Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Colorado Recap: 8/7 - 8/11/09

Our Colorado run started off with a latenight show at Denver’s Dancin’ in the Streets Festival on Friday August 7. We arrived to the festival in the late afternoon, just in time to catch some of Steve Kimock’s set. I scoped out the new bass player and had a nice little reunion with the band and crew. FGC hit the stage around midnight, with Kimock and Kreutzmann throwing down next door in Cervantes. Our set was a random ebb and flow of people as folks filtered back and forth between the two shows in the adjacent venues, so it was kind of a weird scene. But we had a good time, and got to hang with Mike from Lotus after the show, and made a new friend, Drew, who helped us load out and even gave me a tie-dye shirt which I am sporting as I type this.

Saturday’s show was at Mishawaka Amphitheatre in the mountains outside of Ft Collins. We set our GPS to the address on the website and proceeded on the lovely drive through the mountains right along a river. Something obviously wasn’t right when our GPS declared our arrival in literally the middle of nowhere with nothing around, and no cell signal for miles to call for directions or get online. We reset the GPS to the city center of Bellvue, the town where the venue was located and turned around to head 20+ miles back where we came from (a good 45 minute drive on those windy mountain roads). About 5 miles into the backtracking, we pass the only sign of civilization for miles, the Mishawaka Inn, and I suggest we pull over and ask for directions. No more directions needed; turned out that this was the venue...how funny!

This was a very cool venue indeed, with an outdoor stage literally right next to a river and surrounded by mountains. The only drawback was the infestation of bees, and I spent the better part of the daylight hours frantically running from them. After getting set up and soundchecked, we enjoyed some dinner on the patio, the Cubs game in the bar, and the classic rock sounds of the opener, Dead Floyd. We then hit the stage for an extended set, and the crowd was enthusiastic and raging.

Sunday’s show was back at the Dancin’ in the Streets Festival, this time on one of the outdoor stages for a short set during headliner Leftover Salmon’s setbreak. Right when it was about time to start loading our gear out onto the stage, the sky took on a threatening look, and the rain suddenly started coming down in buckets. The storm lasted for only about a half hour, but the rain delay meant no setbreak for Leftover Salmon (thus no space for a “tweener” set for us), and not to mention, the stage we were supposed to play on became completely deluged in water. We were pretty bummed about the canceled set, but still managed to enjoy the evening hanging out with The Heavy Pets and Mike and Chuck from Lotus.

On Tuesday, we headed up to Breckenridge to play a show with Dirty Dozen Brass Band at 320 South. We were particularly excited for this show because the guitarist from DDBB (Jake) was a classmate of ours in music school, so it was cool to reconnect with him. In addition to being the opening band, we were also commissioned to loan some of our gear to DDBB, who were traveling without backline. Adam’s amp functioned fine for our set, but during the changeover between bands, it conked out for some unknown reason, leaving Jake without an amp. A totally lame and random turn of events, but Jake eventually recruited another amp and we got to hear him shred with this legendary band. Mad props to him!




Now we’re headed back across the country, stopping at Mulberry Mountain Festival on the way home. Stay tuned for more reports from the road!

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