The Last 72 Hours....Pt. II
As the distance between the ground and the band grew by the
second, I could see the Pentagon and our nation’s capitol in the distance. The plane from D.C. was 4 hours late,
and would hopefully land leaving us the exact amount of travel time required
for Jake, Kris and I to make it to our side gig right when we were supposed to
start. Trying to relax with so
many factors out of our control, I retreated into The Last Campaign, a compelling book documenting the 82 days from
Robert Kennedy’s entrance into the presidential race of 1968 to his untimely
assassination in June of that year.
It’s a powerful, striking account and certainly helped put things in
perspective as we prepared to deal with a near impossible scenario on our
end. At 3 pm CST, we landed at
ORD. Fortunately, our gear arrived
safely and some was even on an earlier flight, waiting at the baggage claim for
us. As we walked through the
concourse, a sense of relief hit us, as we passed hundreds of people stranded
and waiting in enormous lines to try to get to where they wanted to go. We were lucky: we actually got through
the flying portion of our day.
Michael (bus driver), Vince (manager) and Lizzie (Kris’ girlfriend) had
the bus and our cars ready, minutes from the airport. Their caravan pulled up together perfectly in time with our
exit from the bottom of the O’Hare into a warm, humid Chicago afternoon. We executed the gear exchange pretty
well for a bunch of sleepless musicians, and just like that, we were on our way
to Iowa and the bus was on its way back to the office with the rest of
Umphrey’s McGee.
Jake and I somehow averted most of the rush hour traffic and
made our best effort toward getting there efficiently (safely, but
efficiently). We had less time than
what our trip detail indicated.
This was not a good sign.
My car started out a little bit ahead of Kris, which we figured was ok,
as Jake could finish building the drums and start the gig on drums if Kris was
15-30 minutes behind us. The trip
that followed featured Jake as deejay and me as the driver. We actually had a blast and listened to
everything from Blue Oyster Cult’s first album, to Deep Purple (Jon Lord, not
too shabby on the organ) to Can.
As we passed over the Mississippi, ominous clouds loomed just to the
north of us; running headlong into a monstrous storm seemed almost expected
this point. I would later learn
that a tornado ripped through my neighborhood on the north side of Chicago and
that lightning struck 10 feet from my father’s head as he tried to sleep,
charring a tree and the ground surrounding it behind my parents’ home. Another
footnote, O’Hare was also forced to send EVERYONE in the airport into the
basement during the same tornado that went through my neighborhood (Wrigley Field
also evacuated during a game that night…..where did those 40,000 people
go? So crazy). The O’Hare evacuation occurred about 5
hours after we landed there. We
learned all of this later, but at the time, we weren’t so sure about feeling
“lucky” to have made it out. The
fact that the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake was the last place Buddy Holly,
Richie Valens and the Big Bopper played started making me think I should really
just stay focused on the road and not think about anything but driving for a while.
Miles from nowhere
391 miles by car, 950 miles by air, 40 miles by van, 6 hours
waiting in an airport and a total of 19 travel hours later, we arrived in Clear
Lake, IA with 15 minutes to spare before we had to start our show. I grabbed the Moog and looked for the
Motif (88 key polyphonic keyboard/workstation) that had been advanced as
provided backline. Unfortunately,
the Motif had already been packed up and sent away by the powers that be. Not good. While that cut down my set up time significantly (joke for
the crew here), it also meant I was about to play a 2 set show with a
monophonic keyboard as my only instrument. What that means is, the Moog was my only keyboard and it is
designed to play only 1 note at a time.
I figured the evening would turn out much better if I just looked at it
as an experiment and opportunity to work exclusively with the Moog, and
actually, I think it turned out a lot better approaching my situation from that
perspective.
But before that occurred, we had yet to hear from Kris as
his phone had died. Would there be
a drummer tonight? Jake was
totally prepared at this point to be behind the kit for the whole night, and he
was warming up and making adjustments accordingly as the rest of us finished
setting up our gear. We were so
delirious in the car that with about 50 miles left to go, we actually laughed
heartily at the possibilities the show might have in store for us. Lo and behold, Kris ambled in not ten
minutes after we arrived, and we officially had a band with 5 minutes to spare. What a champ.
The sets I thought went really well, with the exception of
that time Jake was on stage getting punched by a girl in the back because she
wanted him to switch from the Kaos pad synth back to guitar. What was she doing on stage you
ask? Oh, I don’t know, but when
there’s no security and you have been through what we went through that day, it
seemed fairly normal that there would be people onstage attempting to dance and
sometimes punching band members.
For a night of improvisation, it was there on some truly unexpected
levels.
Our 2nd set ended around 12:45 per venue request,
and we headed out back to exhale at the culmination of an incredibly long
day. As I walked out back, I found
myself suddenly listening to an exuberant gentleman riff on how we just started
teasing “Fade Away! You guys were
just doin it, I heard it!!!!” Upon
asking him what exactly what he was talking about (shortly after this, he did
the same thing to Tony Franklin, the NIAS bass player, and he had no idea what the
guy was talking about either), it became a little more obvious he was trying to
reference “Not Fade Away,” the tune made famous by Buddy Holly, that mimicks
the Bo Diddley beat perhaps a little too closely. Even after we figured this out, none of intended to play any
cover, as that’s something that’s out of bounds for the vision of the band
(every note of music is improvised).
Which of course made the interaction all the more hilarious that we had
someone insisting we played “Fade Away!”
I mean, he was really sure he was right. Wow.
We packed up our gear, said goodbyes to friends old and new,
and ventured onward to the local Best Western and settled in for the first time
in 3 days. All we needed was a
quick shower, and then a few hours of sleep called. Except that this particular hotel didn’t offer us any hot
water. And we left it on for a while. Nothing. What are the odds?
We were so tired at this point that it was actually more funny than
anything. After 4 hours of sleep
and 391 more miles by car, we found ourselves back at the office in Chicago,
ready for home and a day where instead of moving about the country, we moved
about the couch.
Delirious at the Best Western
Touring is a lot of fun most of the time. You just have to be ready for
curveballs. If you’re not ready,
you’ll strike out a lot, like Sammy Sosa did in his later years. And even though steroids are legal in
music, they’re still a bad idea.
But you ask, what’s the real lesson here? Well kids, delirium has its perks.
Sporting my new tie dye tank once we finally made it home. "Good keyboardist, Great Look"
