It's been well over a week since Jimmy Buffett and his "Welcome to Fin Land" tour stopped in Kansas City at the Sprint Center, and we hope you've enjoyed our recap of the extravaganza. If you missed it, read about the pre-pre-party, the pre-party at Power and Light and our bar-dancing escapade at Pizza Bar.
Now, for the main event.
Jimmy Buffett in the Sprint Center was interesting and different. Lots of us had seen a Buffett show before, but for many of us, our previous concert experiences were outdoors in an amphitheater after a day of tailgating in the parking lot.
Dave commented that the stage setup didn't seem all that fancy. In fact, his actual words were something like "Our St. Patrick's Day parade floats are fancier than that." Sure, it was just a couple beach umbrellas and a fence, with a backdrop that changed scenery for almost every song.
I'm not going to rehash the entire set list here, mostly because I enjoyed the show instead of taking notes. If you want to read a good review of the show, check out this one. It even includes a set list.
A couple of random observations:
Sprint Center could sell a LOT more beer if they would open up more stations. Dave and Pat were annoyed by the amount of time they waited in line for a beer. Surely there are people willing to man the stations, and the income they generated would surely outweigh the payroll cost.
The hats were funny. The guy in front of Dave was wearing a contraption that included a plastic cup. Dave kept trying to drink out of it, and I thought it was empty. Until the guy sat down in his seat so hard the cup fell out, and the beer in it went straight into Dave's shoe. Karma?
Our party bus crew was very good at following directions. Everyone was back at the bus right after the concert, we didn't have to look for anyone and we didn't leave anyone behind.
We headed back to Lawrence, unloaded the buses and partied on at the Sandbar. It was a great night for the patio!
Our final stop at Power & Light during our Jimmy Buffett pre-party extravaganza was Pizza Bar. We were hungry and pizza sounded good.
We walked in, took one look at the line and thought "we'll never get any food." But fate intervened- we spotted former bartender Erick, his sister Shelly and their parents across the bar, and as we headed their direction, we saw another familiar face. Remember the downtown Lawrence restaurant JoShmo's? The proprietor, Josh, is now working at Pizza Bar.
After a round of enthusiastic greetings, Josh quickly hooked us up with a pizza. And then he also introduced Dave, Peach and the world-famous Sandbar, Home of the Indoor Hurricane to the entire crowd at Pizza Bar. The man with the microphone has all the power.
We ate, we drank, we chatted. More people we knew showed up. And then Josh was back on the mike, announcing that Dave was going to do the Car Wash. On the "bar" in the middle of the restaurant. (It's really just a strange stone-like divider that's about bar height.)
There's no getting Dave off of bars. He, and several more fearless followers, stayed up there for one more song and danced to "YMCA." There's video of that too:
And then, after all our fun at Pizza Bar, it was time to go see the man, the legend, Jimmy Buffett.
The buses were loaded and we were off to Power & Light!
After what seemed like an extremely short trip- most of which was spent, at least on bus #2, trying to get the sound system working so we could listen to Sandbar music, and also dodging the slow-to-move Ktag gates at the tollbooth on I70- we arrived at the Kansas City Power & Light District.
As soon as everyone could hop off the buses, our Sandbar crew disappeared into the throngs of parrotheads. Grand Boulevard was closed for a block or two, and there were some random booths set up in the street, but the real party was in the KC Live area. A tropical band was playing and there were parrotheads everywhere.
We realized quickly while walking through the crowds that a lot of people had heard of the Sandbar. Many people in our group had on our commemorative concert T-shirts, and everywhere we went we heard "Hey, Sandbar!" or "It's Dave from Sandbar!"
