FALLS CHURCH AUDIO 11-28-2007
FALLS CHURCH PHOTOS 11-28-2007
This show was magical. Out of the three shows that I saw out on the East Coast,
this was definitely the best one. It wasn’t just one thing, but a number of special
things that happened that put this one over the top.
We were running a little bit late, so we realized that we weren’t going to make it
over to Keith’s pre-party. We called and let him know that we were going to the show,
but that we were stuck in traffic. I learned that traffic in the DC is a CF. We were
so eager to get to the venue, but there was a sea of red tail-lights in front of us.
I was wishing we had Moses with us to part that Red Sea!
We eventually made it to the show, and got a picture of the marquee. I was bummed that
the Chameleon club in Lancaster didn’t have a marquee. I always like getting the marquee
shot before I go into a show!
I got a couple of good pics outside the State Theater while we were standing in line.
There’s no picture of Sonya or Karen, because they left their place in line with us and
went back behind the venue. Meredith was inquisitive why they would not want to go straight
into the venue since we had been so eager to get there. But what Meredith did not know was
that they were going to get the band to sign a birthday card for her. Meredith’s birthday
was the next day, but we were all treating it like it was her birthday that night. So when
Meredith asked about why they took off, someone offered up the theory that there was
some lesbian action going on behind the State Theater. That made for lots of good jokes
during the rest of the trip.
Once we got in the door, I was able to find “tapernate”. He is a very cool cat, and knows
plenty about recording shows. It was cool to have some time to talk with him before the
opening band ever started. In addition to taping the show with his high-end equipment, he
also let me borrow a couple of extra mics that he had so that I could use them on my MiniDisc
recorder. He also gave me a spot on the mic stand for those mics. So even though I recorded
my own copy of the show on MD, I was able to go down and enjoy the show without holding the
boom! Thanks for all of the help, Nate. You rock! ! !
Before the opening band took the stage, Keith arrived. And it was great to meet him. We have
all been experiencing a crazy ride with the reformation of Blind Melon, but when he took all
of that footage and combined it into a road trip video, I think he did a great job visualizing
what it all meant for us! So I think everyone could watch his video and know right away what
love he had for this band and their music. It was great to finally meet him. We got a good
group photo of everyone before the show started. . .
One thing that was really cool about walking into this show was that this was the first time
that they had used the old backdrop curtain at one of their new shows. I believe it was one of
Glen’s creations, but it was Christopher that had found it tucked away at home. It’s a very trippy,
colorful piece of artwork.
They had a no flash policy at this venue which was strictly enforced, so I only got one good pic
through the whole show, but it does show the backdrop pretty well.
Well, the opening band at the Lancaster show just sucked so bad that I didn’t have very high
expectations for the opener at Falls Church. However, I was pleasantly surprised. The band was
called Politiks, and they were excellent! It was a mix of reggae-ish Sublime mixed with some
other things as well. The lyrics weren’t overtly political as far as I could tell. The lead
singer had a great stage presence, and the bass player was dialed-in to the groove. Tapernate
did us the favor of taping this band as well, so it is included in the torrent along with
Blind Melon’s set:
http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=511449
So as Blind Melon takes the stage in Falls Church, we notice that something is a little strange.
Travis is wearing a mask that half reminded me of the Jason mask from Friday the 13th, and half
reminded me of Phantom of the Opera. It was quite unexpected and pretty cool. Shannon used to do
random stuff like that all the time. And then I notice that Travis is wearing an orange Shannon Hoon
T-shirt that has a Danny Clinch photo of Shannon showing off one of his forearm tattoos. It is easy
to see that Travis is truly making a tribute to Shannon every night. He is very much a Shannon Hoon fan!
