When Wilco Came To See Us On The 3rd Of July
Brian Robbins
2008-07-22
There’s an airline plane
Flies to heaven everyday
Past the pearly gates If you want to ride this train
Have your ticket in your hand
Before it’s too late I turned 50 this past February, which would mean that I would have 40-some 4th of Julys to draw memories from, unless I was some infant prodigy blessed/cursed with the ability to remember every moment of my existence (which I’m not). Granted, there are highlights from past 4ths that have stuck: “Remember the year that we …” or “That reminds me of the 4th when …” – but, truth be known, I’d be hard-pressed to tag any of those memories with a specific year. Except 2000. I don’t expect I’ll ever forget that particular 4th … although it was actually the 3rd of July that’s the real memory-maker. For that was when Wilco came to play their insides out for us in a little hall on the coast of Maine. And we rode that train. In July of 2000, to know that Wilco would be playing the Camden Opera House in the village of Camden, Maine either meant something – big time – to you or it didn’t. Wow – Wilco? In Camden? On the night before the 4th of July? Must be. Proof-reading the posters several times brought nothing to light: it was truly “Wilco” – not a local cover band named “Woolco” or “Wildo”. Back then, the band wasn’t well-known enough to have generated a legion of cover bands (at least in our state) – Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, or KISS maybe, but not Wilco. Somehow, local promoter Joel Raymond had brought the real thing to town. At that point in time, I was a single dad, trying to expose my kids to a mix of the mainstream things that should be automatic when you’re a kid on the coast of Maine (bikes, boats, sunsets, starry skies) and things not-so-mainstream (homemade pesto and guacamole, life without a television and, yes, Wilco). My 16-year-old daughter Jessica – Bonnie Raitt-like red hair, green eyes, and perpetual smile – was already quite a guitar picker, eating up every note of music she listened to and absorbing everything. Younger sister Cassie was 10-1/2 in July of 2000; game for anything (and trusting that Dad would never let anything bad happen), Cassie was a pretty good sport about putting up with things when she was with me. Both of the girls had listened to their share of Wilco’s music when they were with me. Small venue; some familiar tunes; and if we could get in early and get some good seats … why not? The tickets were purchased; plans were made – I’d pick up Cassie at her mom’s while Jess would be driving from another direction during the day on the 3rd; we’d rendezvous at my house and head in to Camden early. “Remember: it’s easier to stand in line an hour early to get a good seat than it is to sit in a crappy seat for 3 hours at a show,” I offered, as we walked hand-in-hand from our vehicle to the Opera House. “Looks like they’ve got the same idea,” Jess said, pointing to a line of maybe 30 people waiting for the doors to open. “Don’t worry about a thing,” I said, handing each of the girls their own ticket. “We’ll nail some good seats. Just remember: stick close to me when the line starts moving.” And they did. “Here we go,” whispered Cassie a little nervously. She squeezed my hand as we entered the doorway. I don’t know what the official seat count is for the Camden Opera House, but I believe that 500 people would be pretty cozy if they were tucked into the main floor and single balcony. The people that had been in front of us for the general admission seating had already taken the front rows on the floor; we might’ve gotten within three rows of the stage, but when you’re a kid, that might just as well have been 100 rows if the adults in front of you stood up. My Dad-vision assessed the situation quickly: “Head for the balcony – quick!” We scored a berth right on the balcony railing at about 5 o’clock to the stage. Completely unobstructed view; we could rest our elbows on the massive hardwood railing if we wanted to. The kids proceeded to people-watch as the crowd piled into the hall. When it came time, there wasn’t a lot of fanfare: the lights went down, the PA music died out, the announcer grabbed a mic and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Wilco!” On they came: multi-instrumentalist Leroy Bach looking like