A Crappy Year for Music...and Everything Else (2020)

2/13/20 – UFO @ Medina Ballroom – Medina, MN

2/24/20 – KISS / David Lee Roth @ Xcel Center – St. Paul, MN

1/16-17/20 – The Radiators @ Tipitinas – New Orleans, LA

3/10/20 – Bob Weir & Wolf Bros @ Fillmore – Minneapolis, MN

Okay…I recently went to my first concert in 15 months, so I decided to once again look at the previous year’s live music calendar.  2020 started off as another fun year of music, but then COVID quickly shut us all down.  Ugh.

As always, the best way to start the year is with the Radiators reunion shows down in New Orleans in January.  Always a great time with my best friends from Minneapolis and all over the country flying into town to see our favorite band.  I got to see two out of the three nights and just had a blast with the usual crew.

Mofro was great as always…over the years JJ Grey has turned into the consummate showman, always delivering a professional show, but it lacks a bit of the wild and craziness of the earlier years.

A week later was the best show of the year for me and one of the funnest rock nights of my life, seeing my favorite 70’s band ‘UFO’ in Medina.  I could have hardly scripted a better night of rock and roll…it felt like I was in the Make-A-Wish foundation.  They were on their 50^th Anniversary/Farewell tour and originally were not scheduled to come to Minnesota, so the previous October I had flown out to Vegas for one night to see them.  In Medina I had a front row seat at the center table right in front of the stage.  

As I did in Vegas, I wore an old tee shirt from Pete Way’s band (he was the original bass player for UFO) and during the concert the singer Phil Mogg kept pointing at me and giving me the thumbs up.  Other band members would come up and jam right in front of me and smile at the shirt as well.  At one point between songs, Phil pointed to my shirt and said:  “That is an interesting shirt you have on there.  I used to live with Pete…too long though.”  Then looking up at the audience:  “We have someone up here with a Pete Way shirt on.  What is your name?  Peter?!  Another Pete!”

Over the years I have gotten to know the guy who runs the Medina Ballroom…we’ll call him Rick.  He is a really nice guy, we love to chat about music, and he always brings my posters backstage to have the performers sign them.  On this particular night he got my 1979 UFO poster I brought signed before the show, and after the show he got me into the band’s Meet and Greet for free…saved me $100.  While the security cleared out all the fans from the venue, I just stuck to Rick’s side until the band came out for the Meet and Greet.  All the people who had paid for it were milling around until Rick pointed to me and shouted out:  “Okay, everyone line up here behind him.”  Holy crap, I was first in line.  I was kind of nervous…this was my chance to talk to and meet my heroes!  This was really happening.  I was not clear in my mind what all I wanted to say, so I let the two guys behind me go ahead of me.  The band’s manager gave us all VIP posters for the band to sign, and then one at a time we walked up to the long table where the whole band was sitting.

When I first walked up the guitarist Vinnie Moore pointed at me and yelled out:  “The Pete Way shirt guy!” and Phil yelled:  “Peter!”  I thanked each one of them for an awesome show, but started with Phil Mogg the singer first.  With a gigantic smile plastered to my face, I said to Phil:  “My favorite vocalist, in my all-time favorite band”.  He smiled and continued the Pete Way story that he started on stage:  “Yeah not only did we used to live together, we slept in the same bed.  Our flat had no heat and it was so cold we would sleep together for warmth.”  I asked him if he had a girl between them and he said:  “Not usually…we weren’t that lucky.  But we had our clothes on and it was a big bed.”  I told him I just saw him a few months ago in Vegas and he said yeah, he remembered me and the shirt.

Next up was Vinnie.  I told him how I got the Pete shirt…that about 10 or 15 years ago I was on Pete Way’s website looking at the merchandise.  It was a rudimentary website and I could not figure out how to pay for the shirt I wanted.  There was a phone number on the bottom so I called and a guy with a British accent answered.  “Uh, hello?”  I said.  “Hello?” he said.  “Um…is this Pete Way?”  He said that this was Pete’s house in Cleveland, but that Pete was out of the country in England trying to get back into the United States.  The US government was not letting him back in.  We chatted for a while…a really nice guy, and he took my info and mailed me a t-shirt for $5.

Next up at the table was the guitar/keyboardist Neil Carter, who had recently re-joined the band after 36 years off.  He was asked to re-join in 2019 when Paul Raymond died suddenly.  Neil said that he liked the shirt, and I told him that I loved seeing him back in the band.  I told him of course the circumstances of his arrival with Paul dying were horrible, but I was very happy that he took his place.  I asked him if he called them or they called him.  He excitedly said that UFO called him!  He hadn’t played guitar in 10 years though…didn’t even own one.  He played keyboards all the time, but had to relearn the guitar and get his chops back up.

