5 days in salt lake city

hello! i recently returned from my first trip to utah, and what a strange place it was. granted, i went for the kilby block party music festival, so i didn't get a ton of time to explore beyond that, but gleni — my travel companion — and i joked that the "L" and "C" in SLC stood for "lies" and "construction." sooo much construction. a handful of lies. but anyway, the festival! the lineup was my dream and basically 75% of my spotify library, so it was kind of a no-brainer to go. and while we were skeptical about making it through all three days of music, people, and bathroom lines in our late-ish 30s without dying, we did it! we did it, man.

DAY 1: 

gleni and i were fortunately able to book flights that got in within a half hour of each other, so we lyfted to our airbnb south of downtown in what's unofficially known as the "maven district." 

we stayed in a cozy 1918 bungalow that was ideal for our purposes, with an adorable front porch we enjoyed coffee on during the first morning, a big-ass kitchen, and an electric fireplace that came in very handy when we were drowned rats (more on that later.)

but speaking of coffee — that was obviously our first priority at 3pm if we were to stay awake to make it to our 8:30 dinner reservation. we strolled down to publik coffee roasters to caffeinate and grab a snack. i got a cherry chocolate scone and an iced brown butter caramel latte, both delicious!

next up was the legendary randy's records, which has been in business since 1978. i was pleased to see a ton of youths there, but the records were pretty overpriced so we didn't end up getting anything. 

we also popped into some cute boutiques, land of salt and mineral and matter, and i bought a rollerball perfume at the former (SHOCKING, i know, and my collection is officially out of control) that's called "sunrise" and is going to be my summer fragrance, i think. the area in general was very artsy and cute, with a bunch of murals:

we grabbed a pre-dinner drink at purgatory bar, which had a big outdoor patio area and a cool vibe. 

for dinner, we'd decided prior to the trip that since we were going to be relegated to shitty festival food for three days, we might as well go all out with a seven-course tasting menu on the first night. table x was sleek and minimal in terms of decor, but all of the food (and that VIEW!) was incredible. sidenote: it's so wild that SLC is just like, surrounded by mountains. we pointed into the distance 10,000 times a day and went "MOUNTAIN." it looked like a freakin' green screen!

here are some of the things we ate:

intermountain gourmet mushrooms 

baja striped bass

handmade torchietto pasta with chile sausage, chicories, and pecorino

niman ranch bavette steak

buttermilk custard

DAY 2:

we fueled up for our first festival day at park cafe, a no-frills breakfast and lunch spot where we lucked out getting a table right away. i had a combo called "french toast foolishness," with scrambled eggs and bacon and home fries, which was very on brand for me, and it was so good. the french toast was not foolish but it WAS fluffy AF. five stars.

it wasn't until we were in a lyft on the way to the festival that we realized past us had gotten VIP tickets, which entitled us to special bathrooms, a lounge area (below), and a designated food truck court. truly worth it for the bathrooms alone so good job, past selves!

overall, the festival was well-organized and had really good energy with minimally annoying people and we saw about 20 artists overall! highlights of the first day:

remi wolf: i didn't know any of her music, but she had such a great voice, sense of humor, and stage presence! she brought dominic fike (see below) onstage for a song they did together and we were like, "who's this dude? he's great!" and decided to check out his set.

dominic fike: i guess i've been under a rock because i've since learned this guy is massive with the kids and was on euphoria and all that jazz, but i swear i'd never heard his name until i saw people raving about his coachella set a few weeks ago but didn't look too far into it. i get it now!! his energy and voice were phenomenal, and even when i went to listen to his stuff the next day on spotify, a bunch of the songs didn't hit the same as they did live. love love loved him. highly recommend his song "3 nights" which went right onto my forthcoming summer playlist.

yeah yeah yeahs: not much to say except amazing, incredible, iconic. karen o. is a fucking goddess, yo. spot on and the perfect way to close out the first night. i may or may not have shed a tear during "maps," because it is basically the elder millennial national anthem.

