This whole past weekend felt very familiar to me. The entire drive home from Parade Day Saturday (actually it was Sunday morning by then) I kept thinking, “when was the last time I was this tired?” And then I remembered…it was last Parade Day!! So, I went back deep into the DDS archives and fished out the journal/blog-entry-thingy that I posted after the big event last year to do some comparisons. The underlined portions are last year’s entry followed by this year’s comparison;
Zzzzzzz…oh, sorry. I’m still recovering from this past weekend. Yep, felt much the same this year. It was a perfect storm of beer, music, and sleep deprivation. Also the same. Friday began innocently enough. We all met up for the van ride to Harrisburg for the big rock-show we were putting on at The Hardware Bar out in those parts. This year was actually worse…we played all the way down in Bel Air MD on Friday – we sometimes wonder if our agent owns a map. Everything went off without a hitch as the sounds of rock and roll filled the cool night air in our proud state capital. And since Ducky gave me $20 hush-money, I’m not even gonna tell you that he left two entire bags of props back in his car, which was parked two hours away, and had to send an undisclosed member of our road-crew back to get them – it’s a tale many would love to hear but, twenty bucks is twenty bucks…sorry. No “hitches” this year either (but Bel Air is not the capitol of anything as far as I know) and Ducky didn’t forget ANYTHING this time!! Anyway, after the “gig” (industry term), we loaded back in the van and drove straight through to Scranton. “To the hotel?” one might ask…oh no, to The Hardware Bar Scranton to load-in and sound-check at 5am!!! That’s right, that’s how it has to be done on Parade Day (which is one of the biggest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the country) because by 9am the streets are teaming with people and you can’t get a vehicle within a mile of downtown!! This year, load-in was 7 am so we actually did go to the hotel first…but only for about 40 minutes or so. This was just enough time to sit around getting more tired but not quite enough time to actually take a nap. So, sound-check continued until about 6:30am and, I think at some point during, Scott attempted to “pants” (juvenile frat-boy term) Dave in front of the band and all 1 of the staff members that were there at that ungodly hour – but, between the lack of sleep and the Pink Floyd tunes we were jamming on at the time…I could have been hallucinating. This year no one got pantsed and we jammed Van Halen tunes but sound check got cut abruptly short at 8 am cuz one of Scranton’s finest threatened to have our van towed if we didn’t move it right away. It was fine though cuz I hate loud music at that time of the morning anyway – I pretty much hate everything at that time of the morning. We finally check-in at the hotel around 7am, catch a nap and a shower and head back to the club for our first set at 11am in front of shoulder-to-shoulder people…all dressed in green and not a one feeling any pain. An hour later, we hand the stage over to UUU and Maybe Sunday (who were both great!!) for a set each as we head back to the hotel to try to steal an other hour of sleep. Pretty much all the same except for the times…this year we were in bed by 8:30 am, first set was at 2 pm, and we only handed the stage over to Nowhere Slow (who were terrible) KIDDING!! We love those guys and they were FANTASTIC – even when they let drunk Ducky up on stage to jam with them :o) The cycle repeats again at 3pm and 8:30pm until we close the day’s festivities with a set from 12 to 1am – only it’s not 1am…it’s 2am. Damn-you daylight savings!!!! All exactly the same…even the daylight savings part!!! Sufficiently exhausted, we load-up and head back home to sleep in our own beds. The wife and I pass each other at the door for a quick kiss as she heads out to the gym for boot-camp (or some such thing) and I head up to bed for sleep. I awake at 1pm to take the wife to a beer-tasting & restaurant event in the city (cuz Sunday is “Date-Day” for the Wolfes) and am on the road to Atlantic City by 6:30pm to meet up with my “mates” (British term) to rock the Eden Lounge at Harrah’s and put a cap on a great week of great shows in front of a LOT of great people. The wife and I even went to the same event this year (although, I think she let me sleep later) but this time I didn’t have to run off to a show (since we did the Eden Lounge Sundays in February this year)…so we got drunk and took the train home :o) Thanks to all that made it out…we really appreciate it!! That all still stands too!! Oh, That reminds me, zzzzzzzzzzz… Ok, I’ve had a bit more time to recover this year :o)
Justin
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