Next up was the drummer Andy Parker.  I knew from meeting him after a show many years ago that he was a really nice guy.  I told him that was my 1979 UFO poster that he signed before the show.  He said:  “Ohh ho!  That was awesome!  Hey Phil!  That was Pete’s old poster that we signed!”  Then turning back to me he said:  “Phil was mad because we weren’t top bill…I had to explain to him that for this poster the bands were in alphabetical order so that’s why we were at the bottom.”

Then lastly I came to the bass player Rob De Luca.  He overheard my conversation with Andy and asked about the poster, and how I got it.  I told him I was a collector…that I have hundreds of posters…most of them from the 60’s, like the Grateful Dead and other bands from San Francisco.  He said he had seen four Dead shows.  I told him my hair used to be longer than his and that Jerry’s last show was my 100^th show.  

We chatted for a bit, and then it was time for a group photo!  The band all left the table, brought me over to a wall, and their manager used my phone to take a couple of pictures.  The perfect end to a perfect night…the concert was smoking hot, Phil Mogg talked to me from onstage again like he did in a few months earlier in Vegas, they signed all my posters, and they were awesome dudes.  I am really going to miss seeing them.

A week and a half later I was enjoying the cool and down-to-earth tunes from James McMurtry.  A couple days later I was seeing my umpteenth KISS show on their umpteenth final tour.  They were perfectly KISS…predictably awesome as always, especially from the great open seat I found next to the stage where you could practically feel your eyebrows singeing off from the massive pyrotechnics.  Then two weeks later little did I know I was seeing my final concert for the next 15 months…Bob Weir at the new Minneapolis Fillmore.  It was a surprisingly great show, but there was a weird vibe in the crowd as everyone was talking about COVID.  Just three days later I was quarantined with the family, working from home…the world had begun to shut down.

Anyways, here is the list of what I managed to see last year while I could:

 

 1/16-17/20 – The Radiators @ Tipitinas – New Orleans, LA

 2/7/20 – Mofro @ First Avenue – Minneapolis, MN

 2/13/20 – UFO @ Medina Ballroom – Medina, MN

 2/22/20 – James McMurtry @ Dakota Jazz Club – Minneapolis, MN

 2/24/20 – KISS / David Lee Roth @ Xcel Center – St. Paul, MN

 3/10/20 – Bob Weir & Wolf Bros @ Fillmore – Minneapolis, MN

After the Bob Weir show on Tuesday March 10^th, I was working from home and quarantined by Friday the 13^th…the end of the road.  In my little pink box of tickets at home I still had tickets to see later that year a bunch of events that all got cancelled or delayed indefinitely.  These included the Harlem Globetrotters, Roger McGuinn, the Rolling Stones, Dude Perfect, Motley Crue/Def Leppard, Guns ‘n Roses, and Roger Waters.

Things are finally opening up, and I am looking forward to more shows this year!  I have tickets for a few shows that I can’t wait to see…including The Iguanas with Camile Baudoin from the Radiators, Elvin Bishop, Black Label Society…and eventually G ‘n R, Motley Crue, Roger Waters and hopefully the Stones.

Another Great Year In Music (2019)

5/5/19 – Pink @ Xcel Center – St. Paul, MN

8/10/19 – Rolling Stones @ Mile High Stadium – Denver, CO

8/26/19 – Iron Maiden @ Xcel Center

  9/8/19 – The Revolution @ US Bank Stadium – Minneapolis, MN

10/11/19 – UFO @ House Of Blues – Las Vegas, NV

Okay…it is that time of year again to look back on the previous year’s live music calendar.  It was another fun year with a lot of great shows, some incredible shows, and not one clunker (well…except maybe Vince Neil, but he was an opener).

 

The Radiator-reunion shows down in New Orleans are always a great way to start off the year.  It is a huge annual gathering of cool friends from every corner of the country flying in to see our favorite band and guaranteed to be a blast.  Last year was no exception as I stayed at a large house with Murphy, Ruby, and Mitch and others.  Great music, great food, and very little sleep…you know the routine.

