Record Store Day 2012 – Minneapolis

I celebrated Record Store Day at the Electric Fetus and Fifth Element.  My bride and I started the day at the Electric Fetus.  We arrived about 8:45 AM in anticipation of doors opening at 9:00.  The Fetus was giving out numbers for the exclusive selections and we were numbers 191 and 192.  Shortly after 9:00 we were in the door to a festive atmosphere.

The Fetus had a good system to allocate the rare and special Record Store Day booty, but unfortunately it looked like it was going to be a couple hour wait before I would get my chance.  But no worry – what better place to waste a couple of hours than hanging out at the Fetus.

My bride wandered about the gift side and I wandered the music side. I found a couple of used CDs and a couple of used LPs and she found some t-shirts and gifts.  We both made a couple of new friends.  It was an amazing positive vibe.  I chatted with the dad of the band who was doing an in store appearance.  I chatted with the guys from Secret Stash Records who were DJing.

The vibe was incredibly cool.  My wife chatted with another record widow and she had an extra number and we upped ourselves to 171.  We now had a couple of extra numbers.  We chatted it up with another patron who was in the high three hundreds.  My wife gave him one of our extra numbers – his response was “I love you.”  We saved him at least an hour.  When it was finally my turn my wife found a dejected young man in the high four-hundreds.  She asked him “How much do you love me?”  He did not know how to respond and she handed him one of our numbers – he was stunned.

We walked out a couple hundred short with a bag full of t-shirts, CDs, LPs, 7 inches, and miscellaneous freebies.

Our next stop was Fifth Element with our guests the whysowhite band.  We got to hear MaLLy spit.  We walked out another hundred short.  Another great vibe.

So how cool is it that young and old gather together to celebrate the joy of music and celebrate the great institution of the independent record store?  We met great people, we bought rare vinyl, made new friends and we heard great live music.

The download has not killed off the joy of retail.