I like downtown Champaign. I’ve pretty much lived, or at least frequented there, ever since I moved to town a long, long-assed time ago. I’m not sure what it is, exactly. It just seems the way a downtown should be. It’s changed quite a lot. Nowadays, it sometimes seems a little too much like an amusement for my liking, but that’s progress and all that. It’s probably just as cool as it’s ever been and it’s probably not fair to judge it. It’s just that when I remember it back in 1993, I realize it can never possibly be as cool as it once was, at least to me.

It’s crowded most of the time now. Every twenty feet or so there’s another bar or restaurant and most nights the streets are crowded with people enjoying themselves and venturing from place to place. The thing is, I just don’t know most of these people anymore. That’s fine and probably preferable for those folks, but I remember a time when it was different.

Back in the day, as old people like myself often say, there just wasn’t as much around. Esquire was still on the same corner, just a little smaller than it is now. Brass Rail was pretty much the same. Radio Maria was there, also a little smaller than now. The Blind Pig was where Cowboy Monkey is now. Circles and a few other shops were around, but downtown was really just getting started then. The whole place had a really nice feeling to it.

Then, I knew just about everyone I passed on the street. In fact, I had probably been drinking the evening before with just about everyone I passed. A few of us had regular jobs, a few of us bartended, some were in bands, some worked in restaurants, and most had a combination of one or two of those occupations. No matter what we did, all of us pretty much knew each other and had fun virtually all the damned time.

It wasn’t a huge group of people, but we all became very close in the three or four years downtown Champaign was beginning to grow.

Looking back, it was the friendship I remember most. It just felt comfortable and we were happy as clams. One of the best parts about almost every night of the week was heading out to see the bands. It seemed like there were too many to count. Some people were in three or four bands at the same time. When the clock struck ten or eleven, we all chugged our last few sips of beer and headed over to Blind Pig to see the show.

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to step into the time warp and relive those days just a little bit at the 1993 Revisited show at Highdive. It was sort of like a class reunion except I actually went to this and I actually had a desire to see these people again. The music was just as good as I remembered ... um, probably better than I remembered. The songs and the faces seemed a little different than I recalled, but I could still recognize them just fine.

The evening started about 8 p.m. and it quickly became apparent that I’d probably never heard these songs with less than six beers in my system and that this wasn’t a good time to change any of that. I managed to get down a couple just before Driver Has No Cash got on the stage. It was nice to see Bob Rising’s smiling face behind a toy drum kit to begin the evening. The lovely ladies of Corndolly put a smile on everyone’s face, and Dick Justice made me make a note to myself to go home and dig up an old cassette of theirs that I have.

Moon Seven Times rocked me nine or ten times. Mother/Menthol had me smiling and singing along just like the old days. Honcho Overload were the same as always, loud and awesome. As the show came to an end and “It’s Raining Men” came over the sound system, it seemed completely right and natural that Guy Johnson did a sweaty interpretive dance before we all got sent home.

Not surprisingly, just like fifteen years ago, no one was really in the mood to go home just yet, so we went to an after hours shindig. Strangely, we didn’t need nearly as much beer to finish off the evening as we used to and I was more than content to wind down instead of speed up once three in the morning rolled around.

It finally ended about the time most of us are now used to getting up. There were a few stifled yawns as goodbye hugs were exchanged and we all slowly made our way down the stairs and out into the first nice morning of the year. A few of us got breakfast around five in the morning and it quickly became clear that such a thing still doesn’t agree with me, no matter how old I am.

It almost seemed like too much. I had a smile on my face that just wouldn’t go away and as I crawled into bed, I swear I could almost still hear the music. I’m fairly sure it was just the ringing in my ears.