Akron Indeed Rocks!

Akron Ohio, the former rubber capital of the world. Where Devo originated, Chrissie Hynde laments, and where Goodyear blimp sightings are a common occurrence. Downtown has turned from a bustling blue collar metropolis to an almost ghost town on the verge of near collapse. Restaurants start up, then ultimately fail. Long standing businesses are forced to close due to the poor economy. And manufacturing left town years ago.

But a few bright spots are alive and well in Akron! One of them is the famous Luigi's Pizza located on N. Main street tucked into a corner only accessible from Furnace Street.

Luigi's is an institution. It's been in the same location oh, maybe fifty years or more. The interior is dated, the animated animal band above the entrance often doesn't work. And the jukebox seems almost as fussy. On this occasion, the jukebox only seemed to play one song for us, while it seemed to work perfectly well for another patron. This writer suspects someone behind the bar was manning the volume controls.

Despite the cliquish feeling in regards to the jukebox, our party enjoyed a variety of Italian fare and a pepperoni pizza. We had juicy and meaty Italian sausage, baked rigatoni, baked ravioli and vast amounts of warm crusty bread. The dinner salads are nothing to write home to Mama. Mama would slap me upside the head for serving this tired old salad. Iceberg lettuce is not a good beginning to salads anymore. And the excessive graded mozzarella cheese, just made it worse. The obligatory wedge of hard tasteless tomato was there, too. The only saving grace were the black olives. Sorry guys, but pass on the salads at Luigi's.

Now onto our show at E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall on the campus of nearby University of Akron.

Tonight we feasted on the music of The Beatles. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band was played in full by the Akron Symphony Orchestra, complete with three guitarists, the wildest percussionist I ever saw, and all the wonderful extra sound effects that make this album such a classic. The orchestra was added at just the right times, and never seemed intrusive. The vocals were spot on.

After intermission, the orchestra jumped into some Beatles favorites like Yellow Submarine, Hey Jude, and Twist and Shout, all of which became an audience sing-a-long. Cell phones lit up during the final long chorus of "Hey Jude" and even a few lighters were spotted in the crowd as we all sang. It was awesome, to say the least!

For seeing an orchestra, this had to be one of the best experiences I ever had. Bravo Akron Symphony Orchestra! You really brought the house down tonight!