everyman – he could’ve walked across Main Street in front of us while we were standing in line outside and he would’ve just looked like a … well … normal guy; shy-grinning John Stirratt in a wrinkled dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up; Ken Coomer in a pale-yellow Western-style shirt screeched right up to the top button, tucking himself into his cockpit behind the drums. And then there was Jeff Tweedy – head down, slight nod to the crowd – short-cropped hair looking like he’d just had a go at it with a pair of scissors back stage; well-worn faded grey t-shirt with what looked like a 45 single graphic on the front and – leather pants? Yes, but no time for that now; Tweedy was already strumming his faithful old Gibson J-45, laying down the backporch rhythm to “Airline To Heaven”. And then there was Jay Bennett. Remember – this was old-school Wilco: none of the Nels Cline art-rock-I-am-being-electrocuted-by-this-neat-vintage-Fender-Jazzmaster or Pat Sansone’s Telecaster-slinger poses. This was the Jay Bennett era with all its weirdness: baby face usually well-hidden by three-day stubble, oversize hornrims, and tumbling dirty-blonde dreadlocks; potential bad-craziness stage outfit of out-of-the-hamper sundress accented with a string of pearls, badly-smeared lipstick, and topped with a dented tiara. But, oh - that man could play. On this evening, Jay Bennett lurched out of the shadows looking like a mad scientist in a long white lab coat, lashing at the neck of a fat acoustic Guild 12-string with a bottleneck slide. Cassie laughed out loud (just a wee bit nervously – after all, this was not the Shrine circus and that was not Smiley the Clown on stage) and Jess elbowed me. Off we went. One of the songs from the Mermaid Avenue sessions (long-lost Woody Guthrie lyrics set to music by Wilco and project collaborator Billy Bragg), “Airline” hit the ground running with upbeat passion. Ken Coomer chucked his way along like a sidewalk drummer on his snare and high-hat through the first verse - then he and John Stirratt kicked in the low-end thump when Tweedy finished the chorus. Leroy Bach twanged the tune’s signature riff on an electric steadily as Bennett’s acoustic slide work got wilder; Tweedy never strayed from the mic, never showed any emotion – even when the song exploded in all its gospel-tent foot-stomping glory after the last verse. The song crashed to a halt; the crowd was on their feet: “It’s the 3rd of July and we’re sitting in Camden, Maine watching Wilco – this is frigging Wilco!” The girls were caught up in it, too. It was probably the loudest bunch of adults Cassie’d been exposed to in her 10-1/2 years … and it was all because of this funny mix of men on the stage. With a quick glance at me (as if to say, “This is okay, right, Daddy?”), Cass joined in the applause. Jess was already hooting – she wanted to be on stage with them; no doubt about it. The applause faded as the crowd realized that Jeff Tweedy was already plowing ahead into “Feed Of Man”. Another of a string of Mermaid Avenue songs that dominated the first half of the night, “Feed Of Man” started off with a stripped-down “Shake Your Hips”-style rhythm, building into a full-blown raver punctuated with scary organ swells. Tweedy held down the vocal like a monotone pale-white John Lee Hooker. Groove spent, the band hit the wall, leaving Jay Bennett’s big red Gibson 335 squealing feedback mournfully. While immersed in the sessions that produced the two Mermaid Avenue albums, Jeff Tweedy said he wasn’t “into Woody the icon. I’m into Woody the freak weirdo.” The next song didn’t capture that spirit at all: “California Stars” was beautiful on the album, and it was soothing and calming that night in the Opera House. The band played it straight, letting the song build verse by verse until everyone with a mic was singing – and a good chunk of those without, as well. The mental ointment of “Stars” received the biggest applause of the night up to that point – but Tweedy was oblivious to it, as if he needed to let the “freak weirdo” Woody out as soon as possible. He tore into “Christ For President” like it was something that needed to be done- right now. If “Airline To Heaven” bordered on being a gospel stomper, “Christ For President” was a cartoon … the freak was definitely loose. Jay Bennett dug hard into his Gibson, from