not a perfect festival, but there's always hope.