Kicking it old skool

Last night was a trip down memory lane, and it was excellent, but I woke up this morning feeling rather nostalgic and heavy of heart. It started with dinner with two of my friends from my first job in Boston at Gargoyles on the Square in Davis Square in Somerville. The ambience of this restaurant is really interesting. The bar area was packed, but the restaurant only had a third of the tables filled. And the decor and lighting almost makes you think that the dining experience is going to be rather snooty, but they were playing 1970s disco and Barry White over the sound system!

Once we got over the fact that the menu was a bit intimidating (sometimes less is more in terms of the description of meals, I have learned,) we had a delicious meal, full of flavors. I had the hoisin & honey glazed duck confit with sweet stickly rice, mango,cashews, young coconut milk. I can highly recommend that; I cleaned my plate. I kind of felt a little bit like a pig, actually, but I didn't have an appetizer, and I was on my second glass of prosecco by the time the food was served. So it was probably better that I cleaned my plate. I had really fallen out of touch with these friends, and it was only at the beginning of this year that we started hanging out again, so it was nice that we ended the year together as well.

After that, I headed over to the Kirkland Cafe. That was after calling PunkRockMom to say "I am lost in Somerville after dark again. Get me out of here!!" It turned out that I was lost in the exact same area that I was lost the LAST time I called PRM when I was lost in Somerville. I think that I am actually finally getting the lay of the land now because I realized that I was lost in the same place; it only took ten years.

ANYHOW, the point of going to the Kirkland was to see the reunited Allstonians play their first gig in ages. Back in the heyday of ska, when bands like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Big D and the Kids Table and Skavoovie and the Epitones were bringing the dancehall beat around the country, before bands like Reel Big Fish, No Doubt and Save Ferris began the trend of watering down the sound, these guys from Allston really did Boston proud. Last night, their set was fantastic, and it was cool to see some of the old school supporters there, many of whom I haven't seen in four or five years. When the Allstonians first started playing , there were only a couple of us on the dance floor. (JR and I were actually dancing in the bar area, which was verboten by the regulars at the Common Ground, back in the day.) But by the third song, there were people full out skanking on the floor in between the tables. It was old school, and it was fun. JR's boyfriend got called up to help D-Train sing "Allston Beat," and the encore was "Allston, Mass," an anthem for not only the neighborhood, but an anthem for our youth.

As it was getting pretty late and I had to work today, I headed out right after the encore, but not before remarking to keyboardist Nigel Knucklehead that I felt ten years younger. The music is so intimately connected to a particular period of my life, and it brought a whole slew of feelings of youth and hope and promise to the surface that I haven't felt in ages. I could have stayed up all night riding that high.