First ocean swim of the year, first ocean front concert, ever.

I must say anytime I have gone any other place swimming then the New England Coast (mainly Maine, New Hampshire and Mass) I have been pretty disappointed. Okay, let me rephrase that, when I go to the beach in NYC and Conn (Rocky Neck, Coney Island and Orchard Beach) I have been disappointed, so when we were going to Jones Beach on Long Island I was a little Skeptical, but let me tell you, HIGHLY recommended. The beach was clean, the water was clean, it wasn't too packed, and the water was on the warmer side. Jones Beach is such a good place, I must say there are the usual state park regulations such as no alcohol, but you can pay the almost 6 bucks for a beer at the concession stands, along with the Nathan's Hot Dog, Friendly's Ice Cream and so on. Oh the other cool thing is that there is a GREAT Music venue the Nikon Theatre.

We saw REM, Modest Mouse and The National there on Saturday. The greatest thing about this theatre is that the stage is actually in the water (on concrete of course). We of course paid for the cheap seats and sat all the way to the top of the theatre, well not the top top, but top enough. The National and Modest Mouse were good, unfortunately Modest Mouse was cut off at its last song due to, well the impending SEVERE thunderstorm. It turned out the 30% chance of of T-storms turned out to be a 100% chance and did storm, for over an hour. We saw some of the coolest cloud to cloud lightning during the REM set (and apparently the lightning did strike the theatre, sparks flew, but that has not been confirmed) and the greatest was when they came out singing "Have you ever seen the Rain," great choice for start. They also played Losing my Religion and It's the End of the World as We Know it. I personally was hoping for Shiny Happy People, but I know, there isn't a female voice, and since I know that the B-52's are on tour (since I saw them last week at Radio City), but I digress. I must say I was more enthralled by the closeness of the Lightning then the fact that Modest Mouse was playing in front of me. At one point I was told to stop focusing on the storm and pay attention to the band, oh well. I hope to go back sometime this year for a swim and maybe a concert too!