So after the first two songs were over and before the third started, Travis and the band took some
time to say Happy Birthday to Meredith (If you don’t know Meredith, she is the creator of the Blind
Melon Forum.) Travis played Happy Birthday on the kazoo, and I think Meredith was just beside herself
at this point. How special is that? This really reminded me of stories that Chip Midnight tells of
Shannon asking the whole audience to say hello to Chip wherever he is. Blind Melon does special things
for their fans. I think there are plenty of other bands that just wouldn’t do cool stuff like that.
^^^This video is courtesy of Doug (dojoklo)^^^
One more thing that was special about the Falls Church show for me personally, was the fact that they
played my favorite Blind Melon song ~ “Deserted”. The first show in Lancaster was awesome, but the
show at the State Theater for many reasons – one of them being that they performed this song. Not only
did they play "Deserted", but Travis also mentioned the Forum and how much the band appreciated us, right
before they busted into that song.
Here's a quick audio clip of Travis mentioning the Forum. . .
Forum Mention (Lancaster 11-28-2007)
Even though “Harmful Belly” was one of the first three songs that they released to fans, it had not
been making it into most of the setlists at the shows thus far. So it was cool when they started
playing that one. Travis beat-boxed for a while as an intro to the song.
Here’s a decent video clip that I got from this show! It’s Blind Melon performing “Drive”. Watch how
Travis appears out of nowhere!
Travis did another amazing version of “That’s The Way” as the beginning to the encore.
So it’s amazing that Travis still considered letting a fan sing a verse of “Time” considering
what had happened the night before. But he decided to try it again at the State Theater. Well,
the first girl he hands the mic to, just sort of lets out this crazy shriek. So Travis brings the
mic on over to Sonya. Doug got a fantastic video of this. You can see that she takes a “moment” to
mentally prepare for singing the verse, because you can tell she’s super excited! And then Sonya
sings it great, and Travis almost takes the mic back before Sonya is really done. But she makes the
effort to get that last part in emphatically. . . “I think it’s TIME!”
^^^This video is courtesy of Doug (dojoklo)^^^
Post-show
After the show was over, I organized all the MiniDisc material, and was able to talk with Nate
again before leaving. Outside I found the rest of the people I was with, and we went around back
to wait by the bus and talk with the members. It’s so cool that they are willing to hang out after
the shows and talk with their fans.
I mean, I have got to meet Willie Nelson and Burning Spear at meet ‘n’ greets before, but those
feel more like you’re in a line to see Santa Clause. After a Blind Melon show you can go talk with
most or all of the members and ask them questions that you’ve always had. It shows that they are still
connected with their fans in a very real way.
I got to talk with Brad after this show. I asked him about hang-gliding, and it was quite obvious
after listening to him for just a bit, that it’s something that he really loves to do. Apparently it
was his brother who got him into it, and his brother is nationally known as one of the best hang-gliders.
On a sidenote, while some of us staff members were at these shows, it was up to Matt & Barbara to maintain the
boards at the Blind Melon Forum. Within a day of us being gone, Matt & Barbara had started some sort of
foolish contest about slandering us and praising them. I can't quite recall what the rules were. What I do
recall is that I was photoshopped into a ballerina tutu. And the other staff members were slandered in photoshop
as well. So we couldn't sit there and take that, so we photoshopped two pictures of Matt & Barbara onto a picture
of Milli Vanilli. Sonya got this great picture of getting Brad in on the joke. The bird has to fly sometimes. . .
I also talked with Christopher as well. I wanted to know what kind of device he was using onstage. On certain songs he
uses this black box in his hand that is usually holding a guitar pic. I asked him what it was, and he said
that it is an "ebo". It is a device that vibrates the strings just by hovering over them. So that's how he
gets that droning sound on Sleepyhouse. I also asked him about the Mammoth Session tapes, and whether they
exist. He said that most of what was on those tapes have been released in different ways. He said that
“Ever Had the Feeling?” is definitely one of the well-known tracks from the Mammoth Sessions. But beyond
the recording itself, Christopher was willing to tell be about the experience of the Mammoth Sessions.
