PART 1:
Rock 'N' Roll.
We're going to get a LOT of it... between the band, the bus, and Garton's...
a LOT of it, I tell ya...
Scott arrived at my place around 11am in the The Touring Vessel, Nej in
tow... Beau had called with news that our illustrious Lighting Designer Bryan
was stranded downtown at Union Station... his train from St. Louis had gotten
in on time but there were no connecting trains out to Beau's...
... at least not for awhile.
So once we had all of my stuff loaded we headed for the train station, and
after momentary confusion we collected Bryan.
This was going to be a different ride out west... being as we were going
through the mountains it was decided that instead of the Touring Vessel and
trailer we would splurge a bit and get our first tour bus for the week... it
made more sense being able to store all of our gear on a larger,
better-weighted vehicle than the possibility of jack-knifing our rig... Beau
is good, but nature is better sometimes.
When we got to Beau's, there it was... a big maroon titan idling quietly in
the long driveway back from the road... and we all let out a woop of
anticipation...
The fifteen passenger van we travel in the rest of the year is really nice,
don't get me wrong... it beats all of us showing up in our various cars and
unloading our trunks or back seats... and it promotes togetherness... the
cramped quarters of the Touring Vessel put Dino and Rob into the DSO pressure
cooker and converted them to the rhythmic diamonds they are today in one
short tour...
But when I walked up those steps and looked at the two couches down the sides
of the bus, a table for four with a 25" TV, VCR, dual cassette deck, and CD
followed by a kitchen with refrigerator, freezer, ice box, microwave, a
bathroom, partitioned-off bunks for twelve with curtains and lights, and a
rear lounge with a 27" TV, VCR, satellite system, CD and two couches...
Have you ever seen the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and Elaine are flying
home from somewhere and there are two tickets, one for first class and one
for coach?
Jerry takes the first class ticket, and when Elaine acts incredulous he asks
her:
"Have you ever flown first class? I have. I can't go back to coach... I
WON'T."
That's pretty much the band consensus here. The bus is the way to go... and
this isn't even one of the GOOD ones, we're informed by Dave our driver...
When we pulled up in front of the bus, we could see Dave sitting in the
driver's seat... he DIDN'T look pleased... about WHAT, who knew? But he sort
of had this cold look about him... when I finally got the guts to introduce
myself, he turned to me and gave me a big smile, knocking aside all my fears
that we were going to have a grouch on the road with us...
That would have sucked.
He told me that he had just flown in from Florida for this assignment (Note
To Self: OK it all comes together now - I'd have a pissed expression if I had
been dragged out of Florida sun to overcast and snow-ridden Chicago) and
aside from the cold, he was looking forward to having us aboard... once
everything was loaded up he opened his briefcase and showed us a crew
laminate from one of the Dead's tours in 1992... he was a driver for the crew.
This was getting better and better all the time...
Dave has been driving coach for this business quite awhile, and has so far
told us stories (none of them what you'd call "juicy" but entertaining all
the same) about the Allmans and David Lee Roth, as well as driving for the
Warped Tour... so this guy has driven the gamut, I guess you could say... all
sorts of music, all sorts of people... this is a good thing because nothing
we could do would shock him, I'm sure...
... not that that sort of thing happens to US...
...mom...
Beau had some organizing to do in order to fit all of our gear in the bays of
the bus but his Tetris Champion-like mind made pretty quick work of it, with
one last eyeballing to make sure nothing was going to shift or slide around
dangerously, and we were on our way... twelve of us...
Scott, Beau, Me, Hazdra, Nej, Bryan, Rob and his girlfriend, Dino and his
wife, John, and his girlfriend/Part Time Crew Chief Debbie... we are going
to meet up with Scott's wife out here as well as our new guitar player Rob
Eaton and his wife...
Note To Self: We need another bus. All there is to it.
