If there were an Olympics for tired people, I’d be on the
medal stand.
And everyone on the crew and in the band would be in medal
contention as well.
The Seattle show was a beatdown on a lot of levels, made
worse by the fact that no one got any decent sleep on the drive to Spokane
after the show.
When you get 90 minutes of sleep, you generally want to
start punching dudes.
But I managed to sleepwalk through the first few hours of
the day without incident, until I got to catering for lunch.
I realize that a free lunch on a daily basis is not
something to be complained about, but when you’re going through the motions
with your eyes half open, an undercooked, lackluster tater tot can really let
the wind out of your sails.
For the reasons I mentioned above (the lack of sleep, not
the tater tots), the band opted to blow off soundcheck.
Instead, Mike & Jerry walked around Spokane a bit, and
even stopped by the Spokane River and fed a wild marmot.
Which made me a bit nervous to hear, because every year
around the 4th of July I hold my breath and cross my fingers in the
hopes that Jerry makes it through another year without blowing his fingers up
lighting fireworks.
Now I have to worry about him or Mike getting their digits
gnawed off by a wild marmot.
What in the hell is a marmot anyway?
It sounds like an untrustworthy little rodent that feeds on
human flesh.
Speaking of feeding on human flesh, I saw someone in the
front row that looked like she might be interested in feeding on some band
member flesh.
Let me set the scene before I go any further.
The INB Performing Arts center is another venue with fixed
seating.
That means the seats fill the entire hall and come all the
way down to the front of the stage, leaving no room for a barricade.
This gives the fans in the front row direct access to the
stage, which is about stomach-high on a person of average height.
So, back to the girl in the front.
She and her friend were really getting into things all
night, which is great.
She was also looking Jerry up and down all night like he was
a baked potato and she was a dollop of sour cream. (That has to be one of my
all-time worst analogies, but I’m tired and I’m sticking with it)
Anyway, I kept my eye on her all night because she just had
that look like she might have a hankering to jump up onstage.
And she did.
It was late in the set and I was over on Mike’s side of the
stage when I saw her pull herself up and crawl onto the stage.
She was on her stomach kind of pulling herself further onto
the stage, and I was looking around in panic hoping someone else on the crew
was seeing this and getting ready to run out there and deal with her.
No one had to though, because as quickly as she came up, she
went back down.
I couldn’t tell if someone grabbed her leg and pulled her
back, or if she just changed her mind and went back on her own.
But now I was really nervous, because she had a little
taste, and I had a feeling she’d try again.
That’s why they hand out free samples in stores.
It starts off with a little meat on a toothpick, and the
next thing you know, you bought a
chicken.
Fast forward to the last song of the night.
William is singing Would, he walks down to the front of the stage directly in
front of her, reaches down to hand her a guitar pick, and she decides to buy
the whole chicken.
She grabbed his arm and pulled herself up on stage.
By this time I had already alerted our production manager of the
possibility that this could happen, so he was next to me in the wings waiting
to pounce.
But from our vantage point it kind of looked like William pulled
her up.
We looked at each wondering what to do, and stood there
watching to see what she would do next.
She didn’t try to grab him or rush over to Jerry though.
She just stood there and kind of danced and swayed around a
bit, and eventually jumped back in the crowd.
Thank God.
In all of my years out here, I’ve never had to jump out on
stage to deal with a fan, and I really didn’t want to start on a night when I
was moving at half speed because of lack of sleep.
So all’s well that ends well, but bear in mind that if you
come out to a show in the future, please enjoy the samples from down on the
floor.
The crew will be more rested than we were in Spokane, and if you try and get on stage you’re gonna get tackled before you can touch one of the chickens…
