first avenue exhibit

 in the early afternoon i arrived at the minnesota history center to see the exhibit about the music venue known as first avenue. it was scheduled to run for a year and end in early may, but the pandemic hit and the museum was closed until october 1. now it is scheduled to run until early january. i am thankful i made it as it did remind me of visits there. first show i saw was jimmy eat world in 2011, then later on i went to see lucinda williams. local band soul asylum i saw at a different venue, the saints baseball stadium, in 2016. as usual, i learned something while there. the venue has had some different names since it opened in 1970, after previously being a bus station. in fact the first one was 'the depot', and it didn't become 'first avenue' until early 1982. i do recall how it was closed for a while during my first year in minnesota, in 2004, the exhibit said it was for 17 days in november. it was due to the venue's owner, fingerhut, filing for bankruptcy. one of my photos was of bands i had seen in concert, but not at that venue. it was the U2, and the pretenders. since it is a small venue of course it is usually up-and-coming bands that play there. a tour van was on display. hard to say what was the biggest takeaway of being there. i spent much more time looking at the display about the venue itself than of the photos of prince, which were in a different room. it may have been seeing the part about a husker du song, 'diane', being inspired by a rape and murder. naturally there were things about the movie 'purple rain' in it, as many people know about the venue due to the movie. there were some videos to sit and watch throughout, one of them had 'zombie' by the cranberries in it, another band i saw at a different venue. i didn't buy any souvenirs in it, because there was very little about the exhibit i had seen. at least that were of interest to me, and i like small ones like postcards. i got a good look around and stayed until just minutes before closing time. 

this was also an errand running day. after taking back the redbox movie, it was on to drop off recycling, then dumping ten dollars worth of change in my credit union savings account. finally i went to pick up e-bay orders at the post office, and get a sandwich as it was midday by then. after the exhibit i watched a little college football on TV, and eventually fell asleep. in the evening i went to the grocery store, and went on a walk where i found 30 cents. so i have already started adding to the change bank, but no surprise when i have been walking nearly every day since march. i also got a look at my postcard collection since i was adding those i recently acquired about new ulm to the albums that i keep them in. i am trying to stave off buying new albums for as long as i can, and it sometimes means tossing some postcards i no longer value. often they are free ones advertising something, and not ones that i actually bought. in this case five were moved out to get the new ulm cards in. it also meant moving some to a different album. now that i have seen the exhibit, there is not many events i have in the near future to attend. main one i am aware of is going to a serving of booya soup next weekend.