 

The Nick Mason concert was a pleasant surprise.  Before Pink Floyd blew up into PINK FLOYD (pre-‘Dark Side’) they were the same insanely talented trippy band, but they were playing auditoriums and theaters instead of stadiums.  I got to go back in time to those early ‘theater’ days at the Orpheum Theatre with drummer Nick Mason’s ‘Saucerful Of Secrets’ tour.  It helped that as a dutiful, determined and dedicated Floyd-stoner in the 80’s I listened to the early-Floyd almost as much as the later mainstream-Floyd so I knew those songs well (except the unreleased-never-before-played-live ‘Vegetable Man’).  The band was amazing with varying degrees of impressive pedigree (including bassist/singer Guy Pratt who used to tour with Floyd) and it did not feel like a cover band since most of us lucky enough to ever see Pink Floyd (with or without Waters) never got to see any of these songs played live.  I felt like I was at the Fillmore West in 1970.  I recommend this amazing psychedelic treat to any real Pink Floyd fans.

 

Sammy Hagar was his awesome timeless self, but the opener Vince Neil was pretty awful.  His voice was somewhat tolerable (it has not been great for years), but it looks like he has gained about 100 pounds since he left Motley Crue.  Not surprisingly the Crue is reuniting this year, but I heard the promotors have told Vince that he HAS to lose weight for the tour.  I have tickets for the show here in Minneapolis…we will see how it goes.

 

The summer was a flashback to the 60’s as I got to see three of the biggest 60’s bands ever, including Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and The Who.  Paul still commands and works a stadium better than anyone in the world except, maybe…Mick and the Stones.  As great as Paul was, the Stones were just amazing and it was so worth the trip to Denver to catch this show with my soulie Penny.  The Beatles were the best studio band in the world, but the Stones are still the greatest touring band in the world.  Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend from The Who put on another great show complete with a huge orchestra backing them up for much of the concert.  I love that these old band are still bringing it as such a high level, but you got to wonder how much longer.  Although…I just bought Rolling Stones tickets for a Minneapolis show in May!

 

Tesla, KISS, Lita Ford, Anvil, Slash, and Uncle Acid were all awesome metal shows, but my favorite metal concert had to be Iron Maiden.  I first saw them in 1983 and decades later they are just as good.  The singer Bruce Dickinson is a rock god.  Not only is his voice still perfect, while his bandmates are chilling with beers and groupies after the show he is at the airport kicking the tires, testing the gauges and getting ready to fly the band’s jumbo jet to Peru or Sweden or wherever their next gig is.  He is such a badass.  There is never a good reason to miss these guys when they are in town.

 

One of the funnest concerts of the year was seeing my favorite 70’s rockers ‘UFO’ in Las Vegas.  They are on their 50^th Anniversary/Farewell tour and they were not scheduled to come to Minnesota, so I found super cheap airfare to Vegas and a cheap room at the Luxor and went out there for one night.  I met some cool people and had a blast.  While waiting to get in the House of Blues I snuck into the VIP line, and when they let us in I ran up and grabbed a spot on the front rail, dead center.  I wore an old tee shirt from Pete Way’s band (he was the original bass player for UFO) and the singer Phil Mogg kept pointing at me and giving me the thumbs up.  While introducing the song ‘Too Hot To Handle’ to the crowd he pointed to my shirt and said:  “This next tune, which incidentally I wrote with that bloke.  Yeah that was before the narcotics took over and he bought half of Peru.  Good times.”  I had to turn around and show the crowd my Pete Way shirt so they knew what he was talking about.  Coincidentally, one of the cool people I met who was to my left was a lady from Peru.  Most bittersweet line of the night:  “Under your feet, the grass is growing…time to say goodbye.” (from ‘Lights Out’.)  At the end Phil remarked that we won’t be seeing him anymore, unless it’s at a pub.  Sad…until I got home and found out that UFO had scheduled a Minnesota stop on the final tour, so I get to see them one last time!

 

 

Anyways, here is everything I managed to see last year:

 

1/17-18/19 – The Radiators @ Tipitinas – New Orleans, LA

1/27/19 – Champions of Magic @ State Theatre – Minneapolis, MN

1/28/19 – Neil Young @ Orpheum Theatre – Minneapolis, MN

2/1/19 – Tesla @ Mystic Lake Casino – Prior Lake, MN

2/2/19 – Dead cover band @ Hook & Ladder Theater – Minneapolis, MN

2/22/19 – Elton John @ Target Center – Minneapolis, MN

2/23/19 – The New Orleans Suspects @ Bunkers – Minneapolis, MN

3/4/19 – KISS @ Target Center

3/9/19 – Winger/Lita Ford @ Medina Ballroom – Medina, MN

3/16/19 – The Subdudes @ Dakota Jazz Club – Minneapolis, MN

3/19/19 – Bob Weir & Wolf Bros @ Palace Theatre – St. Paul, MN

4/3/19 – Nick Mason @ Orpheum Theatre

4/5/19 – Blue Oyster Cult/The Tubes @ Medina Ballroom

4/13/19 – Doors/Zeppelin/Floyd cover band 'Trilogy' @ Medina Ballroom

4/20/19 – Anvil/Don Jamieson/Archer Nation @ Turf Club – St. Paul, MN

5/1/19 – The Radiators @ Civic Theatre – New Orleans, LA

5/1/19 – Honey Island Swamp Band @ Little Gem Saloon – New Orleans, LA

5/2/19 – Samantha Fish, Dwight James, Marc Broussard, Geno Delafose, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Rita Coolidge, Widespread Panic, Tom Jones, and Billy Iuso @ Jazz Fest – New Orleans, LA

