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• Editor's Note

I love spending the summer in CU, but after months of being here since the beginning of last school year, it’s hard to resist an itch to get out of town, even for just a few days. It’s so easy to know where you’ll be hanging out for the night and where to run your errands and who to expect to see around the corner, and at some point you begin to lose perspective and begin to wonder if this town is actually where you want to be spending your summer.

This past weekend I played a set with Chicago band On Again Off Again at Bentley’s Pub. If you’ve ever been to the bar, you’ll know that it is not the most conducive space for live music, but sometimes it’s long narrow rooms and the handful of people that fill them that make for the most fun shows.

One of these people was a guy named Josh, the opening act for the evening on acoustic guitar. After his set, I got a chance to talk to him. Apparently, this was one of his first nights in Champaign, moving here just a few days earlier from Chicago. It was refreshing to hear a ripe perspective of the town during the summer season when it’s so easy for everyone else to get used to it.

Josh seemed like he never stayed in one place for too long, comparing his first impressions of our town with a list of many other places he’s lived at over the past couple years. I caught myself getting maybe too enthused, telling him the best places to play around town and where to go to see good live music, and while we’ll never be able to run into Modest Mouse or the Shins around here like Josh was able to in Portland, my conversation with him made me realize something. I do actually like where I am right now. At the same time, though, to appreciate their surroundings, maybe people need to change them up a bit to really understand where they are in relation to everything else.

While I won’t be moving around all the time like Josh has been, it is probably time to take a trip to Chicago, or maybe a daytime trip to Rantoul at least. If you’re looking for even the slightest change of scenery yourself, make sure to check out our front and center article, “Eating on the Outskirts” on page 10 in which we’ll point you towards some great places to grab some grub just outside of town.