Riding in the bus takes some getting used to. There are certain things you
need to remember like:
1. Hold on to something at all times.
2. If you spill anything, clean it up.
3. After you clean it up, tell Dave the driver what you spilled and where.
4. Feel shame.
5. When in the bathroom, see #1.
The other interesting thing I learned about riding on a bus I knew before
this trip from talking to associates who had traveled this way, and that is:
6. When sleeping in your bunk, lay with your feet towards the front.
This is so that if the driver has to slam on the brakes or impacts with
anything head-on, you slide feet first possibly breaking your ankles instead
of head-first breaking your neck...
Yeah, I know.
I winced the first time I ran that pleasant little scenario through my
cranium too...
After about forty minutes on the road Beau had figured out how the satellite
system worked... we had brought a nice library of video with us but having
access to tons and tons of mind-rotting GARBAGE was a temptation everyone has
fallen to at some point already...
Hey, it was 20+ hours out, folks...
What do the members of Dark Star Orchestra watch when allowed this sort of
freedom, you ask? Well, here's what I can remember... I slept for a good part
of the journey but more on that in a minute...
Simpsons, Behind The Music (SEVERAL of these), Dolphins-Jets game, and Big
Daddy... there are like, HUNDREDS of channels of stuff up there though,
bouncing around the stratosphere... and I gotta tell ya, one glance over the
program guide and you think about all those signals bouncing off you... "The
700 Club", "Love Boat", "Eight Is Enough"... I tell ya, it's enough to make
you want to WASH... it's enough to give you a Hughesian complex, I tell ya...
In our attempts to figure out how to work the system, I stumbled across the
channel blocking settings, which was set for "Family"... there was an
on-screen display of a fader (which I'm VERY familiar with, bein' an engineer
an' all) and a stack of settings next to it, "Family" being at the bottom
where the fader was CURRENTLY (one reason why none of the channels would come
in, I'd say)... and "NC-17" at the top... where the fader ENDED UP... I
didn't really think there would actually BE any "NC-17" (the polite new look
for "Rated X"), but I was willing to LOOK...
Sure enough... there's hardcore porn in them-thar airwaves... two channels
worth.
NOT THAT WE LEFT IT ON OR ANYTHING...
...mom...
But trust me... if you didn't feel like washing BEFORE...
And in all seriousness, we DIDN'T leave those channels on... the four-woman
anti-porn crusade wouldn't have been worth it...
... again, it's 20+ hours out, folks.
The back lounge was the theater with a movie or VH-1 on all the time, and the
front lounge was for folks who wanted to listen to music and play cards... I
lost several dollars in change to Rob and his girlfriend at draw poker before
retiring to my bunk to read... word has it Bryan came through like a tornado
and cleaned the two of THEM out, so there IS justice aboard the bus...
When I was younger my father liked to go sailing for family vacation,
cramming the entire Blietz tribe into a tiny little sailboat for a couple of
weeks every summer... he called it "fun" and the rest of the family called it
"cruel" at the time, but it came in real handy preparation for this kind of
travel...
One of the things that happens when you live on a small boat for an extended
period of time is that your inner ear gets used to the rolling action of the
boat and when you set foot on land again, your head still tries to compensate
for the roll... the effect being that your house or apartment appears to be
rolling (and QUITE intensely sometimes, this is not a mild hallucination)...
it's a weird feeling that generally goes away in about twenty-four hours or
so, but several of the band members commented to me about having this
condition out in front of the hotel when we disembarked...
Because of the years of living like a Vietnamese refugee every summer as a
child, I was able to shake the feeling pretty quickly... the bus just rocked
me to sleep and the small bunks weren't too claustrophobic... again, there
were summers when I wished the Coast Guard would pull up and rescue us like
I'd seen on the news...
With the curtains drawn it was pitch-dark and rather sound-proof... like a
rolling coffin with an air vent and a dome light...
Not that I've ever laid in a coffin...
...mom...
Pretty much the entire second half of the ride I spent in my bunk, reading
and sleeping... making occassional forays into either lounge for food or a
moment's video-fix...