5/5/19 – Pink @ Xcel Center – St. Paul, MN

5/17/19 – Sammy Hagar/Vince Neil @ Mystic Lake Casino

5/31/19 – Tesla/Dokken @ Myth – Maplewood, MN

6/8/19 – Paul McCartney @ Lambeau Field – Green Bay, WI

6/30/19 – Tony Glover Memorial @ Cedar Cultural Center – Minneapolis, MN

8/2/19 – Willie Nelson/Alison Krauss @ Target Center

8/3/19 – Slash’s featuring Myles Kennedy @ Mystic Lake Casino

8/10/19 – Rolling Stones @ Mile High Stadium – Denver, CO

8/16/19 – Los Lobos @ Ordway Theatre – St. Paul, MN

8/26/19 – Iron Maiden/The Raven Age @ Xcel Center

9/1/19 – Garrison Keillor @ Crooners Lounge – Minneapolis, MN

9/6/19 – The Who/Reignwolf @ Xcel Center

9/8/19 – The Revolution (Vikings halftime) @ US Bank Stadium – Minneapolis, MN

9/10/19 – Crispin Glover @ Parkway Theater – Minneapolis, MN

9/14/19 – Honey Island Swamp Band @ Bunkers

9/28/19 – Gov’t Mule @ Palace Theatre

10/7/19 – Little Feat/Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams @ State Theatre – Minneapolis, MN

10/11/19 – UFO/Armored Saint @ House Of Blues – Las Vegas, NV

10/17/19 – The New Orleans Suspects @ Dakota Jazz Club

10/19/19 – Deep Purple @ The Armory – Minneapolis, MN

10/25/19 – Richard Thompson @ Fitzgerald Theater – St. Paul, MN

10/31/19 – The Butanes w/Dave, Camile & Reggie @ Shaw's Bar – Minneapolis, MN

11/1/19 – Raw Oyster Cult @ Bunkers

11/2/19 – Raw Oyster Cult @ Bunkers

11/19/19 – King Diamond/Uncle Acid @ Palace Theatre

11/30/19 – Prairie Home Companion @ Pantages Theater – Minneapolis, MN

12/9/19 – KDWB Jingle Ball (Katy Perry, etc) @ Xcel Center

12/14/19 – Hot Tuna/Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams @ Fitzgerald Theater

 

And looking forward to 2020, besides the Radiators concerts I just saw a few weeks ago in New Orleans I have tickets for a bunch of stuff that I can’t wait to see…including UFO down the road at the Medina tomorrow night!  Here’s to another great year of live music!

A Crazy Good Year In Music (2018)

2/2/18 – Pink @ The Armory – Minneapolis, MN

 2/22/18 – Robert Plant @ State Theatre – Minneapolis, MN

 9/22/18 – Paul Simon @ Flushing Meadows – Queens, NY

 10/18/18 – Foo Fighters @ Xcel Center – St. Paul, MN

Okay.  It is that time of year again to look back on the previous year’s live music calendar.  It was another banner year with a lot of great shows, some incredible shows, some sad in their finality, and one freaky clunker.  The first three months included three of my favorite female artists with sultry Lana Del Rey, kickass Pink and luscious Lorde.  The first Pink show at the general admission Armory was especially kickass in that I got there early enough to get a front row spot, and Pink jumped off the stage practically into my arms 5 minutes into the show…holy crap.

 

Legendary Robert Plant was…Robert Plant…and notable in that he still sounds amazing and his band is packed with some of the world’s best musicians.  Back at the Armory a month later for Judas Priest with friends Mitch, Thor and Fast Eddie was a heavy metal blast from the past as the bill also included an 80’s favorite of mine Saxon.  A month later I was in New Orleans for Jazz Fest, seeing my all-time favorite band and friends the Radiators…not to mention a bunch of great acts at the Fairgrounds with my buddy Dave S. Thompson who had a pair of Grand Marshall passes for us.

