SHARING THE SHOWS
Week 12 of classes have come to an end. At the beginning of every semester, I start out as Jaime Escalante from Stand and Deliver; by the end, I’m a male Liz Halsey from Bad Teacher. Not literally, of course, but my educator friends get it.
It goes without saying that I was fixin’ for some Allmans. After dinner out in Virginia Beach with Sarah, Mark, Sandy, and Shannon, Maggie and I headed to Hoss’s Deli, literally a five-minute drive from where I live. Note: Hoss’s was the first venue in Hampton Roads at which I ever saw a show. It was where I met Mark and Gary for the first time; thanks, Dave, for twisting my arm to go. That show was Skydog, and they returned there this evening. A challenge of Hoss’s is the parking situation; we usually park behind the shopping plaza across the street, and even that can fill up. Fortunately, Maggie and I found the last spot there before heading in. Another challenge is going through the gauntlet of outstretched pool cues as the patrons play pool. Fortunately, neither of us got nailed. We got in during the “Black Hearted Woman” opener, during which I was cutting up that dance floor like a knife to butter. We said a quick to hello to Dean, his friend Jay, and his friend Nancy (I think that was her name; Dean, correct me if I’m wrong) on one table; on the other sat Beth and TJ. “Midnight Rider,” my favorite ABB tune, was next, followed by a slow blues jam I couldn’t make out. I noted that Hoss’s is the personification of a dive bar. I don’t drink, but I love the mixture of bikers and regular Jacks and Jills that populate the area. And at an Allmans show, you add a few hippie types, and you have quite the interesting mix. The singer wished a lady named Clay a happy 70th birthday, and Maggie said, “I hope I’m like that at 70.” Amen, Maggie, Amen. Four more of my favs were next: “Every Hungry Woman,” “Trouble More,” “Statesboro Blues,” and “Stand Back.” During the latter, I found an appointment card for a chiropractor. I hope the person remembers is all I can say. “One Way Out” and “Whipping Post” closed the first set, and I started thinking that a cool sequence for a TV show or movie could consist of someone going to a job he/she hates, and “Whipping Post” could play on the soundtrack. I’m sure it’s been done. During setbreak, rap music blared over the speaker, and Dean, Maggie, and I talked professional football (namely, the pitiful performances of my Giants and Dean’s Redskins), college football, and some past and upcoming shows. Dean, I highly encourage you to join us at Dark Star Orchestra in two weeks. Jay observed the singer and guitarist were arguing over some technical issue related to the performance (“two type A personalities clashing,” he observed). Sounds like academe. The second set graced us with more room to dance. “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More” opened the set, followed by a tune none of us could identify. The band slowed down with “Please Call Home,” and a monster “Mountain Jam.” The classic “Jessica” was next, and then “Southbound.” The crowd thinned out, but the remaining dancers were flailing pretty wildly, especially the drunk couple that kept bumping into me. After “Southbound,” the man apologized, saying, “My girl’s 15 years younger than me. She’s all over the place!” All good, dude. That’s a common show hazard. “One Way Out” got pretty spacey, and at that point, I was drained. It was 1:07, and I wanted to tough it out until 1:30, but when Maggie planted the idea of going home in my head, I was powerless. Because I’ve been getting up at 5:30 every morning for the past three months, I can’t sleep past that time most days, and this morning was no exception, so I’m pretty wiped out. Was it worth it? Hell yeah. I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.
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So, Mark once commented that I got those blog postings up very quickly after the show. But, now, for the first time in this blog’s eighteen-month history, I’m posting two days afterwards. Work’s been busy, and I was attending our university’s film festival last night, and by the time I got home, my brain was Jell-O.