We made several stops along the way, partly because the bus gets cruddy
mileage... about eight miles to the gallon... not sure how my 'hippie side'
feels about THAT, by the way... but you take the bad with the good... and
when you get off this monster, people always look to see if you're anyone
they should get excited about... and they're inevitably let down... but it's
still fun for us...
"You with that rock band?"
"Yep."
"What's the name?"
"Dark Star Orchestra."
"Oh... that'll be $2.45 ..."
Yep. Show Biz!
We rolled in to the greater Denver metropolitan area late this afternoon,
everyone dying for a shower and a nice meal... after checking in I went about
a mile down the road to the Wal-Mart and picked up some boots and a
swimsuit... now THERE'S a fashion statement, huh? And when I got back to the
hotel it was Soak Time...
Back in the land of outdoor hot tubs A-GAIN!!! I LOVE IT HERE IN COLORADO!!!
Tomorrow is the first of our New Year's run here, and the gig has been moved
to Garton's (or what USED to be Garton's - I understand it goes by another
name now... "8150") from the ice arena in Vail, which is nothing but good news to me as
a sound engineer... I've talked to the club and they say that the stage is
bigger and a bit more secure...
(Click here or here or here to see previous Garton's Road Rashes for details on the most rockin' club in the Rockies)
...and they're (reportedly) bringing in
the PA to our specifications... one of the problems with playing the ice
arena was going to be the acoustics (or lack-there-of), and I'd hate to have
the wonderful rich colors this band is weaving together nowadays get lost in
the rafters of a barn...
Wow... and our most dedicated road-audience will get they're first taste of
the New Improved DSO...
Geez... I'm all revved up just thinking about it...
Good thing the room's still rockin'... I might just feel comfortable enough
to get some sleep...
COMING SOON: The Trip To Vail, The Rest Of The Band Gets On The Bus, and...
You've read the Rashes for when we had a VAN to unload at this place...
imagine a BUS!!!
See you after the show!!!
---------------------------------------------
Part 2:
Aaaahhhhhhh vacation... is there a better word in the english language? I'm
really enjoying my time out here in the mountains even if all I'm doin' is
watching the snow fall and writing...
... speaking of which...
After a report like that last one with the bus and the hot tub, who wants to
read about how hectic my life can get?
Seriously... who's ready for "Tales from the Dark Star Side"?
OK... for starters... all of you who yearned for my eternal discomfort after
reading the last Rash got your wish in spades... I woke up with a spine that
felt like a question mark in shape...
We generally stay at one chain of hotel while we're on the road, and the
company has been expanding, buying other chain's hotels and converting
them... not that rooms for fifteen band members and crew on a regular basis
hasn't contributed to this expansion, I'm sure... but the problem I'm finding
with these places is that they are all remodeling inside as well as out
(remember the roofers, etc.?) and one of the things they all seem to be doing
is getting new beds...
... new beds which are brutal to sleep on... and I'm not sure what the
criterion is for my back not diggin' 'em, but it DOESN'T... so anyway, it
took a WHOLE LOT of stretching, etc. for me to get mobile again.
One of the other reasons I didn't sleep well in addition to the bed was the
EXTREMELY dry air... I woke up in the middle of the night with a severe
headache because my sinuses had dried out COMPLETELY... I've never had that
happen before! I wanted to stick my nose under water and inhale deeply... at
9am when I couldn't take the knitting needles up my nose and laying on The
Rack anymore, it was time to get up.
I got a shower and sat down to return some calls my roomate in Chicago had
forwarded, Hazdra still snoring away under his pillow... man, the guy could
sleep through a Motorhead concert on a bed of nails... the sound company that
was supplying the PA for Garton's called as well as the promoter...
Joy...
Now, in my business, when you're getting calls from the sound company AND the
promoter the day before the show, you can reasonably assume that it isn't
GOOD news... so I held my breath and dialed the 1.3 billion access numbers on
my phone card trying to figure out just what the hubub was...
Phone cards are the newest Small-Print Scheme, folks... each "company" vying
for your dollar with bigger and more brightly colored dispenser machines
promising RIDICULOUS rates per minute... and always with an asterisk*...
