Reviews

The Ledges
Geez. Oh, where to begin. I guess from the beginning would be best. I had not planned on packing for the weekend until a little too late and consequently started out on lack of sleep. close to 7 hours in two nights and I got up at 5am to go to work and then left straight from there for the ledges. well, attempted to at least. It was about an extra hour drive longer than I thought it was going to be be, but no problem there(at least not that I knew of at the time), because I was with the Irvman in his wonderful beast of machinery, the 1970 Buick GTO ragtop (mint condition). that puppy hauls, period. 0 to 60mph in 2.5 seconds flat. It was a wonderfully beautiful drive and the company couldn't have been better. We were cranking up the 7/3 CDs and eventually met with chopper at the gate. He gave us the low down and what was up. we drove around back under the shaded canopy of trees for almost an hour, trying to find an empty campsite before we ended up just parking someplace out of the way. the potholes were about the most treacherous obstacle of the weekend, as we will find out later in the review. finally out of the heat and under the shade, out of the car and doing things that resemble "the irv stretch". life is good. by this time the priorities were to find out where i was in coordination with everything else and to get set up. I usually go in my pick up and hop under the cap to sleep. so for the first time in three years i was going to a festival with all the trimmings. tent, sleeping bag and so on. Very relaxing. My home away from home for a few days. it was a perfect night to look forward to and it was time for me to go find ol' bill and get the logistics of my duties all figured out and get ready for show time. i was pretty exhausted by this point, just on sleep deprivation alone, but what I didn't know and was about to find out, was the combination of my space-headedness and the ragtop proved to be of serious consequences. Ouch! Lobsters aren't as red as the top of my semi-freshly shaven bald head. no thinking of putting suntan lotion on while in transport let the sting slowly set in and now it's time to pay the piper. so it's now close to show time. the stage was set up so that it was facing toward the shaded camping, with the quarry off on the left and vending pretty much all around. what were the boys going to play after being juiced up from not playing for a while? Whatever it would be, I knew they were going to be primed. rested up and ready to roll. I hadn't seen much of the band up to this point, except for Steve and ed. and was still wondering if Sharon had made it up. I'll have to say that there is much improvement on the harmony in Lazy River and Day By Day. the click got tighter somewhere along the line and it sounded great (not that it doesn't always). a couple of new treats for me were the second part to Alexander and the little Maggie surprise out of Clifford. they took a very quick set break and were back on stage faster than the Sweney picker himself. i really love hearing the masquerade and then as typical of late, Johnny and Eric started off on doing their drum thing. I was just thinking to myself that i wish they would bust into something other than Chicago as a segue from this tune. sure enough somebody was all over that call. Backwoods Rose in late second set. Woohoo! Soon the show was over and it was time to pack up and head back to the site and meet up with the people i knew. i decided to get a little giddy and attempt to hang with the big boys until the wee hours (on no sleep). The funniest thing i saw all weekend, and i apologize to Irv up front for telling' (although I already asked permission), it had me rolling'. a bunch of us are sitting around a fire and watching the campfire embers glow, when a group of people decided to go wander and meander. It ended up it was just me, Irv and Geena sitting there when Irv decided to go to our site to get a refill. about 15, to what seemed 20 minutes later I'm wondering where Irv was, as it was only two minutes to the fridge and back. low and behold, who show up? coming from the opposite side of where the campsite was, with mud covered halfway between his knees to his ankles, there's the man himself. I came to realize that he should have borrowed my flashlight and was actually going to say something when he got back. well, it was just a little too late for that notion. those potholes that were filled with mud proved to be very dangerous, especially with about half the people walking around without some sort of light source and the other half without shoes. to top matters off, after attempting to take a drink from his cup, Irv says, "it's time for another refill." I thought to myself that was the goal of his adventure in the first place. it turns out he never made it there. I about lost it! Okay Irv, I owe you big for this one (unless you want to trade it for that Wallkkk Reeaaalllll Slllooowwwwww). between my sunburn and his feet, we were looking for a little more upward adventure the following day. So the canopy of trees kept me cool and I actually slept till almost noon time. As I awoke to greet the day with a little Metallica slammed in my ear, I decide it was time to hit the quarry. The sand, the water, and the ever the master of nemesis to my burn, all rolled up in one for a few hours of mellowness. it turns out that these three girls were sitting next to me and chopper walks up and i hear them say something to him about having found someone who taped the Jamaica shows. my grin cracked a bit and I knew the second I would look over, that Chopp's finger was going to start pointing. so I said that I did. she requested a copy of the third night and proceeded to ask me if I remember a wedding proposal being made. Well, guess who? boy it's a small world. I told her congrats and to email me. eventually I got in the water and wow, was it comfy. a great relief on a sunny, hot summer's day. Stayed in for about an hour before hooking up to chat with the farmer j himself. A few crazy stories later and I'm drinking stout out of a cup. You can now see where the rest of my day was going. as we caught glimpses of the Sultans of Bing in the background and those guys are wonderful-check them out if you can), decided it was time for food and a change of clothes. Kim and I went to the Burrito Bago and hung out with my friend - the Colonel, as the sprinkles of rain came down. had a few more beers and decided it was time to head to the campsite for a few more, and to chat with some more friends that i hadn't seen that I ran into. so it was off to get set up before show time. A lot more people this night and another interesting evening about to unfold. The boys started out of the gate with awesome enthusiasm. loner sandwich with a silver train that puts the sparkle in my eye and a grin on my face. I danced to my hearts content. Riversong was such a wonderful follow up. As a mere consideration to all the razzing I had given Irv, I decided to plead and beg a request from Dave right before the show started, for the almighty Walk Real Slow, which from this day forward, the slow version of this song should be deemed "Irv style". What a wonderful treat. It is stuck in my head the whole day today. Thank you Dave. Spiders was a great way to end a set. The rain started to not want to hold off much longer. It felt good for a bit, until it eventually turned chilly. People were heading for cover when the boys came back on for the remainder of the show. I hadn't heard "Are you experienced?" hookah style yet, the Hendrix tune. The transition into through hiker was very subtle. Steve the Juggler made an appearance on stage with his four glow in the dark balls. After leaving the stage he suddenly appeared on the roof of the stage swinging these ropes of some sort that were on fire on the end of them. Eventually the owners of the place had to ask him to get down for safety purposes. It was cool to look at for a while. I thoroughly enjoyed "to good friend's past", something I rarely hear these days. The &"Dire Wolf" caught me entirely off guard. The harmony on this tune with Steve singing lead, was simply amazing. For only playing this tune once, it sure was good. time to pack up quickly, as the rain was coming down harder. I ended up going to bed shortly after the show, half on the account of the rain and half on the fact that we were planning on leaving early in the morning. so now my sunburned body is home and relaxing in the AC and typing at you. Sorry for the bandwidth and your time, if you're still with me at the end. Hope all is well in hookahland and as soon as i evaluate thetapes, I'll be making an offer. From what I've heard so far, they're pretty sweet. Peace out.