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DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME;
"Countdown Shows 55-57"
Show #58-July 23, 2002-San Fransisco, Ca.-BIMBO'S After Roskilde, we had about 2 weeks to recover from virtually being on the road for 6 weeks, before doing a weeks worth of rehearsals for the USA tour. The first stop was S.F. and the club, called Bimbos, was packed with a line around the corner. I remember the sound being terrible that night. The sound guy from the Knitting factory show, the one who rammed his RV, was the sound guy for the SF show. Problem is, he added delay to everything...EVERYTHING...and it got quite confusing onstage. I recall this being quite a "dramtic" show plus a film crew followed us around all day which was a bit annoying considering how I was on my hotel bed trying to write diaries and these guys are filming me while I'm doing it! After the show, we all went to one of my favorite SF Deli's, "Tommy's Joint", and had sandwiches and pints..midnight....Yum...
Show #54-July 25, 2002-Eugene, Oregon-WOW HALL We drove straight thru to oregon on our day off and arrived that night around 10pm. Gary, teh sound guy, left the tour and went back to LA (1 day on the gig...). Since we were off we went to a local pub and had some beers and appetizers. Our hotel was across the street from Wow Hall so we kind of had it made. My thing was to get some pizza or something, a good amount of drink and flip thru the channels. usually I would find Columbo (my FAVE!!!!) ,but, any ol episode of Rikki Lake or Jerry Springer will do. As a matte of fact, my friend (film maker) Lisa Rosenberg, gave me 2 Jerry t-shirts so I am reprazentin' like Roni Size. Alot of people don't like Jerry but when you've lived, loved and lost like Jerry well, only then can you truly appreciate life....SO BACK TO WOW HALL... it was the smallest turn out of any of these tours. The venue held 400 max and we had 80 people show up. And somebody asked me when we were coming back... But I thought
the show really rocked and there were some youngins' out in the
audience...sort of the "flying Burrito Bros." type of
dress...you know...I don't know what the name is...country shirts
with side burns and tucked in shirts and belts with big buckles.
Alot of those kids. Yes, that was Eugene. A great city, I might
add. Not a bad place to raise kids, I would think... Show #60-July 26, 2002-Portland, Oregon-The ROSELAND THEATRE I was surprised
we were booked into such a big place. I would have been perfectly
fine with the Satirycon. These place held 1200 easy and I think
we got 4 or 500 in there. Again, the west coast was sweatin' us.
Of course, if this were Manchester or Edinburgh or London or New
Castle or Stockholm or Madrid or Oslo or Copenhagen or Paris or
Amsterdam, we wouldn't even have a problem. And see, i LOVE Portland.
it's one of my all-time favorite American cities. And i think the
people are intelligent, down to earth and just a blast to be around.
So again, we played to a half empty house but rocked even harder
and just gave everything had. We forgot about the people who didn't
come and played for those who did come-the ONLY ones who mattered.
I even decided that the folks in the balcony were on a crusade to
see us thru this and I directed my performances toward them; I could
see them all totally into the show. They helped make that show a
success. Every person that showed up. Show #61-July 28, 2002- Seattle, Washington-EMP SKYCHURCH Now, we were supposed to play Vancouver on the 27th (yesterday) but, due to unforseen circumstanes that everyone (including myself) is tired of talking about, we didn't play that show. but we, as a band, hung out that night and had dinner (minus gene), courtesy of the SINGER, who treated. At the Seattle show, we had dinner (minus the SINGER, who was meeting up with JAZMAAN and Leon Hendrix later) and some beers and looked at a bit of the Experience Music Project (EMP, duh...), which was really amazing inside. I think you should go to their site, where ever it is. The show had a decent crowd, about 200 people. But the club area isn't all that big. And they would n't allow people with drinks into the music area. very rock and roll. After the
show, went back to hotel and popped on the tv set. Kicked back and
was glad to be safe and warm inside. I cracked open a beer and thought
about the 3 day drive to Minnesota that was coming up the next day.
i'd done that drive atleast 5 or 6 times. i thought about Montana
and how nice it was. the west coast was tough on us and we were
showing our scars; Chapple lost his shoes...one of the members of
our entourage ran up an exorbitant "movie" bill on his
TV ($86 worth...)...I won't say who but it certainly wasn't the
Singer...and we got dissed by them damn cannucks. it was time to
hit the midwest, where the wheat crackles in the wind, the corn
rows dazzle the eye and the farmers's daughter shows you that southern
hospitality only a big city fella could appreciate.
Mike Randle |
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