DAY 3:

brunch was at picnic cafe (not to be confused with park cafe from yesterday). we both ordered the lox bagel sandwich, and not that i was expecting it to be bad, but it was so much better than i anticipated. i also ordered a vietnamese iced coffee that came with some sort of cream float on top.

once we arrived at the festival, we watched this ridiculous local band, the moss, and laughed at the lead singer's antics. then we checked out wallice, a singer-songwriter who we both really enjoyed. 

goth babe's set was next, and he was entertaining, though the music was very h&m/forever 21-core. he had a girl from the audience volunteer to crowd surf on a watermelon pool float and it was a sight to see, but also had me scared to death for her. #old

as we were taking a food break, the sky opened up, so we sought shelter with our $25 korean rice bowls under a covered seating area with three younger girls and a 40-something mom whose daughter was camping out in the rain for indigo de souza. the conversation was very fun given our three generational differences and one of those memorable festival moments.

the rain cleared up after a bit and the music resumed with a great set by indigo, one of my favorite newer artists. 

and while music venues have yet to hear my plea to serve coffee, the festival had a coffee truck!! i was so excited. it was a bit chilly so a hazelnut latte with oat milk was hitting the spot, baby.

it started pouring again a half hour before the strokes went on and i was like "AW HELL NAW." after having my hopes dashed on my birthday last year when one of them contracted COVID and they dropped out of boston calling, i saw this festival set as a redemption arc of sorts, and the weather was not about to kill my vibe.

i am always woefully unprepared in these kinds of situations, but gleni came to my rescue by breaking into a storage cabinet in the VIP bathroom and stealing a huge garbage bag, from which i fashioned a makeshift poncho, because i was not going to miss the strokes again, dammit! fortunately, the weather cleared up right before they went on and stayed dry the whole way through, save for two minutes at the end of the set during "someday" when i donned my poncho "hood" and everyone was singing and it was all very magical and cute.

while their festival sets have gotten mixed reviews in recent years, gleni and i both agreed that this one was amazing. julian sounded great, the band seemed like they were having a blast, and the vibes were immaculate. jules took the stage by saying "GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM" and had a running joke for some reason about blowing nikolai?? and was like "DON'T TRUST THAT MAN!" it was hilarious. nick valensi still looked like homeless jesus, which is always a plus. i was also three for three in terms of hearing my favorite strokes song, barely legal! #blessed. my heart was so full and i'm so grateful i got to see them for a third time.

DAY 4: 

we had our hearts set on this breakfast taco place, la barba, that was supposed to be open, but was...not. and had no explanation for why? sooo we walked down to beans and brews, which seemed basically like the SLC equivalent of dunkin' donuts and got cold brews and breakfast tacos. they were fiiiine.

as i mentioned before, this festival was basically my dream lineup, and i even loved the undercard. so while we were trying to pace ourselves throughout the three days, i tended to want to be there pretty early to see some of my favorites. deeper was one of them, whose synthy post punk i've been digging for the past handful of years.

the rest of the afternoon included great sets from mannequin pussy, wednesday, the walkmen, and a break in there for some strawberry cheesecake ice cream and posing in front of the fun photo op stuff. 

after grabbing some dinner, we got more iced coffee and went to check out surf curse on our way to the pixies as the sky gradually became slightly ominous. my cell service shit the bed at like 3pm every day because of the crowds, so i was relying on gleni to keep me posted on the forecast, and it did not look promising! 

a few songs into the pixies' set, it started to rain and we broke out of the crowd to stand under a big metal tent structure so we could still watch from afar. that was great and actually kind of entertaining (because the sky was very pretty) until huge bolts of lightning started, the pixies stepped offstage without a word, the side-stage screens displayed "SEEK SHELTER UNTIL WEATHER PASSES," and everyone and their mothers began joining us. 

we soon became pretty freaked out and felt quite unsafe standing under a completely metal shelter as the lightning seemed to be like, a foot away from us, so we decided to make a run for it since we figured there was no way pavement was going to play. god bless the other festivalgoers who were committed to #content that captured the madness, but just picture thousands of people running as thunder and lightning struck all around and torrential rain pelted them.

we ubered back to our airbnb and proceeded to have the coziest night everrrr once we got into our pajamas: we ordered not-great pizza, made coffee and tea, turned on our electric fireplace, and watched this terrible movie on netflix called senior year. 

