Paul Westerberg, and the Flappybats/Mustard Tour...
I should've written about this in February.It was a brilliant plan, for which we have our friend Frank (a.k.a. Francois Mustard) to thank.
Growing up in rual 'middle of nowhere', I never had the opportunity to see the Replacements live, or any of Paul Westerberg's solo tours after the band split in the early nineties. When he retreated to his basement in the mid-nineties, I figured I'd never get a chance to actually see this guy perform onstage. He'd often said during that period that he just couldn't get into the idea of playing in front of an audience again. Something about feeling like a gravestone standing up there with a bunch of strangers.
Needless to say, when a tour was announced for this year, I geeked out. Finally, a chance to see another Replacement onstage. We'd seen Tommy Stinson last fall here in Phoenix and he was great. I can remember after that show thinking "if Tommy is that good, imagine how good a Westerberg show would be."
A bunch of us had decided to go to the show here in Phoenix (Tempe, actually, but who's counting?) at the Marquee Theatre. Actually, the entire First Street and Polk Music District decided to go... the Flappybats were all in attendance, all of Mustard, Twang and Senor Llave (or is he calling himself Los Tigres De La Noches this month?) but the road trip was all Frank's idea.
Y'see, as it turned out, PW had a show booked in Anaheim the day after the one in Tempe. So Frank, diehard advocate of the road trip that he is, suggested that we make a 'roadie' of the weekend by driving to Anaheim and catching that show, too. We could head out Saturday morning, stop in LA and hit the strip, and then make our way to Anaheim, to disney world (he was playing the House of Blues there) and catch the show before driving back home. Food, smokes and a guitar would be brought along, for the purposes of writing an original tune. We'd call it a tour.
The show in Tempe was awesome. Westerberg seemed rested from having a day off prior to our show, and he was in rare form. The band was tight, too, picking up on any little cue and playing like they'd rehearsed the entire show like that. Westerberg is 45 years old, but he was playing and singing like someone half his age. This was a flat-out amazing show. They played an even mix of Replacements songs, mixed in with older and newer solo Westerberg songs. Even his Grandpaboy alter ego was represented. He even busted out Here Comes A Regular, for pete's sake. Just a great show all around.
Afterwards, we hung out by the bus with our guitars, hoping he'd come out and sign 'em. The security guys kept saying he wasn't coming out, and that we should just go home. Blah blah blah, we knew the drill. They just wanted to go home, and the fewer of us that were around meant the quicker they could get outta there. Me, I didn't care. I know enough about PW to know that the ritual of meeting the fans was a staple of his live schtick these days. Not a lot of performers would bother, but Westerberg's wired differently than your average rock n' roll star.
About five minutes after that announcement, Paul walked out, made a beeline for the caution tape that was separating us from the general area of the bus, and ripped it down. Walking back up, he took a seat on the steps up into the bus, where he graciously hung out with the 25 or so fans who'd stuck around. People had brought old Replacements bootlegs, albums, anything they could find to get him to sign. As I mentioned, we brought our guitars, a million dollar bill, a videotape, and the pack of Winstons that he'd tossed out into the crowd midway through the show.
It's no secret that I am a geek. I get up there, thank him for putting on a great show like, five times in a row, and ask him to sign my acoustic.
He takes one look at my Ovation and says "God, an Ovation... how d'you play this thing, they keep slidin' off yer knee."
I said something like "Well, ya don't play it sitting down is the trick"
To which he replied, y'do if you're playin' Glen Cambpell"... then he started noodling around a bit on the guitar. Geek that I am, I'm awestruck. My acoustic is now supercharged. I also had him sign that pack of Winstons, before handing him a videotape we'd made of our band, the Plastic Flappybats, performing at the Pit. I handed him this with the warning, "we aren't very good, but we try"
We got some great pics, my favorite is the group shot of all of us and Paul. Greg posted 'em here
Paul mentioned that if I'd told him we were good, he'd never have watched the tape. I can't imagine a scenario where I would've told him that we were good. We are, after all, a Replacements cover band. I wish I'd gotten to tell him that the week before, we played a set of Mats tunes in Bob's honor. February 18th was the 10th anniversary of Bob's death...
Anyway, we all left, basking in the glow of seeing a great show with a bunch of friends, and meeting Grandpaboy himself. Day one was done and gone, and Saturday, day two of the Flappybats/Mustard tour began at 10:00 in the morning. A little tired, yes, a little out of it, yes, but we rallied.
I don't wanna talk about the Pelt Outpost in Quartzsite, or the ginormous trailer park that seemed to stretch on for miles in that place. Or the public shower. In fact, the less said about Quartzsite the better...
The roadie was a smashing success. We made it to LA about 3:00, and after a brief adventure at the cemetery where Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone are buried (well, Dee Dee is, Johnny just has a memorial there) we ventured on to the strip, there to have dinner and a drink or five at the Rainbow. The original plan was to go to a couple of the bars there, but the doors didn't open at the Whiskey till 8:00, and the show was at nine.
The Rainbow was nice, though. Good pizza, and they had my favorite beer, Miller Lowlife. Drinking beer in a bar, it was just like being at home.
We made it into the House of Blues just as the band was taking the stage. Another great show, in front of a packed house, and another blurry meet n' greet. We stuck around, got in line, and waited for a good hour after the show, which paid off, because we eventually did make our way back there. Greg got his shoe signed, whereas Frank, Rhonda and I had him sign our tickets. They didn't allow cameras into the venue, but luckily Rhonda had her camera phone.
The pic's blurry, but then again, so were Paul and I by that point in the evening. Again, I can't say enough how cool it is for a performer to get onstage and play for two hours, and still have the patience to deal with geeky fans like me asking if he'd seen the videotape I'd handed him the night before. Turns out he hadn't.
Oh well...
posted by Dale Ingram @ 11:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home