City Beat: It was a good week to vacation in town

I don't think I've ever been thankful for a hurricane, but I owe a nod to Dorian for helping to create one of the best vacations I've ever had.

Thanks to it, my wife and I canceled our trip to visit our daughter in St. Simons Island, and better still, it, or the mandatory evacuation that came with it, forced her and her husband to spend the week with us.

We did the staycation thing, and folks, we picked a good week. We cooked a few meals at home, ate at places they'd never been and pretty much did whatever we wanted.

We attended the Mitch Ryder concert on Friday night, then watched Brad Steiner interview Moon Taxi at Songbirds as part of Steiner's new series called "Input/Output: The Source of the Sound" on Saturday morning. Then I spent the rest of the weekend at the Moon River Music Festival.

I don't care who you are, that's a pretty good week. And, it reminds me of a couple of things I rediscover every so often about our city. We live in a pretty cool town, and even I fail sometimes to appreciate it, usually because I don't fully take advantage of what is offered.

Barry Courter

Which is point two. I miss a lot of cool stuff staying at home on the couch sometimes. I get that no one can go to every event and do everything, but every time I do take a chance, I'm usually rewarded with something great.

The Ryder show was a real treat, filled with funny stories and the chance to see and hear a legend reinterpret not only his big hits, but songs by people like Bob Dylan, Randy Newman and Robbie Robertson. His story about meeting Prince was classic, as was his cover of "Purple Rain."

Steiner, who co-hosts The What Podcast with me, thought the first guest on his new series might be just one band member doing most of the talking. Instead, he got the whole band, who did three songs and some talking. It was terrific. It will be posted at inputoutput.live in the coming days.

What can you say about Moon River? It was hot enough to boil a monkey's bum, as the Monty Python boys would say, the site is stunning, especially at night, the music was terrific and I look forward to next year already.

There were at least a dozen times during the weekend that I had to stop and just appreciate what was happening, or to take in the view. We still have a ways to go and much to fix, especially when it comes to diversity and inclusion, but the opportunities are there.

Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.