Dayton - the music and eats

The Fraze Pavilion was donated to the city by Ermal Fraze, late Kettering resident and inventor of the pop-top can.  It calls itself ‘The Home of Summer’s Best Music’, Sheryl Crow recorded her C’mon America DVD here.  The Fraze is just a half mile away, so we always go to several events here.

Breakfast with the Beatles is a national radio show recorded the last Sunday of the month.  On the first Sunday of the month it is broadcast at the Fraze, coffee and newspapers provided.  Other breakfast items are available.

  .

The Happy Together Tour featuring members of The Turtles, Three Dog Night, Gary Puckett, The Buckinghams, The Classic IV and my favorite The Cowsills.

  The Cowsills perform their hit Hair!  "Gimme it down to there ...."

On select Thursdays bicycle riders get in free.  While in the concert your bike is inspected and new lights added if needed.  For our ride the concert was Face2Face, a tribute to Billy Joel and Elton John.

IMHO - This concert took a bit to get really going, with first Joel then John on stage.  But the last hour and a half really rocked!, with both banging on their pianos, really putting on a great performance.

However, the best concert we attended was Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, at 85 he has 5 decades of experience, and it shows, he is still quite the performer and has a heck of a good backup band, some have been with him for 40 years.

With 50 years of hit songs he had a lot to choose from.  Fran and I tried to guess what the encore would be. My choice Grease turned out to be the 3rd song performed, Sherry a bit later.  So what was the encore?  Bye Bye Baby  a nice exit song.

Saturday we attended the Festival of the Vine, with the New Basics Brass Band.  You might think I’m here to check out the wine selections, and you’d be right.  But of the 6 wine tents only 1 offered a ‘local’ wine.  In this case local is broadly used to include Indiana!

The remaining tents all offered familiar names that they might have picked up at Dorothy Lane Market on the way over.  18 from California and 5 from Washington state.

I asked Reggae Wines of Indiana for a ‘local’ red that was dry enough to gag, and was offered ‘No Opposition’ a very dry red blend.  It really hit the spot.  In talking to the vintner, tho, I learned the grapes are from Lodi CA. Still looking for midwest dry red.

But the rest of the extended family was here for Johnny, the trumpet player. That’s him on the far left, a cousin.

We sat with his dad, Carl, right up front where Johnny could not miss us.  Johnny came over to chat a bit between sets.  I tried to get a picture of him and one with his dad, but both attempts were photobombed.

.

We eat out a lot when we’re here, but my favorite stop is Marion’s Pizza.  The walls are full of the Hey-Day years of Vaudeville and road shows that performed in Dayton and stopped in to enjoy their pizza. 

While here we always keep an eye out for a Marion’s discount.  It's not just #1 in Dayton, but ranked #1 nationally... at least they claim so.

At 25% off we enjoyed a large deluxe, while picking up 6 more To-Go.  The freezer in Rufus will hold only 3 boxes, I have to double them into 3 boxes.

I’m not a big chocolate fan, but Ester Price may convert me yet.  They are addictive!

We're not sure if either the Ester Price or the Marion's will make it all the way home.  Want a sample catch us on the way, or it might be best to stop in Dayton next time you pass this way.

Today's Ohio Fun Fact:
Both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the NFL Hall of Fame are located in Ohio.  OK you knew that ...
But did you know the term Rock'n'Roll, that defined a genre of music, was coined by DJ Alan Freed of Cleveland? OR the first ever NFL game was played at Triangle Field in Dayton?
ref:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Freed
ref:  https://www.profootballhof.com/news/nfl-s-first-game-remembered/

It's time for us to say so-long to Dayton, until next time.  I have one more post on Riverscape in mind, hope to get that together in the next couple days.