we were so happy to be alive and dry and not dodging lightning bolts that we didn't even care that pavement did end up playing like an hour after they were supposed to. i guess i'm just not meant to see them, man. oh well! the festival did release this amazing limited-edition t-shirt that gleni and i immediately bought the other day because it's the perfect souvenir:

DAY 5:

we needed a day to unwind and decompress before flying home, so a leisurely brunch was in order. we headed up to emigration canyon to ruth's diner, which is in a converted trolley car. the outdoor patio area was hidden away and so pretty, with the soothing sounds of a waterfall in the background as we ate our salmon hash and banana french toast.

then it was onto downtown salt lake, which was kind of boring, tbh? we popped into the mormon tabernacle... 

did a #mallwalk of city creek center (which was gorg)...

and then picked up some cold brews at this adorable little cafe called eva's bakery and sat outside and drank them:

we figured 4pm was a good time to start drinking — and the bar next door, the ruin, was open — so we snagged two seats and it was delightful. we each got the same cocktails (the "thunder from down underberg" with patron, underberg bitters, grand marnier, lime, and sugar and the "cherry blossom" with tito's, hibiscus rose berry tea, lemon coconut, orgeat, and sugar) and they were both AMAZING. the bartender was so fun, too. and then one of the baristas from eva's came in to get a shot because they had a bad day, and we bought them a drink, and they gave us free pastries they were going to take home with them. i love people!

after eating like garbage for the past four days, i got back on track for dinner at laziz kitchen, where i had a salad plate with grilled chicken that seemed healthy but was surprisingly delicious.

on our way home, we stopped into normal ice cream and got ice cream sandwiches that we ate on the couch later while watching the new season of queer eye. a perfectly low-key ending to a tiring-but-fun music festival weekend!

emo-ing in the desert: when we were young fest weekend recap

whew, what a journey! from the moment the inaugural when we were young festival was announced last january, my friend tati and i — who hadn't seen each other in 12 years(!) immediately hatched a plan to reunite and go together. you see, we lived together in a suite with five other girls in prime, peak emo time (2005) and bonded strongly over many of the bands who were playing. she and i had been talking about meeting up in vegas anyway since i love it there and she lives in idaho, so this gave us the perfect excuse.  i somehow, against all odds, snagged tickets during the presale, and we were giddy with excitement as the weekend drew closer. you know what they say about best laid plans...but despite being faced with quite a major challenge, we emerged victorious against all odds! 

DAY 1:

i was having a great time identifying the other elder emos at my airport gate, and both of the other people in my row on my flight were going to WWWY — which i surmised before even before talking to either of them from one of their two-toned, black-and-fire-engine-red hair and piercings. i was all like, "i don't look the part much any more because i'm old, but it's still in my heart."

the weather was absolutely gorgeous when i arrived in vegas, so i set my sights on the whimsical terrace pointe cafe at the wynn, which had a cutie pie patio overlooking the pool. i got a strawberry lemonade mocktail to pace myself and a hot smoked salmon burger (apple-smoked salmon, pickles, olives, onion and caper crème fraîche, frisée, cilantro, and watercress on an everything challah bun) and life was good. realizing i forgot to take a picture of the burger but it was so good!

healthy eating and drinking went out the window very quickly, and after lunch, i grabbed an iced cookie butter latte at the coffee bean and tea leaf because we don't have them in boston.

since, as i've mentioned, i've been to vegas a bunch so i've generally seen and done most of the stuff on the strip and was kinda gross from flying, i relished a little time to shower and chill in our hotel room and watch halloweentown II until tati showed up a few hours later.

we'd made dinner reservations at LAVO, a sleek and chic italian place in the venetian hotel where the ambiance was perfectly sultry for our first evening in vegas. i bullied tati into ordering a one-pound meatball appetizer that she rushed to give the waiter permission to cut into before we could properly document it...so here it is, a beautiful pound of splayed-open meat. worth it, though. she got a pasta dish and i got a very large chicken parm and everything was fabulous.

we ended the evening around the corner at the electra cocktail club, which was very dark and had very loud music, but was overall cool and surprisingly empty for a thursday night. tati went with a sazerac and i ordered the "western sour" from the cocktail menu (old forester bourbon, lime, grapefruit, and housemade velvet falernum). 

