Losing a Piano Duel

Location: Fort Collins, CO
July 31, 2010
Adventure #26

At 11pm, I tiptoed up the steps, avoiding their creaky joints so I could silently reach the kitchen. In the dark, I riffled through my mom's embroidered purse to find her car keys and her wallet - from which I swiped $10. Next, I skulked down the stairs, escaped through my front door and was off in my parents' red Corolla to meet my friends at a bar.

Sneaking through the house this week and trying not to wake my parents was a major flashback to my teenage years, and while I never stole my parents' money or keys, I mastered the art of dodging any tattletale noises when I occasionally returned at an hour at which Cinderella would have been a pumpkin. (Disclaimer to my parents: there is no actual proof I ever broke curfew, and the statute of limitations for punishment has long since passed.)

This particular night, I was escaping to meet two girls at Fort Collins' new venue - the Times Square Dueling Piano Bar. It recently opened at a spot where many fine restaurants have come to die - even Hooters' business grew saggy there. Since it's not downtown and is between strip malls and a hardware store, it has to be a determined destination and not somewhere bar hoppers can stumble upon. On Saturday, it was evident the crowd had been fixated there for awhile and had refiled their glasses multiple times, because when we sober gals walked in at 11, it was as if we entered a friend's party that had been raging for hours and everyone was just merely minutes from crashing. Anyhow, we tried to join in the fun and snagged a table in the back.

On stage, there are two pianos facing each other, with a drum set in between. The instruments are manned by two pianists who take requests from the audience and play songs from their enormous memorized repertoire of pop songs. Boulder has a similar bar which I loved during college, so it was nice to find one so close to my parents' home. After playing a rousing set of every song that appeared in Glee this season, as well as Beatles, Queen and too much Journey, the pianists took a break. To fill the silence, an awkward set of hip hop music was blasted, and the audience was expected to start a dance party, and we just weren't feeling it. Instead, we enjoyed being wallflowers who watched the early birds sweat out their vices. By 1am, we, along with half of the other stumbling bar patrons, made our exit. It's certainly a place I'll return to, but not without a head start on the crowd and an exuberant posse.