The Machine

It's fair time in NY State. Yes, that is something a little different than NYC. So a friend and I kicked it over to the fairgrounds in the evening for the night's entertainment block. Bruno Mars was playing the main stage at 8, but my friend and I weaved though the many carts of fried dough and lemon squeeze to get to the smaller stage where The Machine was playing. I haven't been to a show since Hollywood Undead last summer and had all but forgotten what it's like to have a kick drum rattle my atrium.  

The Machine is a Pink Floyd cover band. Personally, I don't know much about Pink Floyd. I knew 3 of the songs they played in their nearly 2 hour set: Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb, and Another Brink in the Wall... which isn't necessarily something to be proud of. The band was extremely fog machine-happy, which worked since they were a psychedelic band anyway. They also had a circular screen behind them on which they projected a Windows Media Player-esque trippy background.

The audience was completely in love. Many of them were probably the parents of the kids who were jumping around at Bruno Mars, but there were handfuls of people who were under thirty. I observed a man in the front row who was bobbing his Yankees hat and singing along to every single song. During the more well-known songs (the ones I knew), the band pointed the mics our way and let us sing the choruses. I don't know what kind of response the band is used to, but they were beaming. Some hippies even crawled out of the woodwork for the show and hippie-danced at the side of the stage (you know what I mean, slow motion flailing around).

The lead guitarist and singer was great, the guy on the keys was totally in it, the bass player busted out a 12-string guitar at one point, and their drummer was a woman! Rock on, sister.

   

The New York State Fair actually gets some really good bands. I'll be back on Saturday for Hot Chelle Ray. They also have a lot of well-known bands including Sugarland, Maroon5, and Cee-lo Green. Not too shabby from being a couple hours away from the NYC.

After have our eardrums punished, my accomplice and I braked for the greatest fried food that the fair had to offer. And then visited the barn of sheep, because fairs are, of course, a free petting zoo.