 

June found me back at my old high school stomping grounds, Alpine Valley, for another round of Dead & Company.  They were fantastic but I only went to one night, which many considered the best show of the tour and I had a blast channeling that old-school Alpine feeling that we had in the 80’s.  Luckily I missed the next night which many considered the worst show of the tour.  So it goes with the Dead.

 

Cool old Ray Wylie Hubbard from Texas was a real treat at the Dakota, and it was fun talking to him about one of his and my heroes, Tony Glover.  Speaking of, I saw Tony a few days later at Crooners Lounge, which I fear may be the last time I  ever get to see him perform live.  Along that same vein, I was also fortunate enough to see beloved Bob Seger on his final tour, as well as Paul Simon at his final show EVER in Queens where he grew up…both shows were very bittersweet.

 

Los Lobos were their usual cool selves down in Mankato at the outdoor Vetter Amphitheater.  I went with Fast Eddie and I managed to talk our way deeper and deeper into the backstage realm until I ended up parking my car next to the band’s equipment truck.  Before long we were dining on delicious catered backstage cuisine while waiting for the band to show up.  They rocked Mankato and afterwards every single member signed a half-dozen old posters from the 80’s that I brought from my collection.

 

A concert and artist that took me by surprise was Taylor Swift…laugh if you want, but her sold out stadium show (one of two nights in Minneapolis) was f*cking awesome.  I did not know much about her, but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about was so I found a fairly cheap ticket and ended up sneaking into some of the best seats in the stadium.  Her show was spectacularly visual, huge and fun…and despite me being the only straight male there without a wife/girlfriend/daughter, I had a blast.  My 9-year old daughter is still mad that I didn’t take her, but I will next time.

 

A couple days later I caught timeless primal metal favorites Metallica at the new and improved Target Center.  I can’t say Metallica was new or improved, but they still kicked my ass as they have been for decades.  I figured it would be funny to wear a Taylor Swift tee-shirt to the concert, but then thought better of it and went safe with a black Metallica shirt.

 

Another one of my favorite shows of the year was the Foo Fighters at the Xcel.  Dave Grohl is just so damn cool…he reminds me of my favorite ‘Dave’ (Malone) in his fun-loving coolness and talent.  I scored a seat next to the stage and even got a couple of guitar pics from him.  Long great show that had us all jumping and screaming, and it was the last show of the tour so all protocol was out the window as Dave and the band seemed to be having even more fun than we were.

 

Speaking of Dave Malone, he was in town a week later for the Krewe of DAD’s 33^rd annual Halloween bash with Raw Oyster Cult performing two nights.  This was an incredible weekend of music and mayhem, with members of the band arriving a day early and sitting in with the New Orleans Suspects at the Dakota, and then again across town with the Butanes at Shaws…it felt like we were back at the Maple Leaf in New Orleans.

 

The only performer I regret paying money to go see was Phil Collins at the Target Center.  My god…the poor guy looks like he’s 110 years old.  He actually sounded fairly good, but he could barely walk and looked like a withered old shell of himself.  He had to be helped on to the stage and sat in a chair the whole time.  We left after 45 minutes as I wanted to try and remember him in my mind as the man that was flashing up on the stage-screen for the hour before the show, instead of what was left of him.

 

Anyways, here is what I managed to see last year:

 

