Oswego Harborfest - Update 2 ~ The Path To Riches

When we last left off, we were heading down to Harborfest for the first evening of fun! We walked over to the shuttle parking lot, which was a short 5-10 minute walk. The pictures below pretty much follow along with the play by play. We went by one of the 2 main fraternity houses we used to go to, Delta Kappa Kappa, better known as DK which is almost right on campus. We saw a few brothers hanging out in an upper floor window, but nothing major going on when we walked by.

Delta Kappa Kappa Fraternity House

We jumped on the shuttle and I took a quick picture of the Woodshed Tavern. That is the closest bar to campus, but it has been closed for several years. Someone recently bought the bar and was planning to open for Harborfest, but didn't quite make it in time. The shuttle didn't take us directly to where the bands were, but that was no biggie, we're used to walking around town and on the way you pass other stages and bars along the way, so that's fun too.

Woodshed Tavern

We started our walk towards where the main bands were located and went by the Old City Hall pub and walked down by the river and got a few pictures of the hotels/action on the other side of the river. Eventually we stopped off at a bar called Gibby O'Connor's Irish Pub. My mom and everyone that she was hanging out with from the cottage was there and we hung out for a beer. There were carnival rides setup across the street. After hangin for a bit, we headed up the big hill and then back down to where the main stage was located. I snapped a few photos of Lake Ontario from the top of the hill, what a great view from up there.

Upon arriving at the main stage area, Frostbit Blue, one of our favorite bands from Oswego, was setting up and about to start and we spotted a Kid Rock lookalike! He was obviously dressed/looked that way on purpose, but honestly the only way you'd know it wasn't really him was to see his eyes behind his sunglasses. I walked by him close enough to see behind the glasses and could tell it wasn't REALLY him, but sure does a great job pretending!

MY NAME IS KIDDDDDDDDD...

Everyone that walked by did a double take and was smiling/laughing saying how much he looks like Kid Rock and Jen S and friends took a picture with him. I was snapping a picture just as he turned towards me. Click on the picture below to get a close up view and you can see how close he really does look to the real thing! Wonder if he lives close by or travels around to festivals or ?

One weird thing was the beer tent. You could not bring in beer to the beer tent and could not bring out beer from the beer tent. I get that to a point, but if you were not in the beer tent area you could bring in all the beer/wine/liquor you wanted in coolers/bags, etc. and that was completely fine. So why could you not bring beer out of the beer tent if everyone outside the beer tent had beer already?! That was a bit weird and annoying...we wanted to go closer to the bands and walk around without being restricted to the beer tent and eventually asked them not to open the beer and snuck a beer or two out in our pockets, but 1 time Tim got busted and so did a friend of ours and they were told they had to get back in the beer tent and drink the beer there. Heh, seems really odd and annoying to me, but really not big deal, was just strange.

Frostbit Blue

At this point Frostbit Blue was playing and they were great! They had asked on Facebook a few days prior which songs people wanted to hear and they played all 4 that I asked for and even had to bring in one of the secondary singers from back in the day special because he is the main guy that sings 3 of those 4 songs and he hasn't been with the band for quite a while. So I'd like to think that myself and 3 or 4 others that also suggested those songs had a big role in the great tunes they played that night!

Kevin and Joanna

After Frostbit Blue, we met up with friends from back in the college days, Kevin and Joanna. Kevin lived in the dorm room next to us with our friend Mike. Joanna was Kevin's girlfriend at the time and they're married now and live in VA. She is originally from Oswego and her parents still live there and she tries to go every year and Kevin came along this time and it was good to hang/catch-up with them. They brought beer and had lots to share, so that helped with the beer tent entry/exit issue.

We hung with them during most of the time Barenaked Ladies were playing and then I went up front for the last 2-3 songs and they were just as I remember them minus the main singer. But they didn't seem much different at all, same fun guys and great tunes!

Barenaked Ladies

After BNL, we were dying for an Oswego Sub Shop Cheeseburger sub, so we started walking back. We were tempted to head into our favorite fraternity party spot Sigma Tau Chi, or Sig Tau for short, to see what was going on, but it wasn't very likely we would know anyone well enough to hang out.

View of the back of the Sigma Tau Chi house from the top of the hill

The side door of Sigma Tau Chi open, inviting us in

The side door was open and inviting us in, but we kept on going. There are so many bars everywhere, we were bound to get sidetracked eventually. We made it all the way to the sub shop, but veered across the street to Greene's Ale House. There was a band playing tunes from Metallica and other hard rock type music, so we hung out there for a few tunes. It's funny, that was the first time we've payed a cover and got a mark on our hands probably since college or close to it. You forget how much of a pain it is to scrub off permanent marker from your hands that night or the next morning!

We then wandered over to the sub shop. That place is an absolute gold mine, there were no less than 25-30 really drunk people in there. You order, pay and then they just call out the sub type you ordered. You'd thing they'd take a name or something, but it pretty much works out fine. The wait was at least 15 minutes, maybe closer to 20, but it was soooooo worth it. It tasted amazing. Should have gotten the 14" instead of the 7", but too late at that point. Yummy goodness! It's the whole combo for me, the fresh bread, the hamburger meat and the gooey cheese. Tim got his loaded up.

Cheeseburger sub plain, so yummy!

We walked back to campus and by then it was after 2am and time to pass out for the night....Check out some more pictures of the days activities below. Good times!