Review: one epic night 3/4/11

Last week when we published our Thursday 'Weekend Events Calendar' we speculated that it was gonna be 'a Legendary weekend'. For me, friday it's self was a magnificent day. at 4:30 pm my niece's field hockey tournament started, it was a sudden death tournament.. so you play until you loose, and of corse they won, so it was several hours of brutal gaming, even for 10 year olds. After that I ran over to The Louisville Arcade Expo to try my own hand a tournament. Pinball Tournament. For the first year, the Arcade expo was better than expected. they had a large room filled with pinball and arcade games, all on 'free play' except for the tournament games, which were $4 a play, and the more you play the better your score. of corse i spent soo much money. but i ended up in the top 15 qualifiers, so i had a good chance to win. and the winner gets a pinball table. I met a lot of people who spend their time traveling the country playing arcade tournaments, and collecting games like trophies. One guy totally whooped my ass in the tournament and mentioned he had 50 pinball tables at home.
in other rooms they had other tournaments, and games, like classic consoles, ataris, and Dance Dance Revolution tournaments. Someone said 'this room smells like Basements and Mountain Dew'.
After I hit the Qualifiers, it was around 10 pm, so i ran out of there and headed to Zanzabar for the Deloreans Album release show. I made it too late for the Scott Carney set, which sucks because i really like him personally and his music and i always end up missing his sets. but i made it time for Cheyenne's set. the first song she played drums and sang a Solomon marching ballad which was very nice. after that she was backed by an able band and played to a very enthusiastic crowd. I hadn't seen her play since the summer, it seems like she is always working, and always experimenting with her sound, and has seemed to find a great place musically.

(UPDATE FROM KORY: Pics and Scott Carney video at the bottom of John "Pinball Wizzard" King's shots! ).

After that was the main event, The Deloreans hit the stage and took off with sonic force. They played a good mix of their new album "American Craze" and their first "Love Outrageous". If a band could have a perfect day, i'd say this racks up amongst them. The bar was sold out to a packed ocean of overly drunk and totally excited peeps, and at that moment all of them Deloreans fans. After they played the DJ's fired up the turntables, but i had to get going, so i could get up bright and early to defend my rank in the pinball tournament.

Saturday the Arcade Expo was a buzz with every type of Nerd imaginable, from your basic basement types, to retirees, to hot girls, to code writers. and of corse art damaged rock peeps like myself. also at the Holiday Inn convention center was a church revival and a roller skating dance convention.
I am a big fan of gospel music so i asked if i could come in, and as church folks go, they were more than accommodating, ushering me right in, finding me a good seat, and, after realizing i knew most of songs they were singing, even asking if i'd like to join the choir up front. I declined, but the experience was amazing, people in the audience brought their own tambourines, and the band was super.
unfortunately, that feeling was crushed when i went back into the tournament room and realized my rank dropped from 14 to 34. only the top 16 go to the final round, so if i wanted to win i needed to shell out a ton of money. I did and began trying to get my score up. the only issue i had with the Expo was that the guy that was supposed to collect the tickets and keep score spent most of the time playing pinball trying to get his own score up. so he wasn't watching and players were supposed to write down their own scores, which opened the door for cheating. it really didn't matter for me tho, since the more i tried, the worse my score got.
Some guy kept barking on about his amazing 13 year old boy who was some kind of pinball master.. ranked 20th in the US and 50th in the world he said. Yes, their is an official pinball association, and yes they keep ranks, and that kid just slaughtered everyone. His dad totally acted like some over bearing sports dad that pushed the kid, but it's pinball so the kid must have fun sometime. I didn't stay to watch the end, but I assume that kid is the proud new owner of an 1984 Space Shuttle pinball table.
All in all, it was a super fun weekend, legendary even.