There were at least 200 people waiting for sound check to start. The band played a day light show out in the open festival. The sea was 600 deep before they began.
I stood around talking with Dave Jorgensen before they took the stage. He asked me to take a bunch of photo’s for his parents. Dave’s got a Blog. Here’s the address.
He doesn’t update it much -- Sounds familiar.
Here’s a bunch of pictures of Dave playing for his folks.
I listen to more of Dave’s work than pretty much anybody else's work, because he does the horn line for Think Out Loud, an Oregon Public Broadcasting radio program that has people call in. It plays in the morning when I’m usually on my way to an appointment. Dave’s from Wisconsin and lives music. He also plays in the band for the Radio Program Live wire. They compose and rehearse all the songs that they play on each show. It's a pretty sweet deal. He likes to build instruments out of other instruments. He knows a guy in Springfield in Oregon that has the pipe portion of a pipe organ and I volunteered to pick it up next time I’m in Springfield. I also volunteered the piano that is in my barn. It’s a 1950’s –ish upright that is just taking up space, getting weathered and infested.. I don’t plan on using it for the next 5 years, so If Dave will make music on it then I think it’ll be put to good use.
The ACL set went well. It looked good and sounded fun. By the time they got into it there were several thousand people.
The crowd cheered when Israel played the first chords of Oviedo. Big festivals are interesting there are several bands playing all at once sounds interfering with each other. But when the band you want to see starts to play its loud enough that you can’t hear the other stages. After the show I went to the Green room to try to nap, which didn’t work out so well. Stu came in with his long time (like since 2) girlfriend and also (separate person) his step sister and a friend of her’s. I got in touch with an old friend of mine CJ Hanecamp from college – it turns out that this girl we knew – that he had dated later went on to win a bunch of money on Fear factor and then to date George Clooney. The green room was cool it was a nice place to get away – consequently I didn’t get to see many bands because I was sitting around trying to do some appraisal stuff, catching up on this blog and attempting to nap – the crowd never thinned down. CJ took advantage of a complimentary masseuse – Israel did too. I went to eat then got out into the crowd and caught the end of Band of Horses. CJ and I tried to get over to see the National but there were so many people that we wound up standing at the back of the Nora Jones concert. We had a bromantic time. Really we caught up - told our “oh, then the cop goes…” stories. We were obnoxious and the crowd around us gave us space. It was excellent. The band and I decided to skip The Eagles and caught a bus to Loretta. I started the Drive to Tucson. Everyone slept in the back. I’m getting better at shifting smoothly. I found an actual rest stop in Texas – they have a shit load of “Picnic areas” but no rest stops. This one was newer and nice. It has Wifi. We hit the road. The sun came up at another rest stop in South west Texas.
I drove on to El Paso. We’d caught a flat on one of the dually’s in the night and instead of getting it patched the band decided to replace all the back wheels which has cut our top speed by 5-10% because the wheel's diameters are smaller. Luke and Dave tried to fix the inverter again to no avail. They tried again in Tucson but we keep blowing resistors. Israel drove the rest of the way to Tucson. I got up when we were like 3 blocks from my Aunt’s house. This whole operation is easier for me when someone else drives. I just sleep. We hung out at my Aunt Connie and Uncle Tom’s house the next day – did laundry, took showers, watched Iron Man II and swam in the pool - Glorious. Katie and I went clothes shopping, which was fun. She’s got an easily identifiable style so when you look at something you know if it’s going to work and you know if it’s what she’s looking for. I got a new Wrangler shirt and a pair of used cowboy boots. The show that night was bad ass.
I snuck my cousin in through the back door, under the guise of selling shirts. Stu was there – he knows the words to the songs.
After the show I noticed that somebody at the bar had the bus blocked in and I decided it would be a good idea to ask everyone in the bar if the car was their's. I spoke to everyone in the bar and it literally belonged to the only guy left for me to talk ask. I had him move it but the band was in the mood to stick around and party so I made him move it for no reason. How can you know? Israel, Luke, Katie, Stu, Cory Chisel and Adreil were all in the back they were singing anything they could think of and someone came up with the idea that they should work on covering the Sam Cooke Song “Bring it on home to me”.
Here’s a link to the San Diego show where they perform it – the next night.
I was driving through the desert still in Arizona as the Sun began to rise. I remember thinking about the Feed lots and the giant bales of hay trucked out to the middle of the desert. The bill boards for vacant lots and empty neighborhood streets for to park a single wide and use as a vacation get away. Not long ago the valley floors were lakes and a big change in the weather could make them lakes again. But if they were lakes nobody could afford to come to their second homes. These single-wides would melt into the landscape. In 2001 I visited – stayed the night in the back of my truck in, the ghost town of Hamilton, Nevada. Sometime in the 1980’s there was a slight resurgence in the town and a new office building was constructed and a few single-wides were brought in. By the time I’d gotten there a few had been knocked over – either by vandals or the wind. One had a giant hole in the wall and insulation was strewn about everywhere. The presence of the single-wides made me wonder if there was anyone around. There wasn’t. Didn't find no gold, only poached deer. If living gets harder no one is going to live in Dateland. Somewhere in California after the wide wind shaped golden sand dunes give way to sage and irrigated farm land, sometime around 10:30AM, the thought went through my head, “just close your eyes and tomorrow will be fine.” Which was startling. Really though I realized I had reached capacity when after thinking how dangerous and ridiculous that would be, part of me started to argue for the notion.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=leadbelly+good+night+irene&aq=0
I realized I had lost the mindfulness required to continue and pulled over at the next exit. Israel took over from there and drove the rest of the way into San Diego.
