The next day we all showed up at the club sort of early to get some things
straightened out... the guys wanted to work on the monitors, I wanted to work
out the kinks in my mix, and Pete had a meeting set up with the house LD
after spending his afternoon on the phone with the company that makes the
controller for the lights in this particular venue... he also figured out the
fogger... sort of... I'll get to that.
When we arrived I walked into the club and there was an odd sign on the
door... something about a "Class Of '79 Reunion"...
Uh Oh.
Turns out the local high school was having their twenty year get-together,
and the party was "advanced in the hours"...
... in other words, everyone was piss-drunk. It was, to quote Alex from 'A
Clockwork Orange', "a real Horror-Show, me brothers..."
The guys were all standing around talking about their glory days "on the
field" and snapping each other's jocks, the women were all screaming in that
shrill "cheerleader" way, like nails over a chalkboard... I wanted to duck &
cover like a kid in a 50's propaganda film...
Pete met me and informed me that he had been told we couldn't work on our
respective systems due to this bunch of loaded nostalgia seekers...
To quote Bill Bixby from the Incredible Hulk TV show... "Don't make me angry,
you wouldn't LIKE me when I'm angry."
Hunting down one of the managers for the place, I inquired as to the nature
of the gathering and why, pray-tell, it was happening in the venue an hour or
so before doors were to open... it went something like this:
"Just what the Hell is going on around here??? We need to get in there and
get some things done before showtime AND I'M BEING TOLD NO???"
I was in the mood to kick a little ass... my dinner was awful and "Free Willy
3" was on HBO for like, the ump-teenth time that afternoon... it was all too
much.
The manager proceeded to "check on it real quick" and ended up telling me we
could do whatever we wanted WHENEVER we wanted, and that the reunion had been
moved inside due to threatening clouds "we'rerealsorrymanisthatOK?" and it
was OUR show and...
... and I had completely lost my appetite between this guy and the meal...
Woof.
I cooled off and handed him the piece of his ass I had bitten off... Then I
suggested to Pete that he work with the fogger a bit...
Just kidding.
But Pete DID manage to pick the house guy's brain on the subject and get
control over it so that it slowly dumped instead of bug-bombing the stage...
again, sort of...
He set it running just before the beginning of the first set and we got into
a conversation about what he had learned about the light controller and the
various changes in the programming he had managed to make and so everything
would go much smoother tonight... the conversation went on for a bit and we
both weren't paying any attention until we heard some minor protests coming
from the floor and we looked up...
The room was FILLED with fog... the machine had just kept going and going
while we both ran at the mouth... people were hacking and coughing and the
house crew came up the ladder to find out if the button was stuck or WHAT...
"Man, I hope this shit don't set the fire alarms off."
"But are they set off by heat or particulate matter in the air?" I asked.
"Particulate matter."
"Got a cover for the board, m'man?"
I went over and levered a big window open... the fake smoke of the fogger
spouted out into the breeze like the air over Grant Park in '68 and
eventually the air cleared, but the band looked VERY confused as to the state
of the room when they came on... I remember John in particular looking like
he wondered if his glasses needed cleaning...
The second night went much better, mix-wise... as a result I was able to
relax a bit and get more creative with it, as well as being able to go down
on the floor for extended periods of time to just plain enjoy the band at
work.
The show was 6/23/90 from Autzen Stadium in Eugene (again, ain't we clever
wit' our picks? Huh?)... about twice the amount of people showed up for the
show, around five hundred or so, and they got the goods for sure.
The "Stranger" opener was great right out of the box, "Cumberland" kicked ass
with long noodling jams, "Far From Me" was disjointed and therefor fun for
everyone NOT onstage... "They Love each Other" got a great reaction as John
fired up the opening lick, and "Tennessee Jed" was the pinnacle of the first
set with the crowd singing along on the chorus...
After the break it was all jams, with "Eyes", the end of "Crazy Fingers",
"Playin" and "UJB>Playin" offering tons of room for improvisation before
"Drumz"... these are my favorite types of nights with the DSO, where they
stretch out and stop time with a simple gesture... "Miracle" shot the Duck
out of the sky momentarily (the new drummers gotta work on this one) but
again, all is forgiven with a beautiful "Morning Dew"...
All told the second night was great, and we bid the folks of Eugene good
night with "Liberty"... It was on to Seattle for our final show on the West
Coast before heading back east!
COMING SOON: "What I Like About You"??? We Get Bumped, We Get Moved, The
Commander, "Have A T-Shirt", and The Salt Lake Highway Freakout...
Y'all come back now... y'hear?