Anyway, Adam invited me to see John Fogerty’s concert film/documentary at the AMC, and I generally can’t say no to a good concert film. This one was recorded at Red Rocks, just a little over a week before I went there to see Widespread Motherfucking Panic with Bob. As I waited in the parking lot, I read a bad article from the New York Times about the loneliness epidemic, and the “author,” Nikolas Kristof, tied loneliness to singlehood. Naturally, I used my iPhone to write a letter to the editor in which I attempted to discredit his opinions. No response, but hey, I got the correct message out. #cosppower Adam arrived at 7, and we got in right as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Green River” was starting. One of my first concertgoing experiences was when I saw Fogerty in 1998 at Garden State Arts Center (now PNC) in Holmdel, NJ, not too far from where Snookie, The Situation, Pauly D, and all those other miscreants hung out. Fogerty played a lot of his classic hits, such as “Suzie Q,” “Born on the Bayou” (my favorite of this), “Proud Mary,” “Looking Out My Back Door,” “Run Through the Jungle,” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain.” The concert footage intercut nicely with footage of Vietnam War protesters, the original Woodstock, along with interviews with Fogerty. After some CCR hits, he played other songs from Woodstock, including Joe Cocker’s “Little Help From My Friends” (the first time I heard this was also the first time I watched The Wonder Years), The Who’s “My Generation” (my first time hearing this was when neatnik Danny Tanner donned a studded leather jacket and sang this to horrific gasps from cousin Jesse, daughter DJ, and friend Kimmy on Full House). Fogerty’s son Tyler was way more natural than Danny, for obvious reasons. “Everyday People,” “Ride Sally Ride, “Dance to the Music,” and “Give Peace a Chance” rounded out that section nicely, capped off by the Hendrix version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” No fire to the guitar, though, hence, no “fire on the mountain.” Get it? Fogerty went back to CCR with “Keep on Chooglin,” “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” and then, he told the story of how “Fortunate Son” generated, largely through his anger at the Vietnam War (Veteran’s Day was definitely a perfect occasion for this screening). Fogerty took a Louisville Slugger-shaped guitar and busted out with “Centerfield” before going into interviews with the Red Rocks concertgoers about their favorite songs. The highlight was an elderly gentleman who said, “Old Man Down the Road, because it’s about me.” Sure enough, Fogerty played it. Over the closing credits, we were treated to some visual storytelling of how the Fogerty family came to be (pregnant Julie, Tyler playing guitar as a teenager, father and son on stage). I’m Childfree by Choice, but it was nice to see music transcending generations. Overall, a pretty chill experience, perfect for a Monday night. Of course, I forgot to snap a picture of me and Adam for the blog, so here’s a visual of Red Rocks. Enjoy! So Saturday morning, I stepped down from Cloud Deadheadland to grade papers, blog, take a nap, and indulge in my cheat day by carbo-loading with some leftover spaghetti and sausage, accompanied by garlic bread.
The drive to the Mothership was way quicker than Friday night, but the line moved way more slowly. I attribute it to security asking every concertgoer if they were going to general admission and giving them wristbands. A sign directing folks to General Admission would have made way more sense. The folks at the Coliseum will hear about it, and maybe I’ll get free tickets? You never know. That being said, we got into the venue before the show started, which is more than I can say for our friend Mark and many others (if you were at the show and this was your situation, I encourage you to write to the venue; you might get free stuff. It has happened for me before). And we got to commiserate with our line compatriots. A travel theme opened the show (“Truckin’” and “Big Railroad Blues”). During the latter, the dude selling water bottles took a nasty spill, and the bottles went a-flyin’. Fortunately, he was able to retrieve them and move on. “He’s Gone” (Johnny Mac’s favorite) was next. “Tennessee Jed” and “Friend of the Devil” followed. “Bird Song” was the highlight of the set for me; while blogging for Friday’s show, I heard my favorite “Bird Song” ever, from 8/27/72, in Veneta, Oregon. During this, a dude in the row behind me read the back of my “Weather Report” T-shirt and said, “I think Scarlet Begonias should be on Sunday, instead of Sunshine Daydream.” Of course, I had to turn on my teacher hat, and ask, “Why Scarlet Begonias?” “It just goes with Sunshine Daydream.” Fair enough, I can see it organically fit. Sun, flowers. It’s all good. “One More Saturday Night” closed the set (I called that one). During setbreak, we ran into various friends from the scene. Ashley. Kevin. Mark. Ivan. We did small talk, took pictures, discussed the bait and switch the venue was pulling with respect to giving out free tickets to work security only for the recipient to find out they needed ticket-takers. Hmmmm. The second set opened with “Playing in the Band” and Maggie philosophized about what they’d play next. I said, “That’s the beauty. You never know. It’s an American Beauty.” Eh? I thought it was funny but refrained from laughing at my own joke. “Franklin’s Tower” was next, followed by the “Scarlet Begonias/Fire on the Mountain” combination. “Drums” and “Space” was next, and I tried my “This is what space smells