1/5/18 – Lana Del Rey @ Target Center – Minneapolis, MN

2/2/18 – Pink @ The Armory – Minneapolis, MN
2/10/18 – The Butanes w/Camile Baudoin @ Hook & Ladder Theater – Mpls, MN
2/14/18 – Jorma Kaukonen @ Cedar Cultural Center – Minneapolis, MN
2/22/18 – Robert Plant @ State Theatre – Minneapolis, MN
3/3/18 – Jefferson Starship/Mark Farner @ Medina Ballroom – Medina, MN
3/9/18 – Slaughter/Lynch Mob @ Medina Ballroom
3/12/18 – Pink @ Xcel Center – St. Paul, MN
3/22/18 – The New Orleans Suspects @ Dakota Jazz Club – Minneapolis, MN
3/23/18 – Lorde @ Xcel Center
4/2/18 – Judas Priest/Saxon/Black Star Riders @ The Armory
4/21/18 – Dave Davies @ Medina Ballroom
5/2/18 – The Radiators @ Tipitinas – New Orleans, LA
5/3/18 – Lyle Lovett/Old Crow/Kermit Ruffins/Big Sam/Honey Island @ Jazz Fest – New Orleans, LA
5/3/18 – The Gatorators @ Café Istanbul – New Orleans, LA
5/5/18 – Arlo Guthrie @ O’Shaughnessy Theatre – St. Paul, MN
5/12/18 –New Orleans Suspects/Honey Island Swamp Band @ Hook & Ladder Theater
5/20/18 – Rob Lowe @ State Theatre
6/3/18 – Parker Milsap @ Turf Club – St. Paul, MN
6/8/18 – Paul Simon @ Xcel Center
6/22/18 – Dead & Company @ Alpine Valley – East Troy, WI
6/30/18 – Eagles/Jimmy Buffett @ Target Field – Minneapolis, MN
7/8/18 – Ray Wylie Hubbard @ Dakota Jazz Club
7/14/18 – Charlie Maguire, Pop Wagner & Tony Glover @ Crooners Lounge
7/17/18 – George Clinton & P-Funk @ Varsity Theater – Minneapolis, MN
7/27/18 – Def Leppard/Journey/Cheap Trick @ Target Field
8/9/18 – Los Lobos/Big Head Todd @ Vetter Amphitheater – Mankato, MN
8/14/18 – Mofro/Blackberry Smoke @ MN Zoo – Apple Valley, MN
9/1/18 – Taylor Swift @ US Bank Stadium – Minneapolis, MN
9/4/18 – Metallica @ Target Center
9/22/18 – Paul Simon @ Flushing Meadows – Queens, NY
9/29/18 – Honey Island Swamp Band @ Hook & Ladder Theater
10/5/18 – Lynyrd Skynyrd/Bad Company @ Xcel Center
10/8/18 – Elvin Bishop @ Dakota Jazz Club
10/14/18 – Rod Stewart/Cyndi Lauper @ Xcel Center
10/18/18 – Foo Fighters @ Xcel Center
10/19/18 – Widespread Panic @ Riverside Theatre – Milwaukee, WI
10/21/18 – Phil Collins @ Target Center
10/25/18 – The New Orleans Suspects @ Dakota Jazz Club
10/25/18 – The Butanes w/Dave, Camile & Reggie @ Shaws Bar & Grill – Mpls, MN
10/26/18 – Raw Oyster Cult/Frogleg @ Hook & Ladder Theater
10/27/18 – Raw Oyster Cult/Frogleg @ Hook & Ladder Theater
12/8/18 – Hot Tuna @ Hopkins Art Center – Hopkins, MN
12/12/18 – Bob Seger @ Xcel Center

And looking forward to 2019, besides the awesome Radiators concerts I just saw over the weekend in New Orleans I have tickets for a ton of other cool concerts that I can’t wait to see.  Here’s to another great year of live music!

New Orleans Jazz Fest 1995

It all began for us on Tuesday, May 2^nd, 1995.  Mitch, Arnie and I planned to drive to New Orleans for the 1995 Jazz Fest.  We were huge fans of the New Orleans Radiators, who would be playing almost every night in some capacity while we were down there.  But we are also huge music fans…and if you are a fan of music then a trip to Jazz Fest is a must.

 

Mitch and I were living in Madison, WI at the time and Arnie lived in Minneapolis.  Arnie drove down to Madison on that Tuesday and then we all jumped into Mick’s new green Honda Civic for the trip down to the Big Easy.  It is about a 1,000 mile drive from Madison to New Orleans and we took off Tuesday night.  I had recently been busted for a DWI and did not have a license so my driving was limited.  They let me drive a few times, but only when we were in the middle of nowhere like southern Illinois or Mississippi.  Instead of driving I was the navigator and before long Mitch had nicknamed me ‘Maps’.

 

We arrived in New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon and headed to our friend Kathy’s place where she lived with her daughter Karamia.  I had stayed there before and Kathy is a sweet person and an awesome host.  She never hesitated to let 5 or 10 of us crash in her various rooms or floor space and there was always room for one more.  Arnie and I had actually met there a couple years earlier when we were in New Orleans to see the Radiators for New Year’s Eve.

 

Wednesday night we went out to the Muddy Waters bar on Oak Street in the Carrollton District to see a blues show (possibly Kenny Neal and Tinsley Ellis).  It is impossible to remember which nights we ended up where for the after-party or remember all the crazy details (all the New Orleans memories over the years start to blend together), but at least one night we ended up at Snake ‘n Jakes, at least one night at the Maple Leaf, and one night we just sat on Kathy’s front porch drinking till dawn while our friend Tommy The Freak tried to kick his shoes onto Kathy’s roof.

