Last night a friend and I walked the Best Busker Contest in downtown Rochester amid the gorgeous spring weather, listening to fabulous street musicians and sharing some good eats….a pretty wonderful combination, indeed!
We dined on tasty mac n’ cheese cups, freshly baked snickerdoodle and chocolate chip cookies, food truck pulled pork and slaw tacos, and s’mores on a stick, but we sadly had to skip out on the blue velvet cake push pops, spring rolls, and the risotto balls we were looking forward to also indulging in because they were served at food places that wanted you to dine inside of their restaurant to partake in their deals – which just wasn’t going to happen when there were so many great musicians to hear and fantastic early evening weather to enjoy outside! I hope next year all the restaurants that offer special Busker Contest deals will consider having their special deal food options as “to go” instead of “dine in only” so people can actually enjoy the street music and delicious food too.
We heard fiddles, banjos, harmonicas, singers, accordions, trombones, guitars, maracas, tambourines, mini organs and more – and many of the musicians sang and played, sometimes multiple instruments too, one-man-band style. One of the performers was a songmaker – if you shouted out a topic, he improvised a song about it – music on the guitar and lyrics – right on the spot for you. He was great! They posted a list of the topics people had requested on the sidewalk, and that was pretty amusing as well – one was “I’m two days overdue, make this kid come out!” and a little boy suggested “fear of learning to ride my bicycle” while an older lady encouraged “losing my glasses all the time!” I think he could have been a cool addition to an amazing, memorable surprise marriage proposal.
All the musicians were wonderful though and it was so relaxing and joyful to hear so much great music and see such strong talent in our city. At the check in tent, we received five guitar picks, so we could place one pick in each of our top five favorite busker’s buckets to vote for them. Unfortunately, voting ended at 8 p.m. and we didn’t realize it until about 8:02 p.m., so we ran like fools through the crowds to try to get picks into the buckets of our top picks, but we were only successful with two of them. At least we have some sweet souvenir picks and know better for next year. Also, in addition to the fabulous, perfect spring weather, there was a really nice cross-section of people milling about – bearded hipster twenty-somethings with their grandmothers, moms with babies, dads with kids on their shoulders, couples, and friends of all ages and backgrounds – just enjoying Rochester together.
Totally gorgeous night! What a way to spend a Thursday! :)
