The first half of the following was supposed to be an email to jessi about the weekend. It spawned into the second half which was sent to a group of fellow freaks who understand all the abreviations and everything. Take from it what you will... I was unable to get everything in my head about the past weekend down, but I'm happy with the effort. :)



Friday, September 1

Everyday *
Proudest Monkey *
Satellite *
Say Goodbye *
What Would You Say *
The Idea Of You *
Big Eyed Fish *
Bartender *
Hunger For The Great Light *
Dream Girl *
Loving Wings *
Warehouse *
Stolen Away On 55th & 3rd *
Cant Stop
You Might Die Trying *
Louisiana Bayou *
__________________

Sister [Dave Solo]
So Right *
Stay [Wasting Time]



Saturday, September 2

One Sweet World *
Crash Into Me
Seek Up *
Grace Is Gone
When The World Ends *
Shotgun *
Don’t Drink the Water *
If I Had It All *
Dancing Nancies *
So Much To Say *
Too Much *
Break Free *
Pig *
Ants Marching *
__________________

Butterfly
American Baby Intro *
Pantala Naga Pampa *
Rapunzel *



Sunday, September 3

Granny *
Typical Situation *
Grey Street *
Where Are You Going
The Idea Of You *
Lie In Our Graves *
JTR *
Crush *
Dreaming Tree *
Last Stop *
Digging a Ditch *
Cant Stop
Jimi Thing *
Tripping Billies *

__________________

Loving Wings *
All Along The Watchtower *



Oh, the gorge.



Oh, automatic capitalization, how I hate thee.



Well, first things first – my camera decided to die about 8 pictures into the weekend, so there is no visual representation to speak of, aside from some pictures of camping chairs, and portrait shots of me, greg and mel individually. Have you ever been to central Washington? I was astounded several times this weekend at the difference having a whole new color palette to work with makes on virtually every thought I think. These dry, dry ashy blues that fit so nonchalantly into browns and greens that just wreak of desert life. It all blends so softly into a terrain that features this enormously vast sky and sweeping plains and ridges and it is so refreshingly different from our lovely bustling seattle. There’s this one spot just off of the exit we take to get to camping and the venue where these deliciously violet flowers are cropped around a small pool of water, and they literally sing in this cliché way about the merits of water in such a dry land. It makes my heart zing in an equally cliché way every time we pass it in the morning on the way to the park. And driving into our campsite at sunset literally makes my hips grind just a little bit involuntarily – this massive gorge that looks like it was so violently carved out of the desert seems to catch these little particles of light, making it all surreal and blurred during the late day yellow sun. Found a new waterfall this year, too. V. cool.



The camping experience, as always, was quite a riot. I will say that I got far more rest than usual this year, so there aren’t quite as many shenanigans to report, but that’s not saying much. The first night after the show, I was lying in my tent, staring up at this sky that was so dark and so starry, listening to people singing songs around the camp fire, totally spent from night 1’s show…and it was literally one of the best post-orgasmic moments of my life. No trees or mountains to block the view – star gazing out there is just phenomenal.



As Dave has said – the scenery out there just can’t fit into a camera.



The shows? Well, they were fantastic. Awe-inspiring even. That band always plays some of their best shows there, and I will say that this year was probably the best crowd I’ve experienced out there. Everyone was so ridiculously into it and the singing along that went on…good fucking god. It’s not like dave sings all pretty-like all of the time, either. The man screams. And we just scream right along with him. Second night, we were sitting on the edge of the lawn, except…it felt like the edge of the world. The lawn is really steep and overlooks the Columbia river gorge, so at night, all you see is empty sky with stars, and these winds come up and sweep over you and almost make you feel like you’ll go floating off into oblivion… or, as the line goes, “I feel as small as dust lying down here.” In any case, though, the energy in the crowds was ridiculous. And the sound is LOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUD this year. And people were shaking their asses in the best of ways. OOOOOH, the energy. Mmmmm mmm good.