 

Thursday was the first of a 4-day weekend going to the New Orleans racetrack every day for the Fest.  For those of you who do not know about it, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is an enormous annual festival held the last weekend in April (Fri/Sat/Sun) and the first weekend in May (Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun) from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.  There are at least a dozen stages, hundreds of bands and countless awesome local food stands.  The music is mostly local New Orleans bands but includes bigger national acts as well.  So there was Fest during the day, and then there were shows at the seemingly infinite bars and clubs around town where all the bands would play at night.  In addition to that, the various record stores would have in-store appearances by bands as well.

 

Here was a typical 24 hours in New Orleans during Jazz Fest:  wake up at 11 am and head to the fairgrounds where you would eat, drink and watch music until 7 pm.  Then head to wherever ‘home’ was and nap for 3 hours.  Get up at 10 pm and head out to whatever night show you were seeing, oftentimes the Radiators at Tipitinas that started at approximately 11:11 pm.  Watch that concert till 2 or 3 am and then head to the after-party until 6 am.  Go home, sleep until 11 am and then start over.  I had started going to the 2^nd weekend of Fest a year or two before and continue going to this day, although not every year anymore due to my married-with-children status, and never for a week…usually just a couple nights.

 

On Thursday the three of us got to the fairgrounds and I would be lying to you if I said I remembered what exactly what we saw, but looking at the lineup that day I imagine it included some or all of the following bands or acts:  James Taylor, Kenny Neal, Nocentelli w/special guest Zigaboo Modeliste, Charles Neville & Diversity, and Walter Payton.  I bought a 1995 Jazz Fest tee-shirt for $10, but upon hindsight I wish I had bought the 1995 Jazz Fest poster with Louis Armstrong on it.  The unsigned edition originally sold for $45.  My tee-shirt is long gone, but that poster now sells for $1,770 if you can find it.

 

We got back to Kathy’s around 7 p.m. and that is when shit started to get crazy.  A couple years earlier Mitch and I had immediately bonded when we met and became best friends, and this night would go down as one of the cornerstones in our relationship.  Mitch had brought down 3 sugar cubes laced with acid that he got from his buddy Donnie in Madison.  The Radiators were playing that night at Tipitinas and we were excited to dose and see our favorite band at the coolest bar in the country.

 

Arnie was hungry and wanted to go out and grub first with Kathy and a pack of Canadians that were also staying at the house.  I wanted to take a shower before heading out, but Mitch was anxious to get going as soon as possible.  We made a deal and decided to try an experiment…Mitch would take his acid hit right away…I would take a shower and then take my hit exactly one hour after Mitch…and Arnie would go out to eat and then take his hit exactly one hour after me.  We would all be on the same acid but one hour apart so that we could take mental notes…compare and contrast our trips.

 

Mitch ate his sugar cube, cracked a beer and hung out on the porch while I went in to get ready for the night.  I came out an hour later and Mick was already becoming a giggling puddle.  He had dropped his beer on the concrete porch and was unsure what to do next.  He was slowly pacing around, staring at the broken glass and the widening pool of beer.  He kept staring at it, worried and hesitating but giggling.  His complete inability to figure out how to proceed in this situation was hilarious but I decided to help him out anyways.  After sweeping up the glass and beer I ate my sugar cube to try and catch up to Mitch.  He kept looking around, staring at stuff…asking me if I saw what he saw.  No, not  yet…I was only 3 minutes into the trip.  Judging by Mitch’s extreme goofiness I realized this was high-powered acid and I was nervously excited.

 

After a while Mitch and I got in his car to head to Tipitinas.  Arnie was still out and he would meet us down there later.  Before we could go to Tips though, Freak asked us to give him and a guy named Hal a ride to Jimmy’s Music Club to see the Funky Meters.  Hal was a friend  of Freak’s from California who carried an 8-string proto-type guitar/bass thing around with him everywhere he went…the entire week…he never left home without the big silly thing.  We had met him earlier in the day at Fest and he quickly proved to be slightly amusing, but somewhat of a pain in the ass.  He was convinced that if he carried that weird guitar with him long enough somebody would eventually invite him onstage to play with them.  As far as I know that never happened.  Mitch quickly nick-named him the ‘Octoprotozoid’.

 

Mitch was now two hours into the trip and probably should not have been driving, but I did not have a license so I took my usual spot in the shotgun seat with map in hand.  I was an hour into the trip, right where Mitch had been an hour ago on the porch…unsure of myself, giggling, nervous, the acid beginning to kick in strong.  With Freak giving directions in the backseat and me trying my best to follow our progress on the map, we wound all around town while Mitch and I laughed uncontrollably in the front seat getting higher by the second.