crazy-paced chicken picking over the song’s rollicking rhythm to bluesy flurries as things chugged into a “Midnight Rambler” sort of tear. He didn’t look like a guitar god that night, but he sure played like one. Again, as the band lurched to a smoking finish, the crowd had a choice: show their appreciation for the music or cut their applause short to hear the beginning of the next song. Tweedy ushered the hall into a darker Woody place with “Blood Of A Lamb,” a ghostly waltz with phantom organ chords … the girls were quiet in their seats. And if there hadn’t been enough Mermaid Avenue for anyone up to that point, Tweedy pushed the band into one more Woody lyric: “Remember The Mountain Bed.” The mood swung from spooky to sweet/sad. Not to worry, though – things were about to change. The acoustic Gibson was handed off for a wipe down and a retune and Tweedy strapped on a seafoam Telecaster. (“Dad – Tele!” Jess had pointed as he reached for it; by Christmas of that year, she’d have her own.) Woody’s ghost left the stage to make room for Tweedy’s own personal “freak weirdo”. From Being There came "Red-Eyed and Blue", with Leroy Bach hammering out some fine barroom piano and Tweedy attempting the whistled verse from the album version – all business, even though he had a hard time getting it out there – and then … wham! “I Got You and it’s all I need!” - Wilco suddenly became a cranked-out garage band and the Opera House was rocking. And then came the moment; the moment that explained the leather pants and let us all in on the fact that maybe Jeff Tweedy’s head wasn’t completely full of snakes that night … maybe. Chunking along on the main riff of “I Got You”, Tweedy and Jay Bennett suddenly did patented-rock-star scissor kicks in perfect unison – no looks or grins exchanged; just one little outburst of “We’re not that serious about all of this” and then they churned on. One fake ending; crowd begins to applaud as Jay Bennett’s guitar starts to feedback, then slams back into one more romp through the song’s theme, then … are we done? … still some feedback squeals and Tweedy’s not leaving the mic … suddenly he belts out: “I CAN’T TELL YOU …” Cassie started in her seat; I instinctively gave her a quick hug. “Someone Else’s Song” was a sweet and plaintive little acoustic song on Being There – tonight it’s a snarling, staggering wall of guitars, crashing drums, and “Little Help From My Friends” (Cocker/Woodstock version) keyboards. You expected smoke and flames to erupt from the grills of the old vintage amps at any second. The guitars dropped out on the last verse, leaving Tweedy’s vocal against the majestic crackling organ – no fiddle or mandolins here; just raw emotion and fuses on the verge of blowing out of their holders. The last smoldering notes of “Song” were fading when Leroy Bach began a swirling, haunting keyboard line – an unfamiliar song to all of us that night. The cash machine is blue and green ...
14 months later, some would claim “Ashes Of American Flags” to be eerily prophetic in the wake of the September 11 attack, the song’s siren-like keyboard line sounding like an emergency vehicle. But tonight this was a song of just one man’s pain. We held our breaths as the band faded away, leaving Ken Coomer thumping a slow heartbeat behind Tweedy wrenching slow Hendrix-like backwards-effect cries out of his Tele. The spiral had started – Wilco taking us into the back pages of a troubled journal. Heavy stuff for young ears, for sure. The only thing that made it easier as a father to let us remain in our seats was the fact that the kids were transfixed by the music itself and most of the mental torment in the lyrics was going unnoticed … for a while longer, anyway. Case in point: the next song, “How To Fight Loneliness”, sounded like a smooth cruise down the Ventura Highway musically in contrast to Tweedy’s outpatient-in-a-subway-car words of advice. Jay Bennett showed us all what the guitar break on the Eagle’s “Hotel California” would’ve been like if played from the heart rather than for the charts. It was beautiful. Wilco’s own hotel song: “Hotel Arizona” was next. Tweedy’s take on road life and the mixed blessings of some level of success was played pretty close to stock, complete with its “doo doo doodadoo” chorus … until we arrived at the final lines: Hello? Can you hear me?