like” yell. Maggie laughed. She’s such a little trooper. In the spirit of honesty, when I watched the video on that hyperlink, I laughed really loudly for about thirty seconds. The boys did give us some love on “Drums,” facing us folks who ended up behind the stage. “Uncle John’s Band” circled back to “Playing,” during which I went to the bathroom. I’ve felt like a part of history the five times I’ve been to the Mothership, but the one thing I don’t dig is the bathrooms are so small, and every time I’ve gone, there’s been a line going all the way to the other end of the room. Not this time, though. I was in and out in about three minutes. Towards the end of the show, nobody wants to miss the highlight. The crowd erupted during “Black Peter,” and the second set closed with “Sugar Magnolia” and “Sunshine Daydream.” “Ripple” encored (Maggie called that one). Side note: the first time I ever heard that song was in the last scene of Freaks and Geeks (Spoiler alert!), during which Lindsay abandons her plans to go to an academic summit in favor of following the Dead. I would’ve loved to have known how that turned out. As it was the end of the Fall Fun Run, the boys all took a bow to great applause. It was beautiful. Not so beautiful was the ride out of the venue, which took way longer than last night, thanks to a parked bus from James River Transportation that took up half the road. Couldn’t they have found a better place to park? When I got home, I had the munchies thanks to the herbal essence that pervaded the arena, so I gorged out on some leftover Pizza Hut Meat Lover’s Pizza (thanks, Planet Fitness, for that monthly free pizza night), followed by a bowl of chocolate ice cream adorned with Mint Crunch M&Ms. Never a good idea to do that late at night, but I figure once a year won’t hurt. Fortunately, today’s my fasting day. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Back to the real world tomorrow, but with a new perspective. So this week was back to normal for me now that the dossier wasn’t weighing on me. I wrote, taught, graded, and dealt with some widespread panic that comes with advising students on what courses to take for next semester. But the highlight would be this show, which was held exactly thirty years and one month to the day of the first ’89 Warlock show (10/8/89); gee, I WONDER if they planned it like that (thinks to self). And with that, I include a poem from the scene’s own Wes Snow. (Blows into pitch pipe):
Dead and Co Is a little slow Costs a lot dough That's fo sho But I know If I dont go I'll have FOMO Like a mofo Wes, you said it all, dude. Anyway, Maggie came by my place at 5:30, and we drove for about a half hour to the Mothership, normally a ten-minute drive without show or commuter traffic. The ride had Aoxomoxoa (I had to Google the spelling) for the soundtrack. Maggie was bummed the boys played her favorite, “St. Stephen” at Nassau this week, which meant the likelihood they’d play it this weekend would be small, so I decided to cheer her up (when she heard the opening notes, she checked her phone for that ring). Upon parking, we waited for fifteen minutes in the cold to get into the building. I tried to make some Dead-related puns to entertain the line, but no dice. But you can hear them: It’s cold, but no rain and snow. Not an easy wind, maybe black-throated. Will this wind just blow away? Fortunately, it got good reviews on the Dead & Company Facebook page, along with a “thanks for the Weather Report.” Maggie and I walked around the venue for a bit, and made some new friends, Tom (from Richmond) and Kathy (from Northern Virginia), both supercool folks; Kathy shared about her first ever show at the Coliseum in ’92 (I feel like I missed out by not getting into the Dead until after Jerry’s death). While I walking around, I saw a dude wearing a tiny fedora and a woman lying in what looked like some exotic yoga pose while texting, and I mused that one of the things I love about this scene is that you can just be who you are or who you want to be for the time you’re at the show, not like that “real world” place. Maggie and I had separate seats, so we split off. I sat next to a nice older couple from Richmond, Kathy and Wayne. Kathy was talking to me about the time she saw the Dead here back in the 80s and was having such a bad LSD trip she had to call her Dad to pick her up, and apparently, he was cool about it. Now that’s a cool father. A young lady named Crystal dropped her phone under the seat in front of us, and I helped her locate me. To thank me, she offered me a mushroom, to which I politely declined. The band opened the set with a few rockers: “Bertha,” “Good Lovin’” and “Shakedown” before launching into “They Love Each Other,” not a favorite of mine but they actually did pretty well with it. Next came one of my predictions, “Black-Throated Wind” and then “Mr. Charlie.” The band closed with “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo” (I almost wrote “Loser” in my notepad because their openings are very similar) and “Throwing Stones,” their tribute to the Commonwealth turning Blue, I suppose. After finding Maggie at setbreak, I indicated that there were a bunch of seats with plenty of dancing room by me, and not very close checking of tickets, so Maggie came to my section during Set 2, which opened with “Althea” and “Estimated Prophet.” “Eyes of the World” rocked, and when “Lady with a Fan” started, I said to Maggie, “I know Mark’s happy!” (He is to “Terrapin” what Maggie is to “St. Stephen”). “Drums” was actually pretty entrancing, and I debuted a new joke during “Space.” Phish’s “Say it to