Read the fine print on those things... they may promise rates of as low as
2.9 cents per minute but most of the cards I see out there now are hitting
you for AT LEAST a fifty cent connection surcharge on each call (and most of
them are REALLY ballsy and they're getting up around 70 cents), which means
even if you spend $20 on a card, you're really only getting about 50% of the
time towards actually TALKING... the other half going in some modern-day
snake oil salesman's pocket, jes' fer hookin' y'all UP...
I now look for the cards that specify that surcharge strictly on pay phones
and use them only from my hotel room or another "private" line... buuuuuuut I
figure they'll catch on to THAT game soon enough and I'll just have to give
up on the damned things entirely...
The call from the sound company was about load-in times, and the call from
the promoter was about how the sound company couldn't get ahold of me about
said times... so both of those calls sort of negated each other... but two
bits of bad news: No monitor technician on the gig, and most of the PA gear
was the same as the last time we were at Garton's... not a good thing...
shaking my head I went down to the lobby to get on the bus for the
several-hour ride to Vail...
When you're on the bus time goes pretty quickly... you play cards, you listen
to music, watch a video, and pretty soon someone is poking their head in
saying we've arrived... it's about as close to time travel as I'VE ever
experienced, I'll tell you what...
I jumped out and walked up the steps to the club to ask what we were supposed
to do with the Maroon Monster, remembering that we had a hard time getting a
VAN parked near this particular venue... it was going to be interesting to
see what we were going to do with the U.S.S. Dark Star...
The inside of Garton's had changed a bit... they removed the big oval bar in
the center of the room and they had added a small piece to the stage which in
turn changed it's presentation to the room... these were two of the things I
had hoped that they had changed and for once, someone up there liked me...
On the down-side, only HALF of the PA had been changed, albeit the most
important change, really... there were different main speakers set up and
different monitor wedges... but I still had the same cruddy semi-pro series
Soundcraft console to work with and a low-end Mackie console in the back of
the room with me for monitors...
I HATE mixing monitors.
At a show like ours there are generally two engineers, one like me doing the
mix for the audience and another person onstage handling the various mixes
for the musicians... as I've said before, each member of the band usually has
a speaker (wedge) at their feet which provides them with a mix of any
instruments or vocals they desire... in a lot of clubs, monitors can be the
weakest link in the chain, so-to-speak, of a sound system... either the
wedges or the amplifiers aren't very good or whatever, and they can be
frustrating to work with just like if anyone expected you to work with an
inferior piece of equipment at YOUR job... only when you used this piece of
equipment the people in the six desk positions directly adjacent to you are
allowed to get pissed and give you shit and tell you "It just isn't WORKING
RIGHT!" and generally making your life miserable for your entire work day...
sometimes THROWING THINGS AT YOU...
... not that MY boys have ever done that, but...
Think About It.
There have been times where I have had to do both jobs, mixing monitors off
of the same console I'm doing the house mix with, but it's not the most
efficient manner to do the job... at least Garton's had a SEPARATE console
for monitors...
So we had THAT going for us... which is nice...
OK, just to re-cap: Mixing monitors, while I can DO it, is not my favorite
part of the job. This is where knowing talented people pays off...
I had a call in to a guy we had worked with the first time we played the Fox
Theater out here named Dave Miller... the company he works for (more on them
in a future piece) was going to supply the PA at the Aspen gigs and he had
signed on to mix monitors so I figured "Why not have him work the whole
little tour out here and see how things go?"... I'd been wanting to get a
monitor engineer onboard for quite some time now and I remembered Dave as
being the sort of guy who would fit in with this circus...
I'm sorry to say that about you, Dave... but you know I only mean it in the
most complimentary sense possible...
... geez, now that I think about it, it's kind of like giving the guy a gift
certificate for a prostate exam, sayin' that about him...
Hmmmmm....
Where was I?