Hello? That’s all there is … that’s all there is … The song exploded into a beautiful moment of Leslie-cabinet swirl and tube-amp crunch, all sweet ache … the singer could’ve just as easily been standing on the surface of the moon rather than sitting on a hotel bed with a disconnected phone to his ear. The music rose to the arched ceiling of the Opera House and then settled on all of us. The girls had grown up to Wilco’s first album, A.M. – the perfect soundtrack for a single Dad. Maybe they’d grown up too much to it; I began to wonder about that when I heard Cassie one time matter-of-factly say, “Oh, Dad and Mom had some issues” which, with a waggle of her then-6-year-old fingers was meant to explain the dissolution of our marriage. That would be the first song on side two of your cassette of A.M., Dad: “That’s Not The Issue”, whose joyful banjo breaks and bouncy chicken picking help to ease the sting of the lyrics’ tale of breakup. Is it a good thing that a 6-year-old’s understanding of her parents divorce can be summed up in a song? Featuring a banjo? I can’t answer that question; but it does help to show that the girls knew A.M. pretty well. And it does help to explain why my daughter, caught up in the spirit of things that night at the Camden Opera House, joined the rest of the crowd in shouting out requests. There’s a moment lodged in my memory forever: Cassie leaning out over the rail of the balcony and yelling, “I Must Be High!” Scarred for life? I don’t think so. I’m not saying that anyone on the stage heard Cassie’s request – there was certainly no huddling amongst the band, and Tweedy had yet to utter a word over the mic between songs – but suddenly they were roaring into that song, in all its ragged-but-right glory. Cassie looked like the little kid who’s clapped her hands and made a red balloon appear out of thin air – slightly stunned, but happy … amazed at her own powers of suggestion. The band played “I Must Be High” pretty close to the album arrangement – rocking in and back out of it in about 3 minutes. The crowd roared. But – what’s this? Ken Coomer is climbing out from behind his drum kit while Stirratt and Bennett unsling their axes from their shoulders and Leroy Bach waves to the crowd. Tweedy at the mic, shading his eyes with one hand: “Thanks a lot. It’s hard to see you … we’ll see you later.” Wow. The girls both looked at me: is that it? “They’ll do an encore,” I assured them, as the crowd clapped and stomped for the band to return. As it turned out, there was much more to come. Almost more than we bargained for. Jeff Tweedy was the first one back out on the stage, strapping on his acoustic Gibson and striding over to the mic while the rest of the band took their places. (He speaks again! Has he cleared the snakes out of his head? Right ….) “Thanks a lot,” he said over the applause. Things quieted down a little: “We don’t get up this way very often” – the crowd roared again. Tweedy shielded his eyes: “The lights … blinding us … it’s really hard to tell if you’re enjoying yourselves …” And we all, of course, roared. But Tweedy had left us by then, head down and tucked into the gentle strums of Summerteeth’s “She’s A Jar”. Things were about to get really weird. If you didn’t listen to the words of “She’s A Jar”, you could just glide on its simple beauty: nicely woven acoustic guitar and piano with a sweet harmonica part straight out of Neil Young’s Harvest songbook. And that’s where we left it that night … better not to pay attention to the last lines, delivered as all that sweet background music sweeps to a finish: She's a jar
With a heavy lid
My pop quiz kid
A sleepy kisser
A pretty war
With feelings hid You know she begs me
Not to hit her Where did that come from? No matter; ignore it – move on. The band did, sort of. Leroy Bach laid down a bed of ominous thunder-like piano, out which came the happy-go-lucky keyboard riff of “Shot In The Arm.” John Stirratt drove the beat, leaning hard into the mic as he backed Tweedy on the choruses. Falling-down-the-stairs piano between verses, with Coomer taking us out with massive drum rolls and cymbal crashes. Again, it was better to feel the music than listen to the words: sleepless nights, desperate feelings, talking ashtrays … allrighty, then. We’re okay. Everything’s fine. Right. Back in your old neighborhood
The cigarettes taste so good … Jess’ head snapped around and she locked eyes with me. Those first couple of Tweedy lines were like hearing the warning tones before the shark attack in Jaws or watching the movie camera stalk the unsuspecting silhouette in the shower … you know there’s about to be blood. Jess had marveled over the bad craziness of Being There’s lead-off song, “Misunderstood,” for a long time … but it’s one thing to listen, another to witness. The studio version was a piece of work: walls of crashing instruments (at times, everyone trading off and hammering on something that they didn’t normally play), tracks woven in and out with the sound panning from left to right and back again … one could imagine the effect similar to voices inside a tortured head. There were no studio effects to be had that night – no tape loops or synth tracks to fall back on – the madness was all created by hand. It was sort of like having a seat with a view of an open kitchen and getting to watch the chef at work. Savage guitar squawk; pounding piano; drums rolling in and receding, rolling in and receding … and then back to the verse, ever so gentle … except Tweedy’s character is melting down as the lyric unwinds. Another wall of sound, then Tweedy’s J-45 emerges, a wham/wham/wham strum that slowly builds in intensity as we climb the final spiral. When Tweedy launches into the last verse, the sweet sadness is gone, beaten up and tossed aside by a madman Iggy Pop in full punk scream: I know you've got a god-shaped hole
