The crowded-ass Pierogi Fest in Whiting on Saturday night. Ran out of Lite beer. Maybe that’s a good thing. Sweaty bods all up on  ya. Maybe that’s a good thing.

The Long Walk

If you enter Pierogi Fest at its main entrance on 119th and Indianapolis and your first and main goal is the beer garden prepare for a death march. I think it took 45 minutes to get there while weaving through a crowded mass of bodies, strollers, Polish sausages.

The beer garden system there is in a little disarray. First you wait in a long line (and this of course depends on the time but it’s usually a mess when evening calls) to get your ticket. Then it’s another long walk to where they’re serving the cups (one size – I believe it was 16 ounce) of beer. And another long line. They need to streamline this. Move it along. Beers were $3 each and at 10:30 p.m. the Lite beer was gone. No problem, the other selection, which may have been genuine draft or something of that sort (it’s a beer garden. Who really cares what’s to drink in there as long as it has alcohol).

As far as the fest itself, one of the music highlights was a band called How Happy and their choice in tunes which included “Pale Shelter” by Tears for Fears (not something you’ll hear often), “Lips Like Sugar” by Echo and the Bunnymen and “Just Like Heaven” by the Cure.

If polka music is your thing, well, you had plenty of that.

And as far as that How Happy band, I tried to find their website but couldn’t. If one even exists.

There also seemed to be a few non-Polish but ethnic gals who dressed like Talia Al Ghul.