Oh yeah... so I had left it with a call to Dave's house telling him we'd need
him on the Vail gig if he could make it. He ended up showing up at load-in
and I gotta tell ya folks, if he hadn't have been there we would have been a
LOT later than forty minutes opening the doors... Dave Miller is one of the
primary reasons I didn't HATE this gig and I'm really glad he was there to
get the monitors worked out while I attended to the rest of the PA...
My gear was loaded up early (thank you Beau, Tiny, and Debbie) and I began
interfacing it with the main console... this was AFTER about a half-hour of
cleaning and re-arranging the mix position to facilitate movement... we were
only the second show to happen in the club since it changed ownership and
most of the non-public corners of the place still looked like a bomb had hit
them... the sound booth was no exception, with boxes of crap and broken
lights and gear that wasn't being used stacked high... as I "re-piled" stuff
to my liking I noticed that most of the cabling was a rat's nest behind the
console (some of it NOT EVEN PLUGGED IN) so I removed the plexiglass divider
and began sorting out the minor catastrophe THERE... I'm not Felix Unger, by
the way... I don't have a neatness hang-up, I'm NOT a compulsive guy in the
LEAST (you should see my room at home)... but there was NO WAY to work around
the conditions this place had been left in...
And it seemed that the more I did the more there was to do... being a
card-carrying sound engineer I don't like to WORK much... but...
"Then again these things just GOT to get done..."
(oh shut the f*ck up.)
I might have seemed like something of a snob earlier there when I was talking
about the consoles we had to work with, but I assure you there are reasons...
for one thing the main console is only a twenty-four channel console, and as
those of you who read this page regularly know, that just isn't enough for
most DSO set-ups...
... knock a few channels out for good measure and you have a truly unworkable
situation.
I had set up some mics for Rob Koritz's percussion table and his timbales
(pronounced "tim-bah-layz"), but I eventually found two channels that were
bad on the board and had to sacrifice bells and timbales (same pronunciation
as before) for more immediate needs such as guitars... I don't mean to
downplay the importance of Rob Koritz's bell work (which, of course, he did a
lot of at this show... I'll explain how we pulled it off later) but the extra
percussion channels are the first to go. It happens, and when it does the
drummers don't take it personally...
At least not to my face.
But let me back it up for you just a sec... before we found we had a couple
of bad channels on the console, we had to get the stage wired... this is
normally the most routine part of setting up but this particular show, as in
so many other ways, was determined to go down in history...
When Dave and I got to the club we saw that there was only a short stack of
mic cables on hand, so we had the company we were getting most of the other
stuff from on a cell phone and we reminded them that in addition to the two
MONITOR cables we needed to do the show we would also appreciate about twenty
mic cables... in the meantime we could wire the vocal mics and one of the
drum kits with what we had on hand...
"No Problem."
"Great... When do you think you'll be here?"
"About an hour or so."
"See ya then!"
Now... HOURS LATER... Dave and I are standing ing the middle of the club with
our thumbs FIRMLY up our asses... the band has been sent to Blue's in Aspen
where our good friend Jersey Jack was no doubt cooking up delightful a repast
for everyone... bottles of wine, good beer... killer FOOD...
... and there's Dave and me...
I began to lose my temper.
There was NO sign of this guy. And the thing is that I've worked with this
individual before and found him to be nothing but a professional... so I was
worried about him too... finally, I took a jog down into the village to where
there was a free outdoor music thing going on while Dave contemplated just
what he was going to rip apart or hard-wire in order to get the remaining two
monitor mixes up and running...
Speaking of running, I may have lost some weight recently, but I am still
SORELY out of shape it seems...
(out of breath from jogging three blocks, what a loser I am...)
"*wheeze* Hey... *koff* I'm with Dark Star Orchestra and we're *hack* doing a
show up the hill at *huff* Garton's..."
"Yeah dude... "
"Look... this guy... was supposed to come by with... cables... and he
hasn't... I don't know where he is and I can't wait any longer... is there
any way I could talk you into bringing... your cables up when you're done?"
