Let us delve back into the friendship of Kelly and Jakkie, long long ago….
OK not THAT long ago (that’s us celebrating our college graduation on a boat in Philadelphia). But a few years later, for who knows what reason, Jakkie & I ended up at a piano bar in Philly with some friends. You drop a dollar in a bucket on the piano with a request, and the pianist will play it if he knows it. I have to admit my memories of the night are mostly focused on the bar’s berry-flavored martini special, and not so much on the pianist’s antics, but I do recall that it was a pretty good time.
Jakkie on the other hand, LOVED it. And went back several times. And found other piano bars to go to that she also loved. Including one with dueling pianos.
So I thought it might be fun to hit up Jellyroll’s when we were in WDW, if we had time. I mentioned to her that there was a dueling piano bar. And from that day forward, whenever we talked about our itinerary for the trip, she would always say “I don’t care what we do, I know you will come up with a good plan, I want to let you plan everything and I’ll just follow you.”
Pause.
“But we’re going to that piano bar, right?”
So after our adventure at the Magic Kingdom, we went back to Wilderness Lodge, showered and changed, and headed….back to the Magic Kingdom. But instead of going in, we walked over to the Boardwalk bus stop.
Soon we were there – I was excited, I had only been to the Boardwalk once about 6 years ago, and then only briefly. I took some pics of the lobby
(Look LL: light fixtures!)
It wasn’t too late yet, so we strolled around the Boardwalk for a bit. OK, all we really did was make a beeline for this:
Then we walked over to Jellyrolls. I had read that this place can get busy and you should get there by 8pm to get a seat. I think we got there around 9, but when we walked in it was almost empty. Only a few tables had people sitting at them. We claimed one near-ish the front and then headed for the bar. Their special was something that was 32 ounces and blue – that is all I needed to hear.
Jakkie decided to be a boring Philadelphian and get our local beer, Yeungling
We sat down and there were two guys at the pianos, but after just a couple songs they swapped with two other pianists, who I loved. (I’m sorry I don’t remember any of their names!) Also my pictures here came out pretty lousy.
I thought the guy on the right was supercute! After downing about half my drink I became brave enough to sneak up to his piano and drop a song request in front of him. He said something like “Hi there” and I giggled and slunk back to my seat. I’m classy.
He looked at my request and frowned, then said “I think I’m going to leave this for the next guy, he does a better version of it than I do.” I was bummed but said OK. But for whatever reason he changed his mind, and a few minutes later started playing my request, Elton John’s “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues.” I loooove this song.
Check it out if you don’t know it already.
He then went on to sing the Free Credit Report theme song. I love this guy. Some other highlights from their set – “Come on Eileen,” “Better Man,” “Margaritaville,” and “Take Me Home Tonight.” In my tipsy state, I was already plotting how we could come back to Jellyrolls every night for the rest of the trip.
Then they switched with two other guys. One of whom was apparently so unimpressive that I didn’t take his picture, and this other guy, my nemesis.
With the help of about a dozen slips of paper, we went on to have a battle of song selection with this guy. It probably did not help that I had finished my drink by now and moved on to a second. This dude got on our bad side by mocking our first request…which is Jakkie & my SONG…that we request anytime we go anywhere that takes any sort of song request.
“Under Pressure” by Bowie and Queen.
They played a wacky mix of songs that other people requested – “Under the Bridge,” “Jessie’s Girl,” “Fight for your Right to Party.” He kept complaining that there were too many 80’s and 90’s music requests. Finally I wrote him a note with about 10 different song requests on it, along with the sentiment “SORRY FOR ALL OF THE 80’S AND 90’S MUSIC, I’M 26! DO YOU KNOW ANY WEEZER?” He did play Weezer’s “The Sweater Song” (belligerently, mind you) and “Sweet Caroline” (which I threw in there because it certainly was not 80’s or 90’s), only I was saddened when during the “Bop bop baaaa” part of the song he insisted on singing “This song sucks”. Hpmh!
In the end our favorite guys from the beginning of the night came back and they all sang a few songs together.
The bar wasn’t quite closed yet but we were getting tired and we had a loonnng ride ahead of us. We hopped on the DTD bus, then waited approximately 10 years for the WL bus, finally making it back to the room around 1 AM. I ate some oatmeal and chips and we crashed!
Coming up: getting drenched and eating ducks at Animal Kingdom!
the fabulous Jellyrolls!
that's great!
