More Of This

Ahhh... what a weekend, Solid Sound 2019 is done. We were up early early today for a guided tour by MASS MoCA's Director, Joe Thompson which included some history of the site followed by the visual arts displayed which was really fascinating. Based in North Adams, Massachusetts, the town was a hub for manufacturing and trading but in the 1980s it went downhill for numerous reasons. 

After 12 years getting finance in place to buy a series of industrial buildings, the museum opened in 1999 and has been expanding through the site... there are 2 more buildings to convert. Contemporary art exhibitions are hosted in all sorts of settings... in blip extras 1 and 2. There were some fantastic collections, including one where 2 people (it was Ms H and myself) follow a handrail into a pitch black room and sit on a seat for 15 minutes. As your eyes get used to darkness, you can eventually see shapes in the dark, quite amazing.

The weather forecast for the weekend had always threatened thunder and lightening, but it skipped Saturday but creeped up today. All music performances planned for outside stages were moved into the museums wealth of indoor venues amongst the art. There were some torrential downpours and storms but they cleared up mid afternoon ahead of Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco) and friends, the final show of the festival and fabulous so it was.

As we were leaving the festival venue, Pat Sansone, one of Wilco's guitarists, was walking alongside us on his way to freshen up for the aftershow party, and we mentioned we were looking forward to going to see them in September in Glasgow. He noted it was 8 years since they had been there (and hence our efforts to fly over to see them now), but they also had a day off in Glasgow and he was looking to go to a Linda McCartney photo exhibition in the city while he is there, something only just announced and we didn't even know about it yet! Jeez...

So we all really enjoyed SS2019, something we might want to do again one day. We've got 3 more days winding our ways through Vermont and New Hampshire before heading home from Boston. Weather's looking good!