Salt Lake City Gangs

Dear Reader,

Preface written as I prepare to post: I would like to be in a place of mind where I could analyze a bit more or else philosophize or some kind of yze or ize, but it's about all I can do to just get the story in there. Plus as anyone who knows me knows, I can't tell just one story without delving into a few side-stories, ya know? But for what it's worth, again I want to mention how much it means to hear from you all, too, either on the blog or in emails. It's dreadfully hard to keep up with it all but in the interest of keeping everyone up to date, here is my latest story for you, which took place prior to Jackson Hole... now read on if you dare!

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In writing this I'm scrambling to remember that we went from Boise to SLC but I can't remember what we did in Boise. Oh yeah. We played a bar -- two sets, somewhat crazy crowd, but what a long drive to get there, and what a long drive to get to the campground afterwards (our formerly trusty guidebooks sent us astray this time in that the distance from the highway to this park site was quite a bit longer, which is not such a good thing at 1 am). I believe brotherphil has filled in the details leading up to and including the Boise play, though, so I shall try to continue from there...

Getting to SLC was delayed somewhat en route when we stopped to have a band meeting. We have had a few of these on the tour and it helps us to figure each other and ourselves out. Kinda hard to do though when time is never on our side. But very necessary, n'est pas? We had hoped to get to SLC a bit early since they were providing a much needed hotel (the showers were especially needed). But even if we hadn't had a meeting, we wouldn't have had much time to spare. It took a while to figure out which hotel was actually ours and, well, on Wilder time everything has the potential to hold us up.

Delays aside, we did make it to the Gallivan Center about an hour before showtime. This is an outdoor plaza in the middle of downtown SLC. There is a permanent stage and a patio area just in front, plus an arched footbridge to one side and a large lawn on the other. There were a lot of people there, all kinds and ages. I was pleased to see a fair number of young punkers, from a Ramones t-shirt-clad gal to several shades of green and blue hair on assorted kids, reminding me of my own youth (seems kinda far away these days). We were the headliner for the event, and were to play a 75 minute set to close out the one-day festival. After finding a sushi stand at the vendors, we quickly spent our gift food tickets on a perfect sushi snack to get us through the show. It was freshly made to order, but no raw fish, just cooked crab or shrimp. I had California rolls and the others had spicy shrimp. I have not truly done the "sushi thing", but I do love the Cali rolls most especially for the wasabi that comes with them. Wasabi, for the uninitiated, is Japanese horseradish, a very bright green color, and a quick heat that penetrates (and clears) one's sinus passages, and then just as quickly disapates. And let me tell you, there is no better spice heat for yours truly. Man, I love it!! I can't take too much of the Mexican spices, and when I discovered wasabi, it was like finding a natural ginseng patch in your back yard. (or some other treasure you wouldn't have been looking for, much less expected)

But that is an aside, and not the story of what happened to us! Reader, you are either patient or amused or probably and hopefully both.

The show starts -- I see lots of smiling faces and several waves of hands before we're even introduced. We kick off as usual with a burning fiddle tune and lo and behold, here come all those punkers. They amass at Audience Right (and from now on will be referred to as a group -- A.R. Gang). Miss Ramones is there along with an interesting assortment of partiers who quickly fill up the bit of open grass at audience right. Audience Left (a.k.a. A.L. Folks) is filled with folks on blankets or camp chairs, like we see at the typical festivals. A.R. Gang gets to dancing and stomping and cheering and I see that A.L. Folks are looking like they're having a good time too. We get into a song and I think it's in this first singing song that Ike breaks a string. Nothing new to those who know us... but on the first song, that's kind of a drag. I decide to go ahead with a solo tune to fill the space. A.R. Gang is not ready to chill for a solo, they want to get rowdy. Too bad, I can't give 'em that right this moment. I manage to get through that song. Band comes back. We play a couple more tunes and there goes another guitar string. Long story short here -- in the 75 minutes we play, I think it's 5 strings that break, some of them the same one repeatedly. So I play a couple of solos and Phil and I do a couple duets and in one case the string gets changed in time to turn a duet into a band tune. Just about the most disrupted show we've ever played.

Specific comments to fill in blanks:

- A.R. Gang quite often look like they're about to overtake the stage, including one moment when a young punk did in fact leap up for a moment -- we were positioned at least 8 feet from the stage lip, so at least I wasn't worried they would start smashing instruments.

- A.L. Folks seemed pretty patient for the most part but Phil noticed several times that many of them were glaring over at the Gang when they got particularly loud. I did notice that almost every single A.L. Folk stayed for the entire set, though, and some of them were even dancing too, but not in front of blanket-sitters.

- A.R. Gang did show a whole lot of spirit and danced most every song or tune, and only really seemed to get almost out of hand a couple of times. Of course those times were when I was on stage alone and having to intro a solo tune or else tell a brief story in my desperate attempt to keep the show going throughout string break city.

- Just when I thought it was all over, on perhaps the last string break solo for me, and the A.R. Gang was chanting and stomping and maybe almost over the edge, I took a deep breath and suggested they chill out and listen to this tune from Doc Watson, and watch the stars in the skies and sway back and forth, and then I played and sang the tune. And I was amazed and heartened that they actually did just that.

- I love the energy of the young punks -- that is why I was one myself. However, it's a hard role to fill and yet one that needs to be filled -- the role of perhaps a good influence or perhaps even teacher of respect to the artists. I felt that perhaps what I said to them before the Doc Watson tune maybe did the trick, or maybe not. Not sure what to do in the future on that because I want the punks to get us, but I don't want the Folks to be turned off. I think we appeal to almost any kind of person and my utopian performance would be close to what we saw in SLC, except without the excessive chanting and rowdiness when it was not called for. TallestDave, you were there, what did you think? I'd like to hear from you.

One final note that involves no potential politics:

- The weather in SLC was unusually muggy that day, which is just another example of the weird weather patterns we seem to experience most everywhere on this tour. This is one of the reasons for the string breaks, because when we play outdoor festivals in high humidity, that is what throws Ike's Silvertone out of whack. Of course the weather brings repercussions on all the instruments, but the string breaking ghouls pose perhaps the biggest problem. The point is, it didn't rain in Seattle; it was hot in Portland; it was cold last night in Jackson; more examples don't come to mind but do exist in our historical perspective.

And that was SLC.