Well, as suspected the internet access wasn't very easy to come by for the
last couple of days... sorry I'm late...
And now, for all of you who are tired of hearing about the ordinary events
which surround us, here's something weird...
We left Boulder and headed to Ft. Collins to grab some food at the local
grocery store before driving up the river to Mishawaka with the intention of
camping for the weekend, and as we got closer to town the clouds over the
mountain range grew grey... then purple... as we watched sheets of rain come
down right about where we figured we were going...
Lovely.
This is a cool thing about Colorado... you can watch weather going down from
miles away... We were scheduled for two outdoor shows on this stage literally
on the Poudre River rain or shine... and it seemed we were gonna get a whole
lot of the former.
It was bright and sunny where we were though, and we figured we'd try a
little Woodstock Thinking on the weather...
No, we didn't loot the grocery store and set fire to the parking lot.
You know...
"Maybe if we try REAL HARD... we can STOP this rain, people... "
yeah... um... right... the weather didn't think so.
By the time we had driven up the river to Mishawaka the rain was puting "cats
and dogs" to shame... but even so there were a few folks milling around
looking at the stage with mild speculation. The sound company was there and
most of the main gear was set up, covered in tarps against the blowing
rain... I met Scott the system tech and the monitor tech...
"What was your name, man?"
"Scott."
"So what's the system techs name?"
"Scott."
"You're both... Scott."
"That's correct."
"OK... This should be good: Scott? Scott? Meet Scott." I said, introducing
Mr. Larned, who just rolled his eyes at my attempt to be witty...
"Hey guys... some rain, huh?"
Did I mention the lighting tech's name was Mike? DID I???
That's three Scotts and three Mikes involved in the production of this
weekend's shows for those of you keeping score at home...
The stage was puddled up pretty good, and I knew without asking what the band
would say about playing in water... speaking of Woodstock...
So we decided to put a hold on things, get some lunch, and see if the
floating comments of "this never happens at Mishawaka" had a shred of truth.
Over lunch we decided to try and weather-proof the stage (which never came
through) and keep setting up with the intention of doing the show...
outside... like we planned...
What fun.
Beau made sense of the usual vehicular chaos and got the trailer within
reasonable distance of the stage and we waited for a break in the rain.
And waited.
More people were showing up so at the first sign of dry air we hurriedly set
up, which I found slightly humorous in that for some reason I believed that
if we got set up, it COULDN'T rain anymore...
...and it seemed like everyone at this place held the same foolish idea...
...and damn if it didn't work.
A quick check of "Rider" infront of a half-full house and the band was ready
for action.
Like the Fox shows, these were going to be "Donna" shows with Lisa finishing
her stay on the tour... and the first night was 7/7/78 from the near-by Red
Rocks Theater.
Question:
I guess it's just the period, but the songs of the last two shows turned up
over the next two nights. How did they do it night after night with the same
material?
Answer:
It's all in the jam.
Around five hundred brave hippies slogged in through the mudslides (I'm not
kidding... there are roads closed out here... Odd sign spotted often in the
canyon: "In Case Of Flash Flooding, Climb For Higher Ground"... gotta side
with today's youth on this one - "Um... Duh." is the only reaction to that
sign I can find.) for the first night and they were treated to a great show
for their troubles.
First set highlights were a rousing "Big River" which was appropriate given
the venue, John did some story telling with "Candyman" and "Tennessee Jed", a
nice "Cassidy" and later on "Passenger" showing Mike and Lisa in dramatically
different singing combinations, and Lisa ripped loose with "There's a band
out on the highway" to great crowd approval to end the set with "Music Never
Stopped"... despite a nasty buzz on Mike's and Lisa's vocal mics the night
had kicked off rather well I thought, and Scott the systems tech had chased
down the buzz rather quickly... I was impressed with how much this guy cared
after all the various schedule foul-ups from the weather...
After the break "Cold Rain & Snow" got people up and "Beat It On Down The
Line" kicked 'em in the ass to move which was just in time for "Scarlet
Begonias", featuring Lisa's free-form singing as the jam turns to "Fire on
the Mountain" and before you know it it's back to "Dancin' In The Streets", a
large woop going up for Chicago thank you very much...
It all seemed to be moving really fast...
... and then it was the drummer's turn, which was nice... it gave the crowd
(and me) a minute to breathe.
Because there wasn't much in the way of involvement from my end for "Drumz"
of this period I went to get a bottle of water from the house which we were
using for our "band room" and I ran into Lisa...
... who was crying and hysterical.
I was just a bit concerned.
"WHOA WHOA WHOA... what'sthamatterwho'shurtwhat'sgoingon????"
"Eeeeb- Aheb *sputter*"... Lisa was a complete wreck. She grabbed my hand and
led me back over to the front door of this house and I thought she was going
to show me a dead body or someone had assulted her or...
"W-W-W... W-asp... in my... hair... w-w-w...wasp..."
I followed her gaze down and in the light of the front porch I saw what had
paralized her with such fear...
There was one big hairy-lookin' wasp-like creature in her hair.
After quickly surmizing that it was indeed not a wasp I flicked it out of her
hair and ushered her inside to regain her composure... I was glad it wasn't a
body, THAT I wouldn't know what to do about...
"That wasn't a wasp," I told her, and when she was more relaxed Lisa told me
she had been stung repeatedly as a child.
No wonder she freaked out... I have the same reaction to re-runs of "Saturday
Night Live" from the 80's...
Our singer restored, I walked through the crowd back up to the muddy mix
position for the rest of the second set, featuring an incredible "Birdsong"
which reached out to jazz before re-settling to bring the show to a close.
One final note: I had a bug identical to the one in Lisa's hair sitting on my
console for the rest of the second set, comfortably crawling over the
knobs... I decided I liked it for it's preoccupation with sound equipment and
let it hang around...
The weather was so nasty it made the offer of fishing cabins up-river
attractive but it was a grudging leave... I know most of us wanted to hang
out and have a fire, talk with the brave people who were there to party with
us... but we were all cold and miserable from the day...
So we made the long winding trek around sixteen miles up the river to a
beautiful little spot where the beds weren't the newest or best but they were
DRY and that was something... most of the gear including my mics were broken
down and put back in the trailer with the rest being covered in tarps
onstage...