DAY 2

during our trip, tati and i fell into a funny little routine since she's a night owl and i'm very much a morning person: every night, after i went to bed, she'd go on a little adventure to the 24-hour CVS in our hotel to buy random shit. and every morning, while she was still sleeping and i was up and ready to rock, i'd go to the starbucks right next to our hotel to get coffee. i'm pretty sure we did this routine every single day (except for sunday, when i realized there was a dunkin' not too much farther away). cracked me up.

anyway, we had to fuel up for a pretty packed afternoon of plans, so we grabbed brunch at jardin at the wynn. we ate on the dreamy little patio next to their garden and pool, and had the funniest/strangest waiter. at one point, he leaned in and whispered to tati "I LIKE YOUR STYLE" apropos of nothing, gave me an unsolicited iced tea to go when we got the check (?), and was just generally a character. i ate this amazing hickory ham and cheddar omelet and got a croissant as my side. i was expecting, ya know, a normal little croissant. this thing was massive!!! jam jar for scale. 

we walked off our brunch by strolling down to the bellagio botanical gardens. i'd been before, but for some reason i didn't realize they completely change it to match each season? lots and lots of huge-ass pumpkins, cornucopias, and generally fall af shit.

then it was onto meow wolf, which is located in this really cool complex off the strip called AREA15. there's a main building with various shops, cafes, and bars.

it's funny; back when i went to st. petersburg, florida in february, we went to this museum called fairgrounds st. pete, and i didn't realize that it was basically a smaller version of meow wolf. this made meow wolf very very slightly less cool, but it was still super fun! especially loved the decoy supermarket in the front that had hidden tunnels to the rest of the museum.

then we had mocktails at this dope bar with an illuminated tree:

and had some barbeque at the in-house restaurant, the beast by todd english.

then it was on to lost spirits distillery, which was probably the coolest thing i've ever done in vegas and one of the coolest things i've ever done anywhere! it's a bit hard to explain, but it has been called "the willy wonka of booze" and i'd say that's a pretty accurate assessment. willy wonka & the chocolate factory is one of both tati's and my favorite movies, so we both naturally loved this. basically, you enter this very moody, vibey building and are given a rum sample in a glass. then, you walk around and into all of these rooms with different, rotating entertainers like snake charmers, acrobats, pole dancers, mentalists, and aerialists as you seek out three more rum samples. it's like a cirque show and alcohol scavenger hunt in one! there were also plenty of places to sit and chill and drink throughout, along with a live jazz band. dug it all so much!

DAY 3:

saturday...oh, saturday. you held such promise. so, when i took my morning walk to starbucks and was waiting outside in the line because it was so long, a few gusts of wind hit me and i was like "huh. it's kinda windy! hmm. ha. wow, wind! ha. it's fine. it's...fine." and indeed, as we would soon find out, it was very not fine. i was all dressed and ready to go in my cute festival outfit and hat, tati was doing her makeup in the bathroom, and i happened to open instagram to see THIS:

i literally barged into the bathroom on poor tati without knocking, screaming "you've gotta be fucking kidding me" because more than being pissed, i was in SHOCK. we were about 10 minutes away from leaving our hotel! suddenly, this festival that had provoked so much skepticism and doubt was certainly seeming to be too good to be true. but, from the start, we had been like, "at least we'll be together in vegas if it all goes to shit!" granted, i did expect we would actually make it to the festival before that happened, but still. so that attitude, along with my general repeated disappointment with various events in the past few years made it pretty easy to pivot and be like "ok. we're fortunately not flying home until monday, so let's try to get tickets for tomorrow. and in the meantime, let's go eat and drink. we good." honestly, i feel like my friends who were DMing and texting and tweeting me were more upset than i was at the time! haha.

we headed to fremont street and ended up at a place very creatively called eat. but the food was so delicious! also...and i am DEFINITELY only saying this because we eventually got tickets for sunday, the festival cancellation created a very memorable, interesting, and kind of exciting dynamic in vegas that day. like, we started chatting with the girls next to us, who were also victims of The Great WWWYF Depression but had managed to already secure tickets for sunday through a friend. but the sea of dejected emos in the casinos, on the strip, and in every restaurant and bar were surely a sight to see and one that i won't soon forget. the NY times did a great piece on it that i just saw this morning, actually!