"Can you get us in?"
"Can I get you in? SURE."
At this point I'd have promised the guy hookers and heroin for him and ten of
his nearest and dearest...
"Johnny" as he introduced himself and his two associates broke down the stage
as quickly as they could when their show was over and handed the cables to
Beau and Tiny, who was filling in that evening as a roadie and I thank him
and Beau as well for aiding in getting the show off the ground relatively
ontime...
Dave and I hurriedly pinned the stage as the cables began arriving... people
were crowded outside the doors, getting understandably impatient with
standing in the cold... after locating the bad channels and getting a half a
song I determined that everything was indeed coming through the speakers and
the band was semi-happy with the monitors... my house mix sounded like CACA
to my ear, but I couldn't see stalling any longer...
"Open the DOORS!!!"
I figured I'd get the mix going on the first tune... I just hoped and prayed
it wasn't "Bucket"...
Now that everything was set up and we knew it was functional, we strapped Rob
Eaton's guitar rig to a door frame on the stage so that it wouldn't sway if
the stage still bounced (see previous stories for the complete story on the
floor and stage) and I used up another half a roll of duct tape on the drum
mic stands and vocal stands, just as I had in the past... after all the
problems of the afternoon I was bloody well going to enjoy the NIGHT, and no
mistake.
One of the things that I found out about later and maybe a matter that should
have been dealt with better was that of under-aged ticket buyers and how they
get screwed in this situation... the situation being the show and it's
getting moved from Dobson Ice Arena to Garton's...
This was not our call, and we were basically railroaded into it. As I
understand it we were asked if we thought we should change venues based on
our pre-sales and Scott told them we still wanted to roll the dice and stay
at Dobson based on our attendance that summer at the Ford Ampitheater (as I
think i said before, "Seventeen-hundred people CAN'T be wrong!"), which was
summarily vetoed by the powers that be in Vail...
That being said I still feel like we have some small responsibility in the
matter none-the-less and we owe the younger members of our Colorado audience
an apology by way of a show for the last-minute treatment they got...
hopefully the kids I saw getting turned away soothed their frustrations by
scalping those tickets to the several hundred folks who showed up looking for
just such a misled miracle...
The show sold out instantly when it got moved.
In retrospect we probably would have done fine leaving the show at the ice
arena, but that's the kind of thing we still need to prove it seems, even in
the state that treats us better than any other in the union...
Tell ya what, we won't hold it against all of you and you don't hold it
against us, how's THAT? Deal?
Deal.
The show Scott had picked for that night was 12/19/93 from Oakland, CA. and I
thought it was a great choice... we've had our critics when the band ventures
into Vince territory but some of those later songs can really strike a chord
in you... I confess I was never really a fan of the material either until I
started to listen to this band play it. Through listening to John sing "So
Many Roads" now I've gained a new appreciation for the lyrics, and "Day's
Between" always lacked fire the few times I was "fortunate enough" to see the
Dead do it, but because it was Garcia's last composition John treats the
material with a spiritual reverance that washes out of the PA stopping even
the most jaded in their tracks...
And Now...
"A Momentary Disertation On Motion-Sickness"
When Rob Eaton joined up with us for this tour one of his minor concerns was
his predeliction to inner-ear disturbance... he gets motion-sick really
easily.
Riding on the bus, we determined, wouldn't be that big of a deal because the
bus rides pretty smoothly and combined with a patch he could wear... no
sweat. But the violence of Garton's stage was another matter entirely... it's
a flippin' ROLLER COASTER... now, Mr. Eaton knows that I respect him to the
multi-fathomed depths of his soul for his abilities as a guitar player,
singer, and all-around human being...
But I was REALLY wonderin' if he was gonna puke, y'all... the perverse side
of me was doing the devil and angel scene from "Animal House"... SERIOUSLY...
"He's gonna BARK..."
"Why Cameron, I'm SURPRISED at you..."
"Aw, don't listen to that sissy... you know you wanna start a pool..."
