What do you get when you mix a cruise ship, live music and bowls and bowls of the city's best guacamole? You get Guac Rock. Months before the Guac Rock event, The Bell House hosted a competition called Guactacular, in which avocado aficionados could whip up a batch of their best recipes and submit them to be judged by a panel of guacamole professionals while bystanders can nibble on the entries while enjoying tequila during the festive Cinco de Mayo-themed event. The winners of this event would then go on to showcase their foodstuffs for the revelers at Guac Rock, part of the Rocks Off concert cruise series.
There isn't much better than a boat ride down the scenic Hudson River (camera shutters went crazy as we passed the Statue of Liberty and a picturesque thunderstorm in the distance). The organizers made sure to continue the Cinco de Mayo theme (despite it being July) as much as possible by selling t-shirts, some of which cutely read "I (Nacho) NY" and giving away thick black I-look-like-I'm-in-an-old-timey-shootout mustaches, which I suppose was to help us get into a character one needs to fully enjoy one's guacamole.
The first band up was scruffy punk band Dry Feet. It felt a bit awkward seeing them perform because, at that point, the audience was more interested in the guacamole than the live music. After they finished thrashing about, The Beets were up next. Their sound was a bit mellower and easier to take, drawing a bigger audience of guacamole-sated fans. Finally, the headlining act, North Highlands, took the stage (or, at least, the best makeshift stage a small ship could have). The Brooklyn-based band let loose with their catchy synth-poppy music, a bit surprising as the two previous bands had been a bit harder edged. Led by keyboardist and singer Brenda Malvini, the songstress sweetly crooned while taking swigs of beer in between songs. Guacamole be damned, nearly the whole ship stood around to watch them, and the show even got a bit rowdy towards the end when a seemly inebriated fan (or a possible friend of the band), drunk on either life or nachos, ran up and put her arms around Malvini mid-song, causing the two to fall over a time or two while the rest of the band continued without a hitch. The crowd enjoyed North Highlands enough to merit a second encore, which the band obliged. I knew I was gonna have a good time with just guacamole alone, but North Highlands made for a night more fun than I expected. While I was there, I heard rumors of a possible Salsa Rock. I know I'll be in line for that.
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