Weird Al & Grass Court Tennis 2019 (Day 3 - 19th July 2019)

After the transfer Day 1 was haunted by terrible weather and Day 2 the expected long road trip to New Hampshire, I was happy to have a slow start on the third day of my Weird Al Yankovic & Grass Court Tennis 2019 trip. Short driving distances and meeting Weird Al at the end of day just sounded too good.

A Mystic-Al Place in the Morning

As I have been pumped with energy drinks and caffeine due stand the drive the day before, it was not that surprising that my body’s demand for night sleep was limited. Thus, I woke up quite early, finished the Day 2 trip report entry and worked on the Gilford concert report and pictures. Enjoyed quite a nice breakfast as well, though coming closer to the weekend also increased the chaos in the breakfast service.

Then I headed to Mystic CT, a very touristic place at the Long Island Sound on the Atlantic Coast. As there was just limited time, I just opted for two places (and skipped the two major attraction, the Seaport and the Aquarium). First of all, I went to the picturesque Old Mystic village.

After that, I visited Olde Mistick Village, which is in fact a historic style shopping mall. It features a lot of alternative stores. I really enjoyed strolling around the place there.

Indian Culture First…

There was not too much driving on that third day, so I went back to the Pequot Reservation area. I passed one of the side gates, where a lot of their social and governmental buildings are, e.g. the civil emergency service building.

My aim was to see the Mashantucket Peqout Museum, which is named to be one of the largest Native American museums in the USA. A really fascinating place telling the sad recent story of the tribe, who just got back their land in 1983 after being slaughtered by English settlers in repressed by official institutions thereafter.

The museum also features an observation tower, which gives a nice view over the rich land and the massive Foxwoods Casino and Resort complex.

… Entertainment Thereafter

I went to the Foxwoods Casino complex. Wow, it is massive. It hosts over 2,000 gaming rooms with a total area of 32,000 square metres (gaming only!). There is an outlet shopping, an arcade, multiple restaurants and a lot of other stuff, which I could not maange to see in some two hours, just because its vast size. It is even quite hard to navigate around the casino, for example finding the right parking spot for the concert. I unfortunately did not make it for a drive to the cool-looking indoor karting track – looked like a lot of fun.

Praying for Leander Paes – Partying in Foxwood Casino!

During all the time, my heart was somehow in Newport RI at the Tennis Hall of Fame Open. My Indian tennis superhero Leander Paes was playing his second round doubles match in the afternoon. If he won (or if there was some very adverse weather), I knew I would be able to see him for a full match on Day 4 of my trip. It would have been a dream to me, twenty years after I saw him playing live the very first time.

What can I say? He did it! Leander and his New Zealand partner Mathew Daniell beat recent Wimbledon Mixed Doubles Finalist Robert Lindstedt (Sweden) and Kiwi Mathew Ebden 14-12 in the deciding third set super-tie-break. That also meant: whatever would happen during the concert, the tennis day on day 4 would have huge potential to be my highlight day of the whole trip!

This is obviously a trip report entry without any pictures – but you may read the praise on Leander on the Tennis ATP Tour website.

Strings Attached Tour – The Second

The 4,000 people Grand Theater is a really nice place. Though I had fourth row seats, I would say that the view was better than at the Gilford show. I will not post a full review of the Foxwoods show just for capacity reasons, but I liked the concert much more today. The theatre was very posh and comfy, liked to be in there, even though they had some organisational lacks like the availability of toilets.

The key difference of the show itself was the sound – you could here the orchestra much better – one thing I saw on the downside in New Hampshire. The orchestra was the same as the day before and the only change in the songs was You don’t love me anymore in favor of One More Minute. This meant Al just went to the audience once, but overall, I felt that that selection suited the orchestra better. A definite five star experience – and apart from that, I met a lot of Weird Al fans like the two legendary David Rossi and Jeremy Samples (both in their 300s regarding the Weird Al show count).

Being A VIP at Weird Al

One person I also enjoyed to meet again was J.W. Hallford, who is doing the VIP / Meet & Greet parties for Weird Al since ages. This time (due to the orchestra), there was no chance to have a pre-show, but therefore, the aftershow and Meet & Greet was amazing. Some 200 people participated in this excellently organized event. There were two round of meeting Al – first to take the pictures (which were then printed), second for signing one item. CID, the company who is driving the whole meet & greet, did an excellent job again!