He said that Shannon and he went up to Mammoth Ski Area and had a snowboarding trip. The first few days
it was just him and Shannon, and then a few days later, Rogers showed up for part of the ski trip.
Christopher told me that those first few days with him and Shannon just hanging out was the first time
that he really got to know him as a good friend. Christopher also mentioned that there are other Shannon
audio clips that will be released on a CD within the next year. Getting to talk with CT was one of the
highlights of my trip for sure.
As stories from the new shows have started to appear on the internet, it was becoming apparent to many Blind
Melon fans that many things were coming full circle. The pinnacle of this was when Nico Hoon sang "Change"
with the band at the Chicago show on October 16th. But in many other ways, we could all see that on a number
of different levels, things were falling into place and old things were being made new again! The best example
that I saw of this was when Sonya and her long-time friend Aku were able to hang out at the Falls Church show.
They had both met Blind Melon after a show in Catonsville, MD in 1994. Sonya made copies of the pictures she had
taken back then, so she could give them to the band at this show. Apparently Rogers became pensive while looking
at the photos and said, "I know this face," when he found a picture of Shannon that Sonya had taken. But the
picture that seemed to tie it all together (at least from my outside perspective) was the photo of Aku, Rogers,
and Sonya together in one photo. They were able to get a new picture of this, and once again the cirle had been completed.
Glen was a champ after this show, because it kept getting colder outside, but he was still out there
talking with us after all the other guys were on the bus warming up. I heard him saying that they had
been practicing “Pull” to try and get it to the point where they we ready to perform it. He also
mentioned his dislike for the song “Soul One”. He felt like it didn’t fit the rest of their music, and
he can’t ever see them performing that one.
After we talked Glen’s ear off, we all took had to leave. We had to say goodbye to Meredith and Neil
because they weren’t headed to the shows in North Carolina. I told her how awesome it was for her to
have picked me up at Dulles International and drive up to Lancaster with me. That was really fun, and
I had a great time talking with her about the Forum and just Blind Melon in general. She is a very cool
girl. And she also has a very cool guy. We wondered what Neil was going to do the next day, since that
was actually Meredith’s birthday. He had to top Travis’ happy birthday song to Meredith during the show,
and we weren’t sure what he could do to beat that. Well, we found out that Neil definitely had a plan
and a good reason of why he didn’t want her to go down on the rest of the tour. He asked Meredith to
marry him the next day! Isn’t that wonderful?!? And she accepted, of course. How perfect of a week was
that?!? And Meredith is totally deserving of it.
So Karen, Kristen, Sonya, Gabby, and I made our way over to Keith’s house after the Falls Church show.
Keith was truly hospitable (as were his roommates) to allow eight or nine different people crash at
their place. We all ended up around a table that evening discussing the show we had just seen. Everyone
had something good to contribute. Melon fans know how many different wonderful things have transpired
this past year: the band reforming with Travis, the new songs being released one by one over their
myspace, the blessing of Nel Hoon upon the endeavors of this new Blind Melon, and most of all, the
concert in Chicago where Nico comes out to sing “Change”. We all understand that it’s as if the
planets have aligned themselves in the melon universe. If you had told me three years ago that I would
be a moderator on a fan forum for Blind Melon, and that the band would reunite, create new music,
with a following tour, and that I would eventually meet all of them. . . I would have said,
“not bloody likely.” But truth can be stranger than fiction, and I don’t want to question a good thing
too much. I just want to enjoy it. And indeed, here I was with all sorts of other people who felt the
same way. The specifics of our discussions are not as important to me as the fact that we all had this
common denominator that made us quite able to have a very engaged conversation with people who,
up until that point, were kind of strangers in a way. But it just took one evening of a discussion
around that table to make it feel as if we were old friends from long ago.
That night felt like a sleepover like when I was a little kid. None of us could go to sleep.
We couldn’t stop talking about the concert we had just seen. We were all on an amazing high from that
show. It was a truly amazing night in Falls Church!
Don't forget to check out the Blind Melon Articles website!