The park this year rules. It’s this grassy state park on the river(where we DO swim, despite glacial run-off temperatures.). We played crazy-8’s and layed in the grass and there was a REAL BOAT involved for a Sunday morning jaunt on said river, and we had our yearly kickball tournament that ended in whiskey shots all around.



Oh yeah, the drunkenness. And the pot-laced cookies and other treats. And I’m pretty sure we ran across random jello shots in the parking lot one night too. I saw a boy I once thought was my soul mate. I danced in more uncomfortable positions than I thought possible. I heard Dave tell more stories than I EVER have at a full-band show. I saw these men on stage who I swear to god I’ve grown up with, and who return that same love right back to me when they have as much fun on stage as they did this weekend. It was like one big orgy where everyone was ok that there wasn’t any sex because it would’ve taken away from the dancing and the physical high that comes from knowing music that well.



Wait, though. This isn’t to say I wouldn’t have had sex had it come my way. But this brings us to our next point – I SURVIVED THE GORGE WITH MY PERIOD. Yes, 3 nights of camping with blood. It is doable!



Speaking of doable, there were lots of doable men wandering around. Holy god. The first day, after we’d set up our tents in The Crater That God Forgot, I was little miss social, nosy, just –approach-everyone. I tried to help our neighbors with some random things, like when they drove their car over a spot with big rocks and got stuck. And when the Stupid Park Rangers(SPRs) came to cause trouble with said neighbors, I was the first to walk over to the SPRs and ask if I could ask what was going on…to which the egomaniacal driver told me I couldn’t…to which I asked if there were any “rules” I needed to know about…



Stoopid stooped stooped SPRs.



And, oh – the amount of laughing that went on this weekend!!! Seriously! We laughed and laughed and laughed at nothing for no reason a good 35% of the weekend.



The shows…Night one… night one saw a LOT of giggling. A lot. And those of you who know me know that when I say a lot of giggling, there was a LOT. Ahem. I was amazed at how well everyone knew songs like P-monkey. I mean, it’s hard to sing along to because dave doesn’t usually know where the hell he is(in that song or any song – he was lost a lot this weekend), but we were doing a pretty good job! And it also occurred to me, as I watched a crowd who 2 years ago would have sat in defiance of “Satellite”, that that song is the definitive modern pop song. I mean…it’s bad. But it’s so good! Holy “Bartender” jam, batman. And it was good and didn’t put me to sleep and ended the fight Butch and I were having!!! “Idea of You” was when the show really clicked. That song has PROGRESSED since I last heart it at Nissan. It is perfection and I adore it. And the lyrics didn’t sound quite as horrible as the version I have at home. Carter’s intro into Say Goodbye was epic. For a second there, I actually thought it would be plausible to just make it a Halloween intro instead – it was intense and had to be brought down a few times. I wouldn’t normally mention Dreamgirl, but the intro was gone! So it was totally bearable, and in no way long enough to get a beer and go to the bathroom! Yay for that! “Stolen Away…” ooooooooooooooooooh god. Mel left, he says to “give me a moment.” I almost cried. I just adore that song. It hit me in all the right spaces, even as I knew a few were cringing. He wasn’t sitting, but I guess I can let that slide. I’m sorry, but I love “Can’t stop.” And yes, it is mainly because I get off on Dave doing whatever it is he’s doing during that song. Oh, holy god, the boy just CROONING, holding his mic like he does…oooooooh god.



Best line from Night 1 was when Dave said… “Just remember – no means no. And yes? Yes means come the fuck on!” I fucking loved it.