Me S.A.N.T.O.S.” has a lyric, “this is what space smells like,” so I thought it’d be cool to yell it out. I’d been looking forward to it all week; nobody would laugh, but I’d be entertained. I actually didn’t laugh at it, and that’s the ultimate litmus test. If I’m not laughing at my own joke, it’s a goner. Side note: when I mentioned on Facebook I’d be premiering a new joke at the show, Shawn commented “Does it involve a duck?” along with a link to this article about the “Hell in a Bucket” video, starring the boys, a duck, a bunch of bikers, and a woman in a dominatrix outfit. The video and the song are actually pretty cool metaphors for life. No matter how chaotic things are around us, we just have to do us. Shawn, thank you for turning me onto that. Jeff Chimenti’s keyboards in “Days Between” nearly had me in tears, and “China/Rider” rocked it out to end the second set. “Touch of Grey,” the closer, also has a nice message: even when we get something we want, there’s always a catch. All that matters is how we look at it. Getting out of the venue was a bit messy, but way easier than Bristow (about an hour and a half) and Big Cypress (nearly fifteen hours in traffic). During these shows, I always get clarity on certain things going on in my life, and last night gave me some answers. Looking forward to Round Two tonight! AnTo say I needed some live music in my life is a gross understatement. My dossier for tenure at my university was due today, November 1, so I was spending evenings in the office copying, printing, and messing with Excel spreadsheets. I don’t normally dress up for Halloween, but upon hearing about the Pink Floyd-themed costume contest at this evening’s show, I decided to wear a button-down shirt, tie, pullover cardigan sweater, and my Ivy League hat to get into the role of the teacher mentioned in “Another Brick in the Wall – Part Two” (“Wrong! Do it again!”). Maggie mentioned that I look like AC/DC lead guitarist Angus Young in his schoolboy uniform. I’ll take that as a high compliment.
We drove down a virtually traffic-free I-64 to MacArthur Center. We had about an hour and a half to kill before Halloween with the Machine (I credit Maggie for that use of assonance) so we got coffee and cookies at the Barnes & Noble Café before going into the venue. Some costumes include a court jester, a jailbird, and a young lady dressed in the Dark Side of the Moon’s triangle (I can only imagine the countless hours it took for her to measure her body to fit the triangle). As the band took the stage, I decided to be the one jackass that yelled, “Play some Skynyrd!” to nobody’s entertainment but my own. Side note: if you yelled that a Skynyrd show or a tribute act, you’d get your request obliged because the band would be playing Skynyrd. Eh? The band did the entire Wall album, which I loved when I was first introduced to Floyd, but has become my least favorite over the years of hearing “Another Brick in the Wall – Part Two,” “Hey You,” and “Comfortably Numb” played countless times on classic rock stations, not to mention being exposed to more musically diverse selections, such as Animals, Meddle, and Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I do love the danceworthy “Young Lust” and “Run Like Hell,” along with Freudian ballad “Mother,” though. That being said, I got into it, and when those first notes of “In the Flesh” hit, I was in heaven. Maggie commented at the nearly empty venue, to which I claimed to be surprised. Maggie said, “People got kids and stuff.” I responded, “Their loss,” to both of our entertainments. Another entertaining moment was when the singer announced a special guest from the Fox, Hampton Roads's classic rock station, would be playing guitar. I yelled, "Special Guest!" to mine and Maggie's entertainment. Shannon showed up a few songs in, and after “Goodbye Cruel World,” the band took a break, and we headed out to the smoking patio. Hanging out against the wall had me feeling like I was in an episode of Freaks and Geeks, THE show about high school. During this time, Shannon informed us that the members of Pink Floyd met when studying to be architects, a tidbit of which I was not aware. I looked it up when writing and found it was true! Some other cool costumes included a cat, a couple of witches, and a dude in a gas station uniform. After the second set, I yelled, “Now play Animals!” and encouraged Maggie to aid me in that mission. the band scanned the crowd to call people up for the Costume Contest. I tried to make it up toward the front, but alas, my costume was not outlandish enough nor was I in the band’s range of vision. Politics, habnabit! The young lady in the Dark Side triangle won, and she deserved it. They then launched into an encore (which I mistakenly thought was a third set). I was pleased to hear “Lucifer Sam” from Piper, which had me dancing. “Breathe” and “Time” came next, and “Wish You Were Here” closed the show. Upon our entry to the parking lot, I took off my tie and cardigan very slowly as if I were a stripper while Maggie danced. Shannon was parked across from me, and as he drove out, he yelled, “You’re a couple of dancing fools.” “I’m stripping,” I responded. The rainy drive home set to The Division Bell and reminiscing about the show capped the night off nicely, as did my hitting of the pillow. Fortunately, I was able to sleep in until 7 this morning to be in my office by 9 (“I get up around 7, get out of bed around 9”). In all my years of going to shows, this was the first time I had ever made one on Halloween. Good times indeed. |
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