A couple Sundays ago Dallas and I headed up to Highland Park to see Hall and Oates at Ravinia, the oldest outdoor music festival in the United States. Hall & Oates is one of Dallas’s favorite bands OF ALL TIME and we have listened to them together for as long as we’ve known each other. We even had one of their songs at our wedding reception. You Make My Dreams was the last song played that night.

Originally we’d planned to go with a whole big group of friends and sit out on the lawn at Ravinia. Lawn seats are seats where you can’t see the band, but you just sit around and relax and pack a picnic and drinks and listen to the music. Ravinia is one of the very few concert venues in the country to allow people to bring full meals and alcoholic beverages to shows. Reserved seats (in the pavilion) were something like $80, but lawn seats were only $26. Well, none of our friends followed up when we emailled them and all tickets sold out, reserved and lawn! So, it ended up being a date night for us, which was fine too.

We arrived a little later than we expected and ended up having to park in overflow parking. Then we had to carry all of our things over to the Highland Park Metra stop and take a bus to the Ravinia grounds. Once there, the whole lawn was already so packed! We ended up walking around with all of our stuff (chair, sheet, picnic, drinks) trying to find a spot to sit. By this time Dallas was freaking out. He’d never been to Ravinia before, he didn’t know what to expect. And if there are three things he can’t stand they’re 1) traffic, 2) waiting in lines, and 3) crowds of people. We were dealing with all of that! As a side note, I”ve been to Ravinia before, but it was years ago. I went once in 2004 for Ben Fold and Rufus Wainwright. And I went once in 2006 for a FeedBurner outing. Buddy Guy was playing that night.

Once we found a place to sit and settled in, we were all good. No one was going to be leaving for hours. We didn’t need to worry about people and getting back to the car or driving for a while. We busted out our food and drinks. Dallas had beer, I had wine. I brought cheese and crackers from Provenance, a small Logan Square wine and specialty food store. We had the best caramelized onion Potter’s Crackers and paired them with some with both a blue cheese and Otter Creek pesto cheddar. Originally, I’d planned to get sandwiches from Cooking Fools, but when I stopped in, their selection of cold sandwiches was severely limited, so I just picked up some penne with lemon basil pesto and cherry tomatoes. Then I went over to Red Hen Bread and got a couple sandwiches – Turkey on a Bollo (House roasted turkey breast, provolone, red onion, tomato, arugula, mayo, and whole grain mustard served on a rosemary bollo) for me and a Knuckle Sandwich (Honey roasted ham, salami, prosciutto, provolone, red onions, tomato, romaine, and our red hen vinaigrette served on a ciabatta panino bun) for Dallas. Everything was so delicious!

Intense Angry Birds session during the opening act.

The first band was called Company of Thieves. They were a band local to Chicago who had been touring with Hall and Oates. We both liked them. The singer’s voice reminded me of Adele.

When Hall and Oates came on it was so awesome. We knew the words to every song they played. They were all old favorites. We sang along, ate our snacks, enjoyed our drinks. It was such a great time. I can never understand how Ravinia can be so calm and relaxing when you’re surrounded by thousands of people in close quarters. The mix of people there is so crazy. Young people, old people, families, of all races and backgrounds. The mom and dad next to us were playing Uno with their son while he jammed out to Maneater. It was so fun!

At the end of Hall and Oates’ set, we decided to leave. It was during the encore that we had a short wait for the bus. We could still hear the music very clearly so the line was still a party. But we ended up getting on the bus fast, got to our lot fast, and actually drove right out of there and onto the highway without any traffic at all… and we only missed maybe 2 songs. Awesome.

[Read more →]