Surprisingly, it didn't take long to find people we knew in the huge crowds. Brit and Megan, a pair of former bartenders who met at the Sandbar while working together on Saturday nights and are now married, met up with us at Johnny's Tavern:
We traveled from bar to bar, which is easy to do in the P&L with its open arrangement and lax Missouri liquor laws. We started at Johnny's Tavern, where we also found our man on the street Pat, and wandered back to the tropical-themed Shark Bar, which Dave has never visited. At Shark Bar, we ran into a couple who love the Sandbar so much that when they got married last year, they stopped at the bar with their wedding party before going to their reception:
And finally, after realizing Shark Bar can never be as cool as our own tropical bar, we moved downstairs to Pizza Bar, where we ran into some more familiar faces. Stay tuned for stories about our fun at Pizza Bar, because they're good ones.
The event the Sandbar crew has waited for for years happened last weekend: Jimmy Buffett's return to Kansas City with the "Welcome to Fin Land" tour.
The party started early Saturday afternoon at the Sandbar. We had a pre-party with boat drinks, parrothead hat-making supplies and Ted cooking beer brauts on a grill outside. The bar was full of partiers by 2 p.m.- most of them were parrotheads with spots on our party bus to the show, but teams on a local charity pub crawl taking place downtown also detoured from their route and stopped by.
Peach had fun making a party hat for the concert, and bartender Andrew and his girlfriend Jamie decorated their brand-new commemorative concert shirts.
Our two party buses pulled up at 4 p.m. We had nearly 80 people signed up for a fun ride to the Power & Light District! Passengers ranged from staff and regulars to hard-core Parrotheads of all ages. We loaded up our buses and headed for Kansas City.
It was such a beautiful day in downtown Lawrence to be on our patio! If you were there, we'd love to see your pictures. You can email them to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com, or upload them to our Facebook page.
Some of our staff and friends are participating in this year's Walk MS, a fundraiser for the National MS Society. This is the second year we've put together a team for the Walk, and so far I think we've raised more money than last year. But, in my recap of last year's event, I failed to mention our grand fundraising total, so who knows.
We've raised $2,636 so far! You can still donate if you're so inclined.
And this year, we added a new twist for our social media-obsessed friends: for every check-in on foursquare through April 30, the bar will donate a buck to the cause. We're close to $100!
Our walkers will descend on the bar afterward for a post party, which will morph into a pre-party for the event of the season: Jimmy Buffett's return to Kansas City!
We've chartered two buses to carry parrotheads to the show, and our pre-party officially starts at 2 p.m. We'll have food, drinks and parrothead hat-making supplies, and the buses will leave at 4:30 p.m. for the Sprint Center.
We even printed special commemorative T-shirts for the event! They're available in red, orange and green, and in a variety of sizes, for $12 each. The Sandbar logo is on the front, and a great graphic of "Stage Diving with Jimmy Buffett" is on the back.
Fun event coming up this Friday! The KC Limits radio show will be live on the air from 7-9 p.m. at The Sandbar, celebrating their 100th show.
The Sandbar might be known for its island Jimmy Buffett music, but there's a special place in our hearts for the music known as red dirt or Texas country. We have a little bit of it on the jukebox, mostly in mix/compilation CD's, but Dave has an ample amount on his iPod and he'll kick it on for special occasions.
This is one of those occasions.
Our friend Justin hosts the weekly KC Limits show on 106.5 The Wolf radio station, from 9-midnight every Sunday night. He plays the best of red dirt country music, along with some of your favorite outlaw and legendary country artists mixed in.
Many of these artists play in Lawrence and Justin always comes up for the shows, usually meeting us at the Sandbar beforehand. We like to think we've become an unofficial pre-party spot for Lawrence's red dirt shows.
This Friday, Robert Earl Keen comes to town. Don't know him? His college neighbor was Lyle Lovett, so if you like Lyle's music you'll probably love Robert Earl Keen. You can read more about him here. The Josh Abbott Band opens the show at the Granada. Tickets are only $20 in advance, and that is a steal.
Come on out to the Sandbar on Friday to see what a live radio show is all about, and then head to the Granada with us for a great concert!
