The atmosphere shifted from mighty metropolitan to industrious seaside as easily as a train gliding past squat, rail-side houses. A vintage blue and white welcome sign overhangs the concrete platform declaring my arrival to Asbury Park, New Jersey. Stepping into relief-filled droplets of cool, post-rain air, I silently thank the umpteen transit officials and good samaritans who’d conducted me through today’s overture in passenger trains.  

Penn Station was the most intimidating site I’d visited in my whole four days in New York City. Google Maps had not prepared me for an airport-rivaling underground trainport! Would-be voyagers swarmed an encircling concourse of shops, restaurants, and seemingly infinite tracks. I’m a strong independent traveler! However, the kindness of strangers is the only reason I’d arrived at this mythical destination of Jersey. Despite rumors of licentious Snookies roaming the infamous shores, there was a rural familiarity in the chain-link fence, gravel parking lot, and unobstructed sky I felt attuned to. I wasn’t in NYC anymore.

Asbury Park is off-beat, self-possessed, and well accustomed to tourists. The route to the shore is denoted by strategic blue signs that direct debarking pilgrims up the funky shop-lined Cookman Avenue before heading out to the full-scale beach. There, the carousel and casino buildings’ copper-green carapaces loom in historical majesty over the weathered but congenial boardwalk.

These landmarks intone Asbury Park’s steadfastness through an operatic century-or-so of turmoil and transformation. Tillie-the-town-mascot’s wide, unfaltering grin bespeaks the town’s rejuvenation and the sacrifices it took to get there. I had a glimpse into coastal town based horror novels and wasn’t mad about it. 

Like the reverberating gallop of a stone pony, the locale thrums with a history of resonant residents. Unequivocally designated “the music town”, it has the most music venues per capita in the United States. I haven’t validated that, but it would explain why beachgoers packed the boardwalk restaurants instead of refraining from the overcast weather. Band stickers and assorted graffiti adorn most crosswalks, post boxes, and any other suitable surfaces. And while people rarely burst spontaneously into song on the street, more powerful melodies may permeate closed doors to meet you on the sidewalk. Music is in the town’s hip bones and elbows. No wonder this joint is where artists choose to apply their little drop of dream oil. 

The House of Independents struck a chord with the three ensembles gracing the venue that evening. By their own power, the artists orchestrated their destinies, overcame obstacles, pedaled, and pandered to bring music to those it resonates with. Each patron arranged to wind up here at this time and place. The artists and audience grew together in a symbiotic symphony of rallying dynamism. Our time vines tangled inextricably into a knot of shared experience. We offered it to the dream dragon’s ever unsated maw and marveled as it gorged.