Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville is only an hour away from St. Augustine, so we spent most of the day there and did not arrive until an hour or so before show time. The show was at a venue with fake trees and Halloween decorations strewn throughout a dimly lit bar. The stage was lit from beneath making us appear more like strippers than musicians. The crowd consisted of friendly hipsters, quite a few actually, which made for a nice change. We played well and people seemed to enjoy the music. As a special bonus Spinal Tap was projected on to the back wall of the place, nice. All in all it was a good show and a good night.

The only event of note that I experienced in Jacksonville was when I stopped in at a local BBQ restaurant, which was quite busy and had lots of positive magazine reviews on the wall. I gleefully ordered a rib sandwich with baked beans. When my order was up they handed me something similar to a sandbag in weight and appearance. I was excited, it seemed authentic. When we returned to the club and I unwrapped the sandwich I was shocked; a rack of ribs, on the bone, lay in between three pieces of white bread. I was momentarily dumbfounded on how to begin eating the oddity. If I just bit into it I might lose a tooth on a bone, but that was out of the question anyway because there was no possibility of picking the slop pile up without it melting. Instead, I grabbed a plastic fork and tried to pull meat off the bone through the white bread. This did not work because I could not see where the bones were in the middle of the sandwich; I was a blind man with that bread in the way. I thought that if it had been an open-faced sandwich this direct approach might work, so I removed the top slice of bread and made another attempt. However I quickly found that pulling meat off a rib with a plastic fork is not as easy as it looks. I scrapped this attempt and pulled the ribs out of the sandwich and gnawed on them without the wonder bread. My sandwich was now just an order of ribs. My next discovery was that the BBQ sauce was based almost entirely on mustard. It was a bit peculiar, but did not stop me from gorging for the next 10 minutes.

When I finished my meal, a messy slaughter of a sandwich laid in front of me. I slowly wiped the sauce from my face and arms and pondered why this restaurant was so busy and seemed to have such a good reputation. Could it be that I just do not know how to appreciate Southern BBQ? Maybe the combination of wonder bread and mustard laden BBQ ribs is where the magic lies, and my inability to enjoy both in a single bite is where I failed. I felt a bit inadequate. But maybe, the food just sucked. Anyway, you have been warned about BBQ in downtown Jacksonville.