"But Cameron... This is a BANDMATE..."
"I'm puttin' money on 'Promised Land'..."
I felt horrible but I gotta cop to that...
I'm sorry, and you know I love ya, Rob...
OK... so now that I've alienated Mr. Eaton and brought Dave Miller down a few
pegs, I'll tell you what my impressions of the actual SHOW were...
Opening with "Bertha" is never a bad way to go... the crowd let out a whoop
and began to dance... which in turn made the rest of the building dance...
you know the routine...
... but our drummers and the above-"more than you needed to know"-candidate
didn't... I mean, we TOLD them... but much like our first time their minds
refused to accept the situation until it was in their laps...
The looks on their faces... THIS time, captured on video... were PRICELESS...
to see Rob Eaton looking at the stack next to him wobble precariously back
and forth to some sort of anti-beat was hysterical... I knew by watching his
surprise and subsequent incredulousness that he wasn't going to get CLOSE to
thinking about how his stomach might feel...
Yep, it was gonna be a good night in Vail...
After "Bertha" the band got itself together and had a laugh about the
bouncing, and then it was Rob E.'s turn to light the room up with a
smoldering "Wang Dang Doodle"... Mike Maraat's rendition of Bobby was good,
but this Colorado audience made their approval known with a huge cheer as his
gravel-filled vocal delivery rattled the building to it's foundation...
The other two tunes in the first set that stand out in my mind were "Loose
Lucy" for it's room-rockin' potential and a really trippy "Birdsong" that, as
usual, I felt was a little too short... but that's me and I get greedy
sometimes...
During the set break I taped down John's music stand and talked with the
crowd a bit... turns out Beau was standing behind one of the main stacks of
speakers for the whole set ensuring that it wouldn't fall over on the crowd...
... that guy, I tell ya...
The second set opened with a long and jamming "Scarlet>Fire" that, like
everything else the band is doing these days, was textured and traveled from
place to place taking the listener along effortlessly... I just can't say
enough about how the band is working off itself these days... the jams can go
anywhere and DO... they're much more free these days in where they allow it
to go and for those of us who listen to the band every night it's like a
breath of fresh air...
I've already talked about "So Many Roads", but this was a good one... I just
turned out all the lights in the mix position and sat back to enjoy it... Rob
E.'s "Truckin>Smokestack" led into a pretty good "Drumz" where between Rob K.
moving various mics in the area of his bells and timbales (see above for
proper pronunciation) and me turning said mics up, no one really noticed
those missing channels, not even me...
Hazdra's bass bomb to open "The Other One" set the floor off again and
everyone held on for the ride... Mike just loves inciting the room to riot on
this stage, and tonight was no exception, jumping along with the crowd as he
dug in hard on his boom-stick...
After a beautiful "Brokedown Palace", Scott dedicated the filler tune to
Michael and Bobbi Parks (and Bobbi, you were missed, but your husband tried
to make up for your absence by being everywhere at once throughout the
evening)... I certainly hope we pop up at State Bridge Lodge this Spring and
Summer, I'll tell you WHAT...
Well folks, there it is... another show you thought was so easy, built on the
blood of the workers.
There were over a half-dozen people who helped integrally to get this one off
the ground: Beau, Tiny, Debbie, Kelley, Nej, Dave Miller, the guys at High
Sierra Sound... I want to thank everyone and if I missed you I apologize...
but without all of you I wouldn't look like I know what I'm doing...
Thank you.
So, there it is. I've read and revised this one all I think I ought to...
I'll crank out the next one pretty quickly as it was the "Day" to this last
gig's "Night"... but if you'll excuse me I'm going to enjoy some of my off
time out here in the mountains before I am forced back to Chicago for the
Hammond Sandwich gig...(January 18th at Martyrs')
... and don't tell anyone, but I've never looked forward to vacation ending
quite so much before...
COMING SOON: The Fillmore - Denver, Eaton's El Paso, and Bryan, Dave, and I
have a rare "One Of Those Nights"... See you all around the playground!!!