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I didn’t get into the Avett Brothers’ concert… the line was a few hundred people long, and after a third of it entered, they stopped letting people in. I expected a little concert in a small park with maybe a hundred people.

Who would have guessed that a bluegrass banjo duo that nobody’s ever heard of would put on a free show in Manhattan (the bluegrass banjo capital of… nothing) on public property… and be completely booked and inaccessible to nearly everyone who showed up except the incredibly early people?

So instead I had a nice Vietnamese dinner with Sharingtime Lee, Zach Klein, Nick Gray, and Irene Polnyi (who all also didn’t get into the show) in which I badly attempted to use chopsticks. Nick even brought a thermos of excellent tea and some cups to share with us afterward (anticipating an outdoor concert).

Know how every college generation finds that one band that’s relatively unknown, so the college kids think they’re being cool by knowing them and playing their songs constantly, then they explode 2 years later?

That’s how Dave Matthews started. For my generation (in college from 2000-2004), it was O.A.R. at first, then Dispatch. I think John Mayer happened next, and I have no idea who the current ones are because I’m not cool enough and nobody tells me anything.

There were a lot of young, cool people there tonight, enthusiastically waiting on line in the uncomfortable, humid summer heat for a chance to see The Avett Brothers. They’re the next one. Trust me.