2004-11-02 - 9:19 p.m.

three b's, day 2

Next day, even though the lack of line the day before made me think it wouldn't be necessary, I walked over to the festival right when it opened anyway. Best not to leave this stuff to chance. Wait outdoors 9 and a half hours to see my band? No question.

About a year ago, I did that (different city, different festival) when I knew no one else in the crowd. That was kind of a dull wait because I couldn't leave at all and had no one to talk to. This time at least I did know other people in the crowd, and those who were there as early as I was who I didn't know before, were nice. Not all of them were chatty, so we just left those to themselves. But none were in-your-face annoying, and you can't ask for much more than that. Some people did leave and go back to their hotel for hours at a time because they didn't want to wait out there all day - yet they left their "friend" to watch their stuff and hold their places for them. Nice. Oh well, didn't involve me so I stayed out of it. But it was nice being able to leave for ten minutes or so to run to the ladies' room or go talk to someone waiting in their spot on the other end of the stage. And I was glad to return the favor there.

This was a blast. Met some new people, talked to some old friends, and since we were hanging out up at the stage most of the day holding our places for that night, it was also basically a day of hanging out with the crew. They're just great guys. Someone noticed my Red Sox cap and mentioned it. RSP's guitar tech was on stage at the time and looked up to see who the Sox fan was, and smiled when he saw it was me. He's kind of quiet and I don't speak to him that often. But I knew that smile. That was a "hey, one of my people" smile. I was telling the story of me and the guy from Webstah, sharing Red Sox joy in Florida earlier in the week, and I could see the tech smiling while he listened. I looked up at him at the end of the story, and he told me he used to live in Boston, and where. It turned out to be less than a mile from where I used to work and three or four miles from where I used to live. Another Red Sox Nation bonding moment.

Speaking of that cap, I thought it would keep enough sun off my face that I wouldn't need sunscreen on my face. Lesson: use sunscreen anyway. Stupid. Oh well, I just got a bit of color on my cheeks, so that's not bad. I did use sunscreen on my arms (I do learn a little). Didn't realize until I got back to the hotel that I should have put some around that neckline, too. Oh well, again, not bad.

Also got to talk to my other favorite guitar tech in the world, and it turns out he used to work with the band that had headlined the night before, so he told me some cool stories about them. Got to chat with my other crew buddies too - just great people. Awesome day.

The night wasn't bad either. Call me crazy for staying out there all day, but it meant I ended up in my very favorite spot for the show - just a smidge to the left of directly in front of RSP. I was also in that same spot (of course) for the two opening bands. Mercifully, they were both good.

The first band was a cover band who played mostly 80's and classic rock songs. "What I Like About You" could have been a little more up-tempo, and they weren't quite sure of the words to "Long Cool Woman," but that's nit-picking. They were good enough and it was fun. They had the audience doing the "wooo" on "My Sharona," and singing and clapping along with "Taking Care of Business." Which is the kind of thing you should be after when you say "we want some audience participation on this next song," as opposed to a band the night before who asked for audience participation and then wanted us all to do our best impressions of Mick Jagger. Huh? So even if the lead singer for this cover band did make me cringe by trying to lead us in clapping along on the 1 and the 3, I give them a great review. They were fun.

The second band also was really good. Possibly a bit more professional and better showmen than the other opening bands I'd seen at this festival. Also unfortunately not as well received as the band before them, for one simple reason - every song the cover band played was "something we know." In general, that's the favorite song of most audiences everywhere - "something we know." This band played a few classic rock songs; some Led Zep, some Hendrix; and also some of their own originals. I thought they were great. It seemed their music was a bit more toward metal than most of the crowd would have liked. But there was no laughing or eye rolling - just too many people who sat down and looked bored while they conserved their energy for the headliner. Too bad, really. And I was in pain for the lead guitarist over the trouble he was having staying in tune. He re-tuned after every song, and when he started playing, it still managed to go just enough off to be noticeable every time. I don't know enough about strings and tension and hardware and the effects of temperature and humidity to know exactly why it kept happening, but he should do himself a favor and find out. Because he was really good, and I could see the tuning just tormenting him. And if this is not too girly an observation (and even if it is) - that was a really really pretty gold Telecaster. Nice.

And then finally - there was my band! Worth every minute of waiting, worth the sore feet, the bruises and the sunburn. Blew everyone clean away. At the end of the show, RSP took a handful of guitar picks and tossed them directly at me. The nice thing about that was that I was able to reach out and snag two right out of the air. The unavoidable consequence, of course, is that the handful of guitar picks was instantly followed by a flurry of other people's grabby hands, pretty much right in my face. So I grabbed my two picks with one hand motion, then immediately ducked and waited for the storm of frenzied pick-snatchers to subside. Looked up through the barricade and saw RSP waiting for me to surface, smirking. Glad I could entertain him.

I have trouble admitting it to myself, but unless something unexpected happens, this was their last show of the year. I'm surprised they didn't say anything, at the show or on their website, about it being the end of some perceived tour or other. I realize it wasn't the end of any particular tour, but they've proclaimed certain shows to be the end of a tour before, when they were going to be followed by much, much shorter breaks. I'll see them again in January, but that's going to be a long, long wait. Look for me to have a small breakdown around the first week of December.

my mood -

the mood of the whole world wide bleepin' web -