You're bleeding out your heart full of soul
You're so misunderstood
You're so misunderstood
You're so misunderstood
You're so misunderstood … At that point, I had both girls by the hand we were all watching the stage with a fascination usually reserved for private peeks at wrecks on the highway. Tweedy let go of his guitar and clutched the mic stand with both hands as he nose-dived into the final lines:
I'd like to thank you all for nothing
I'd like to thank you all for nothing at all
I'd like to thank you all for nothing
Nothing
Nothing And now the whole band was focused on nothing else in the world except those two syllables, pounding them out so hard that you felt it right through your body and knew your breathing had picked up the rhythm, too, and so had your heart– and so had everything: Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing Tweedy was gone, lost in the song, lost in the madness of the character. He suddenly lurched toward the edge of the stage, knocking over a monitor as he dragged the mic stand with him. The vocal was now just an overloaded bellow: Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing It felt as if we were being pounded with those two heartbeats. There was no leaning casually over the rail – we were flattened against the backs of our seats. The situation had turned a corner from being weirdly fascinating to scary – how can this end? Will it end? Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing at all … And suddenly the tension was broken, Tweedy staggering back from the mic looking dazed and lost. The rest of the band appeared stunned by what they’d just created … they wavered momentarily, then brought the song to an end in a big crashing heap. Stage manager Jonathan Parker scurried out to right the overturned monitor, weaving around Tweedy, who seemed oblivious to his presence. There was a pause – we all took a breath, and both girls sort of grinned at me, looking for reassurance, hand squeezes, and hugs … and then out of the mental wreckage of the moment crawled a light and bouncy little Mermaid Avenue ditty, “Hesitating Beauty”. Wait a minute – how did we get here? Tweedy, haven shaken off the demons, was now crooning Woody’s love song to Nora Lee … and the band was happily churning along, playing at a talent show at the country fair … madness or genius? Don’t think about it … don’t think about it … everything’s fine … just fine. “Hesitating Beauty” bounced to its conclusion before we knew it and with a quick “Thanks again – good night” from Tweedy, the band was gone again. More? Would there be more? Could there be more? The houselights stayed down – it seemed that there was still more to come. Sure enough, back they came after a much shorter break – no words, just Tweedy and Bennett immediately plugging in and beginning a herky-jerky guitar weave that swayed into what we would come to know as “I’m The Man Who Loves You.” Tonight, though, once the song ended (after a forever Ken Coomer drum roll and the guitars finally giving up their honking, squealing riff) Tweedy announced, “That was a new song … first time we’ve played it in front of people … I think it’s gonna be called ‘Laminated Cat’.” That brings a roar from the crowd – a treat just for us! – and the pre-break weirdness was totally dispersed. Off they tore into A.M.’s “Casino Queen” – and Jay Bennett took the wheel. Big crunchy Gibson chords and fills ballooned the walls of the Opera House outward; Bennett took off sideways in a crazy, lurching, off-balance dance that took him to his knees, where he remained, still wailing away at his 335. The music eased enough for Tweedy to dart to the mic: “Jay just had knee surgery … he’s giving it a good test tonight.” Head down, dreads hanging down over his bright red guitar, Bennett was oblivious to Tweedy’s comment as the crowd began clapping along in time to the riff he was hammering away at. Hold on: things were happening … Bennett pushed the beat into a hoe-down stomp, immediately picked up by the rest of the band; we all found our inner hillbilly for a moment – then things broke down and the mad scientist began flinging out Jimmy Page-like flurries and strange yowls … bowels-of-the-earth bass rumbles … angry bee keyboard swirls … random drum rolls … no thread, no riff, no groove – WHAM! Out of nowhere, the band explodes into Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” as Jonathan Parker leaps into the spotlight to grab the mic, Robert Plant fright wig and all. Echoed howls, churning guitars – there was never a more unlikely Plant imitator, nor a better one … all camp and drama; crash/bang and it’s over … Tweedy reclaims the mic with what may be his only smile of the night and a “Thank you, Jonathan.” The music hardly pauses; Bennett is off on a familiar riff … the intro to the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”? Yes – it is; Leroy Bach playing “Chopsticks” as the momentum builds; John Stirratt makes a wild John Entwistle run down the bass neck and suddenly – I know