 

At one point, through tears of laughter, Mitch pointed through the windshield and asked:  “What do all those lights look like to you?”  Mitch was expecting me to give the usual trippy response and confirm what he was seeing…that everything was melting and full of trails.  I paused for awhile, staring nervously out into the great melting sea of lights, sound, people, cars and trails…unsure about Mitch’s driving, my directions, our ability to function in the world, unsure about anything and finally I answered with:  “Cops.”  We turned our heads towards each other and burst out into an enormous round of fresh laughter and tears.  When we had calmed down for a second we looked in the back seat.  Freak and Octoprotozoid were sitting there with terrified looks on their faces, hands against the front seat bracing for an impending crash, wondering if they should get the hell out of the car immediately while they were still alive.

 

Eventually Mitch and I succeeded in dropping them off safely though and we made our way to Tipitinas.  The Radiators were amazing that night, more awesome than usual with the acid turning the place into a giant steaming pot of human flesh and sweat and laughter as the music became a living entity, a river of sound carrying us on our journey.  I remember at one point we were upstairs looking down at the sea of dancing bodies and Mitch had a huge grin on his face, eyes half-closed.  It was at this point that he “figured it out that night”…that we were all the bucket of fish, which is a central theme in Radiators music and the title of an album they had just released 6 months earlier.  When we got home Mitch got a tattoo of a giant fish rising up on his calf to commemorate this night and this trip.

 

Time had become a hard concept to follow, but at set-break we went outside to see if we could find Arnie and see where he was in his trip.  There was poor Arnie…tripping his gourd off just like us and looking a little worried.  It was really strong acid.  Mitch remarked that we could go backstage if we wanted…that Reggie had invited him.  Arnie’s eyes got really big for second, and then he said matter-of-factly:  “I’m not going back there.”  We all agreed…the three of us we in NO shape to go backstage and try and be somewhat normal, civil adults and carry on adult conversations.  I had tried that once in San Francisco at a New Year’s Eve show while tripping on mushrooms.  When I got introduced to one of the band member’s wife, she had a giant bush growing out of her hair that confused me greatly.  I had to get out of there as soon as possible.

 

After very little sleep we got up the next day and headed back to the Fairgrounds.  Again, I cannot tell you exactly what we saw, but based on the list of bands these are some of the acts that we probably saw over the next 3 days at Jazz Fest:  Buckwheat Zydeco, Al Green, Funky Meters, Koko Taylor, Ernie K-Doe w/Jessie Hill, Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers, Wild Magnolias, Joni Mitchell, Little Feat, Subdudes, Dixie Cups, Charmaine Neville & Friends, Ivan Neville, Walter "Wolfman" Washington & the Roadmasters, B.B. King, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Anders Osborne…and of course, as always, the Radiators to close out the Fest on Sunday evening.

 

It was a monumental blast being in music-lovers heaven all week, but it was time to wrap it up with one last show Sunday night, May 7^th, before heading back home Monday morning.  After the Radiators finished their Fest-closing set we went back to Kathy’s and then out to the House of Blues in the French Quarter to see Los Lobos.  It was a great show but we were all incredibly tired…and sore.  The one thing about a week of Jazz Fest is the enormous amount of walking and dancing your feet have to endure…many, many miles and hours on our feet.  Mitch wore his black Rolling Stones hi-tops the entire week and by the time we got out of the Lobos show he simply could not walk anymore.  He tried at first, but with every step he let out an “Ow.”  Step “Ow”, step “Ow”, step “Ow”.  He gave up and Arnie and I literally had to carry him the several blocks from the bar to his car.

 

After a few hours of sleep Mitch and I got up very early to leave for home.  It was still dark and we had to get out of there before the giant rain storm that was just beginning to come down turned into a flood.  That historic storm later came to be known as the ‘May 1995 Louisiana Flood’, dumping 24 inches of rain, causing 6 fatalities and over $3.1 billion dollars in damage.  As the rain came down Mitch and I packed with a sense of urgency.  Suddenly, we looked at each other and said:  “Where’s Arnie?”  He was not in his room, the bathroom, kitchen…nowhere to be found and we had to leave.  We searched the whole house and eventually came upon Kathy’s door…was he in there??  We slowly opened the door and sure enough, there was Arnie laying there with a big grin on his face.  We told him to get up, the ark is leaving town.

 

We got out of there just in time, as the rain pounded New Orleans and the surrounding areas.  There has never been a comparable recorded flood in New Orleans history caused by rain alone.  As we raced north ahead of the worst of the storm, we wondered about our hostess with the mostess.  We found out later that the flood waters went all the way up to the top step of Kathy’s porch but did not get into her house.  It was a fantastic week of music and friends…typical for a New Orleans Jazz Fest and one that would be imitated year after year, but never repeated…this one was special.