Guest Book

Well, the Big Sky Montana show was a challenge, for sure. This is Part 1 of my report. The afternoon of the show date was sunny, and the gate was scheduled to open at 5:30pm with the show starting at 6:30. My wife and I got there at about 5:40pm and saw a long line to get in. The Gov’t Mule van was set up outside the gates, promoting the new album called Deja Voodoo. After waiting in line for 45 minutes, we got in through the gates. For some reason, Chris Robinson and New Earth Mud didn’t play, so I wandered around. Happened to walk by a guy in an EAP shirt and thought that he looked familiar. Lo and behold it was Bird72 and Ladybird! Had a good conversation with them and headed back closer to the stage where my wife and I had staked out some territory. (I’m leaving out the part of the story where I screwed up the cell phone plans for getting connected with Tony prior to the show.) During this time, I also happened to bump into Kirk West and John Lynsky and had a nice discussion with them. I really appreciate them taking some time out of their evening to talk with me. John Fogerty came out with his band somewhere around 8:00. I thought to myself, hey that drummer looks like John Molo and one of the guitarists looks familiar. During the band intros, I found out that yes it was John Molo and the guitarist was Billy Burnett. John Fogerty’s been described as a meat and potatoes rocker, but it’s no stretch to say that he’s written several rock standards. He wasn’t slouching in the guitar-playing department Sunday, playing most of the lead parts himself. Towards the end of his set, he played Who’ll Stop the Rain. Maybe he was aware of the dark clouds blowing in behind him, or maybe because heck he wrote the song and it was on his setlist. In any case, within a few minutes of the end of his set, the rain and hail hammered down on us. The temperature probably dropped more than 20 degrees. Even with a rain jacket and a tarp, I was near-soaked. The canopy over the stage wasn’t very big, so the band’s equipment was covered up with plastic sheeting. That was a good thing, because the wind was blowing most of the rain onstage anyway. It was pretty obvious that unless the wind and/or rain let up, the show couldn’t go on. At one point, there was someone squeegeeing water and hailstones off of the stage floor. I began to think about the possibility of the Allman Brother’s Band’s first Montana show being cancelled. Sometime around 10:30, the rain and wind let up, so the band took the stage. Warren pulled his hair back in a pony tail, and wore a black leather jacket. Gregg said it best when he announced: “Man, this is like November in Georgia!” They opened with Revival, and the show had begun. TaperRob got the setlist right. I’ll post more in Part 2.