Night 2 was, as usual, a lawn debacle. We tried so hard to get their early. Oh, wait, no we didn’t at all. Needless to say, we ended up on the way far left on the way far top on the way steep slant. And after the round of intoxicants in the parking lot, I didn’t know that it was in fact safe to stand up, so that was interesting. I was told a few stories about people toppling…in any case, though, the show! Loved it, loved it, can’t wait to listen again. I am somewhat weirded out to say that my eyes actually welled up with tears multiple times during the show. Seek, though, it seems has gotten some surge of power and passion it was lacking a tad in recent years. Translation: yeah Dave wailing! Way to go for it with your all again! “shotgun” is super. Mid-set DDTW…mmmmmm yeah. Before WTWE, Dave said, “We were gonna release this as a single…but then the world ended…” Dug that. “Break Free” is far more sultry than anything they’ve written lately. The version I have from june is really good…until the end, at which point the jam just sucks. I was delighted to find they’ve trimmed it down and stepped it up and made it perfect-ish. “Pig” that far into the set really surprised me, but the gorge is the perfect place to hear it, so of course it was loverly. And the rest of the show, as the set tells you straight up, was pretty fucking high energy. I love few things as much as I do “Rapunzel.”



Ok, night 3. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. “Granny” of course sets the tone for the whole show perfectly, but Typical two songs in? Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze. That is truly one of my favorite jams. MMMM. And Rashawn bumps it up a notch. I really do like him, by the way. I was kinda indifferent after Red Rocks and Nissan, but now that he knows the material, he’s jiving with them as if he’s always been there. And that high trumpet timbre is seriously a perfect addition to so many of the songs. And he and Roi play with eachother!!! And WHAT was Roi wearing night one? FIND A PICTURE.



Back to the point…



I actually liked ALL of LIOG! I was starting to become a hater(or at least my version, which is very vanilla) of it, because the jam puts me to sleep, but it was good. And I shall now refer to LIOG instead as “Boyd’s Orgasm.” Boyd is really funny. I like him. But this brings us to my favorite 8 minutes of the entire weekend: JTR. Seeing this song again was so much better than I already knew it would be. And IT SOUNDS SO GOOD. So much better than it ever was! I was just…fantastically ridiculously happy. And on top of that, at that point in the show I one hundred per cent thought it was the closer. I assumed it was. I was ready for them walk off stage because the show that far had been SO high energy. But I was quite wrong! Because then we got a BTCS streak to end all BTCS streaks. Crush, ok, fine. But then Dreaming Tree? Dreaming Tree followed by Last Stop? What? What? I mean, there’s this moment of hand-clasped wonder when you hear those first notes of DT. And there’s that longing that somewhat encompasses the need to have everyone around you be perfectly silent so you can fully absorb just what it is that is happening on the stage. And there’s that relaxation when you realize they’re playing That Song For You, because they know you as a fan just really really find it a special, amazing treat to hear and see it performed live. And then there’s that laughter when Dave gets more lost than you’ve ever seen him and cannot find his way, and realized that everyone knows it, and then leads into this huge jam that totally makes up for his misguidance. And then there’s said jam, so totally and utterly caressed with every ounce of Carter’s unimaginable talent… and THEN? THEN? Then they start tooling around with an intro that you know sounds like Last Stop, but also sounds like What You Are. And even though you know he uses the electric for WYA, you know that you should definitely not totally get your hopes up because they can trick you, they have before. But how can you not get excited when you really know that it has to be last stop they’re playing, and that you’re about to be completely blown all the way away because the power of that song is just unprecedented? And then the girl in front of you pukes, and you feel bad because this is just the intro, and the real song is about to start, and it will not at all help her puking needs?



Last Stop was real good.



And yes, the rest of the show. The rest of the show…well, you guys know. It was a perfect close to another perfect weekend at the gorge. And yes, it did feel GOOD to have a dose of Watchtower. Nothing like knowing the end is coming, and stomping your feet and shaking your ass harder than you have all night, just because it’s that song, and because it’s the end, and because it’s been so good, and because…



Well, because you get to do it again next weekend. J



Yes, gorge weekend was good. We seriously had a good group of people out there, too. I totally enjoyed everyone’s company. Yeah.