I wake up to Scott hitting me with a pillow to stop snoring... bastard...
Then housekeeping starts seeing which door slams louder, the one to the right
or the one to the left of our room... guess it's time to get up...
The water pressure in this hotel sucks, so Scott gets the bright idea to
remove the shower head and is literally beaten up by the jet stream he gets by
doing so... I'm not kidding, he had red marks from the force of the water...
by mission accomplished, there is now REAL water flow in the shower...
Back on the road around 12:20p and the sky is grey and grumbling again... at
one point we had a close encounter with a tanker truck which almost ran us
over, and as it passed by I read the large blue lettering on the side and
determined it was one of those things I JUST DIDN'T NEED TO KNOW... you know
the kind of thing I'm talking about... like when "60 Minutes" does a piece on
how many bug parts per million are in that hot dog you get at the ball park...
well, this truck (a TANKER, remember) had "NOT INTENDED FOR HUMAN FOOD"
written on it... no further explanation, but that was enough... the contents
were so nasty they had to make that distinction, though... ugh... I'm never
eating AGAIN...
The sun eventually came out and we're tooling along listening to a
particularly good rendition of "Morning Dew" (by the Dead not us), smelling
the burning leaves... I notice lots of signs being repaired or waiting to be
put back up after a nasty storm that blew through Tuesday night (See the
Fishman Martyrs' Road Rash for more storm details)...
At around 4:20p there was a beautiful sunset, just as nice as yesterday but
better from the standpoint that we're not driving directly into it so looking
at it is optional...
We get there around 5:30p and as I've said before, I love this place... Ian
runs a great theater and his people are top-notch...
Sound check goes flawlessly and we all debate whether or not to do the Raid
400 Race again (see past RRPs of the Canopy for explanation of what the Raid
400 is all about)... nobody has the stomach for it, it turns out...
The show itself was good and I talked to a few folks before and during the
break...
Side Note: Lots of you folks think I know the date when in fact I usually only
know the set list lately so PLEASE stop asking... I can generally answer ANY
question BUT THAT and ask any of the guys in the band, I LOVE to talk...
The show was really good, with a nice "Loose Lucy" (which we don't hear too
often) in the first set and a thundering "Music"... the second set was a jam-
based bunch of songs like the "Playin'>UJB>Payin' Reprise" but the band truly
brought the house down after the show with an elective of "St. Stephen>NFA"...
we were running extremely tight on time and Ian wanted to know what the band
was going to do about an extra tune...
...yeah, like I KNOW...
...so he went down to the side of the stage to tell them they had time for one
more SHORT one...
As "Stephen" finished up and the band broke seamlessly into "NFA" I turned to
Beau and we both looked surprised... "What are they DOING?" I asked, laughing
and turning back to the board...
What they did was to raise the roof on the place. It needed to be done.
As folks shuffled out to the mellow Louis Armstrong rendition of "Wonderful
World" I thought to myself... "INDEED."
COMING SOON: St. Louis, Sight Lines And Brick Walls Make Engineers Cry, and
the Ballad of Shoeless Joe...