Jazz, Our Father's, Alden and Harlow, and Ali McGuirk~ All in One Night

My summer vacation is split in half this year.  The first half is all city fun, the second half is epic traveling to Canada and Paris.  Since the city part is going to go by fast, we need to have some pretty jam packed days to make up for it.  On Friday, we were going to see Ali McGuirk (more on that later) but her show didn't start until 11:15.  Normally this would bother me but instead it left us with a ton of time to do fun things!

We started by stopping by Pinocchio's Pizza in Harvard Square and grabbing some food to go.  Pinocchio's is this small pizza shop on a side street in the Square.  It's pretty famous and I remember going here when I was on a Lesley College overnight visit.  It's known for having lots of different slices available, plus subs and salads.  You can eat there, but we decided to take our food over to the courtyard at the Charles Hotel.

On Mondays and Fridays, the hotel hosts a free jazz concert presented by Berklee College of Music.  There was quite a crowd and it made for a fun picnic.  Remember my living room comment from a few posts ago~ well this was our living room for the night and it came with free jazz music 😃

                                                           

After dinner we still had a lot of time to kill so we walked along the river and over the pedestrian bridge where we stopped to take in the view.  This spot on the bridge is one of my favorite spots in the entire city.  You don't get this crazy Boston view, but you get the river surrounded by brick buildings and grassy fields.  And if you go during the sunset you get beautiful twinkling lights reflecting off the water and buildings.  It's a really peaceful spot and perfect for just stopping and relaxing.

We continued over the bridge to go to Our Father's.  This is the third time this summer I've ended up here and each time has been thoroughly enjoyable!

After Our Father's we still had time before the show (11:15 is so late) so we grabbed dessert at Alden and Harlow.

Finally, it was time for the show so we headed over to The Sinclair.  The Sinclair is a great venue right in Harvard Square.  It's set up like the House of Blues, just on a smaller scale and it's a really fun place to see a show.

We were there to see this great local act, Ali McGuirk.  This was her first headlining show at a venue like this, and I didn't want to miss it.  I've blogged about how awesome Ali is before, here and here.  Ali's music sounds like a combination of Norah Jones and Joss Stone.  It's very soulful, with a hint of 70s.  Her backup band is comprised of some very talented musicians that really add to the depth of the sound.  The show was amazing!  I could go on and on, but why don't you just watch this video (or visit her site for more videos) and then open iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube and                                              listen to her album "Slow Burn."