Odes to Alpharetta · Track 15 · middle
The Ameris Amphitheatre: Summer Nights, Lawn Chairs
Ameris Bank Amphitheatre (formerly Verizon Wireless, formerly Encore Park) — Alpharetta's 12,000-seat outdoor music venue, the summer-night lawn-chair crowd, the parking shuttle from Verizon Way, the way you can hear the kick drum from Webb Bridge Park if the wind is right. The Atlanta Symphony's summer pops. Sisukiro on the lawn with a thermos.
Lyrics
[Intro] The shuttle from Verizon Way smells like warm diesel. It’s July 19, 2014. Nine twelve P.M. We find our spot. Just here. [Verse 1] Unfold the aluminum chairs. Spread the blue plaid blanket. Unscrew the top of the thermos, the steam from the iced tea ghosts in the humid air. They called it Encore Park when they broke the ground in 2004. Then Verizon Wireless for a decade. But for us, it was always just the lawn. Forty feet from the speaker stack on the right. Where the slope is just right. [Chorus] And the kick drum finds you through the soles of your shoes. A low pulse from the stage, a second heartbeat in the grass. Twelve thousand people breathing in the dark. And the sound washes over the cheap seats, the best seats. The whole amphitheater is just this blanket. This thermos. This summer night. [Verse 2] There’s a metallic tang in the air, a promise of rain on the big metal roof. The smell of cut grass, still damp from the afternoon. They did a study in 2008. Said the low frequencies, the subwoofer pulse, travels farthest across the Big Creek floodplain. I think of someone walking their dog in Webb Bridge Park, a mile away. Hearing this same bass note, a rumor on the wind. I think of the shuttle driver who worked this route for eight years. I don’t know his name. [Chorus] And the kick drum finds you through the soles of your shoes. A low pulse from the stage, a second heartbeat in the grass. Twelve thousand people breathing in the dark. And the sound washes over the cheap seats, the best seats. The whole amphitheater is just this blanket. This thermos. This summer night. [Bridge] Sometimes it’s the Atlanta Symphony, the summer pops. The violins thin and sweet in the eighty-two degree air. Sometimes it's a band we knew from college. But the ritual is the same. The walk, the chair, the waiting for the lights to go down. The shared quiet when the first note hits. [Outro] The last chord hangs in the humidity. We fold the chairs. We walk back to the bus. But the bass note stays with you. A low, steady thump in your sternum. All the way home.