We don’t talk much
But you’re such a good talker The momentum carried us right into “Outtasite (Outtamind)”, played to 3-minute garage band perfection, with the music gliding back into a fading reprise of the Who riff. The band looks exhausted; everyone in the house is on their feet. They’ve done it – they brought us back safe and sound and we’ve ended with some good-time rock and roll and this must be the end … whoa – hang on; turns out there’s to be one more blast of Woody weirdness with “Hoodoo Voodoo”. Ragged guitars weave over the sing-song vocal – total happy/crazy nonsense words … the earlier blackness had totally blown out the windows into the cooling night air. The music almost stops – then lunges into a double-time tear ... and then it’s over. The house lights come up as Tweedy waves to the crowd. “Good night,” he says, then walks off the stage. That was it. There was nothing left. Both girls sat still in their seats, gazing down toward the stage. They looked like they had just gotten off a particularly wild but exhilarating amusement park ride. (“Step right up folks! Ride the Wilcorama! Soar into the outer limits of sheer rock’n’roll joy, and then plunge face-first into the blackest depths of mental breakdown! Have your ticket in your hand before it’s too late!”) Cassie was the first to look away, hugging my arm. “That was cool,” she grinned. Jess continued to watch the crew clear the stage: the coiling up of the cables, the breakdown of the stands, the red lights of the amps blinking off. “What do you think?” I asked her as Cass and I rose to our feet. She took one last look at the stage, shook her head, and stood up. “Wow,” was all she said. I didn’t ask her about the headshake. We headed for home. By all reports, the band was treated like the hometown baseball team that had just nailed the county title: one of the Main Street eateries next to the Opera House kept their kitchen and bar open for the whole Wilco gang – a good time was reportedly had by all. All who attended, that is. As the 3rd of July became the 4th, the midnight air in Camden, ME was perfect: salty and cool – just right for walking with a light jacket over a t-shirt. A single figure could be seen - head down, shoulders hunched, smoking – walking down the Main Street sidewalk, cutting onto Bayview Street, heading toward the harbor. Jeff Tweedy, electing not to join the festivities with the rest of the crew, had checked in on his wife and newborn son Sam aboard the tour bus, and then struck off alone on a wind-down walk under the stars. No one else shared the moment; he paced the waterfront by himself. When we heard about the post-show activities from a friend who used to run a record shop in Camden, it was almost a relief to hear that Tweedy needed to walk things off … let’s face it: if someone had popped out of the turmoil of “Misunderstood” to remind us all to “check out the merchandise table for the new ‘Thank You All For Nothing’ t-shirts and key chains!” then you’d have to question what you were seeing. As it was, it was almost easier to accept the fact that Jeff Tweedy had just opened up his heart and soul to us all; he and his band had played their living guts out in a little hall on the coast of Maine; and the experience wasn’t something he could just flip a switch and turn off. The next morning, we were up fairly early for having been out late the night before. I fixed breakfast while the girls showered and dressed; they were headed back to their mom’s home on Deer Isle – a good two hours’ drive away. This would truly be a first: Jess would be driving Cassie back herself in her old Crayola-green Volvo. It was truly a strange feeling to walk out onto the lawn barefoot, and see them to the car, knowing that I was staying home and they were leaving. Heading in the other direction would be the Wilco tour bus, the band’s next gig being at Bank of America Pavilion in Boston, MA on the 5th. “Do you think every show’s like that?” asked Jess, tossing her backpack into the backseat. “I mean, that was pretty …” “Intense?” I offered. “Awesome,” was Cassie’s word. “Both,” grinned Jess. “Pretty powerful stuff.” Yes, it was. So was waving goodbye to my daughters for the first time that I wasn’t the one doing the leaving. I went back in the house and, also for the first time ever, didn’t immediately turn the stereo on and up. The music from the night before was still in my head and I wanted to just let it play. Was every show like that? I doubted it. At that moment (years before the I Am Trying To Break Your Heart documentary movie and Wilco cover stories in most major music magazines), none of us knew just how bad Jeff Tweedy’s demons were … but it didn’t seem possible that you could gouge such a big hole out of your inner self night after night and keep on going. What made that night so intense? Was it just something that needed to happen; a safety valve from the weirdness of touring? Or maybe the small venue and positive crowd made for a comfortable setting – and the band knew they could let it all hang out and be safe? Sitting there on the afternoon of July 4th, 2000, I couldn’t have given you an answer. Sitting here on the afternoon of July 4th, 2008, I still can’t.
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