many of the bands who were set to play, like hawthorne heights, armor for sleep, and all-american rejects, quickly announced pop-up shows at local restaurants and hotels. we decided against trying to compete with 80,000 other bored would-be festivalgoers to hit up any of them, and instead went to drink tequila at this very cute, small cocktail bar called lucky day. funny moment: tati taking this photo of me, showing it to me, and me not recognizing myself or that it was the bar we were in for some reason? "wow, that's such a cool photo! who is that?" "it's you, just now, dummy!" hahahaha. and we hadn't even gotten our drinks yet!

and soon, when we moved on to the smashed pig for another drink, it WAS our lucky day, as i finally got through the sea of stubhub searchers to get us tickets for the festival. it was all turning around! the only hitch: we originally planned to see magic mike on sunday night instead of saturday, so as we sat and drank our cute cocktails, tati called the sahara to switch 'em and it all worked out.

i have to say that the biggest disappointment of the day — even bigger than the festival cancellation! — was the peppermill. it's widely regarded as a storied vegas staple, and i had somehow never been, so we tried in vain to snag counter seats like 45 minutes before we had to be at magic mike because it was like an hour wait for a table. despite the fact that we could see several open seats at the counter, the hostess said it would be a short wait. ok, no problem.

as we sat in the waiting area, we realized the vibes were very chaotic and depressing, and it honestly felt like a glorified denny's. children were screaming, this guy next to us was being super animated and extra in an extremely obnoxious way, and we were growing more impatient by the second as 5 minutes turned into 10...and then into 20. i went to check with the hostess to make sure i didn't miss my name, and she's like "oh, you're up next!" ok. 10 MORE minutes go by, and nothing. meanwhile, there were at least 6 counter seats open! i could see them!

like, what was happening? it was just strange and silly and we couldn't afford to wait any longer, so we booked it to the sahara and found this little counter place called prendi that had huge, surprisingly good and doughy pizza slices and scarfed them down in 10 minutes.

neither tati nor i are into male strippers, but we love us some magic mike. the movies are cinematic treasures (namely, the final dance scene in XXL, mah LAWD) and the show ended up being actually quite feminist — as feminist as a male revue can be, anyway. there was a female emcee and it was very empowering and fun. that being said, you can bet your ass i was out of my seat singing to ginuwine's "pony" for the finale and enjoying the hell out of watching chiseled himbos writhe on stage to it.

since it was only 10pm, we wanted to get a nightcap somewhere and my trusty phone informed me that another cocktail bar in the venetian, rosina, had a great menu of classic cocktails — and when i saw that they made their whiskey sour with egg white, i knew it was a good bar. we snagged the two open seats at the bar and omg, guys, what a hidden gem. the two bartenders were so friendly and funny, the art deco decor was gorgeous, and it felt so small and intimate that you would hardly believe it was right next to the loud and crazy casino floor. and of course, the drinks were fabulous. can't recommend this place enough for a drink if you're in vegas. along with the festival and the distillery, it was a highlight of the trip!

a lil' drunk and in a silly goofy mood, we came back to the room and i pulled my cold chicken parm out of the mini fridge and got into bed and ate it like a pop tart because the plastic cutlery was no match for that frigid lil' filet. it tasted amazing and tati was laughing hysterically at me and then i started laughing at myself and it was just a great time.

DAY 4:

amazingly, incredibly, surprisingly....sunday's festival went off without a hitch and was everything we dreamed of and more. basically just a huge, fun, good-vibe singalong that was chill because we're all old now. all in all we saw 13 bands:

-hawthorne heights

-story of the year

-armor for sleep

-pierce the veil

-the used

-AFI

-jimmy eat world

-taking back sunday

-the all-american rejects

-sleeping with sirens

-bring me the horizon

-paramore

-my chemical romance

not too shabby! i was also so impressed by the bathroom and water situations. they had, like, actual bathrooms that were clean on the festival grounds and the lines moved fast! and while i was waiting for water in the alcohol line, some guy was coming through with a cart of water and gatorade for sale to speed things along. the food was good, too — i had a smashburger and pork dumplings. 

overall, an excellent little trip down memory lane. vegas magic delivered, as always!