Hot Lava Rocks Ice Cold Morgue

In the past the mantra has always been “a live gig is worth 3 practices” but really….a live gig is worth so much more. There are so many things going on during a gig that you just cannot re-create in practice. And so it was during our most recent gig at the Fairmont VFW hall.

We got there with plenty of time to spare….probably around 4:30 or so. One great thing about playing this VFW hall is that there is NO ONE THERE during the load in / set up. Other than the main bartender setting up some stuff around 7:30 we had the whole place to ourselves. This is a luxury we have never had before. We didn’t have to disturb bar patrons during the load in, we didn’t have to move stuff out of the way to make room for our stuff. Once we got our equipment physically set up, we spent about an hour tweaking the sound, twisting knobs here and there, taking turns listening to the mix from various points in the hall and just fine tuning the mix. By all accounts it was the best “sound” we have ever had with regards to vocal clarity, no feedback, the levels of the various instruments and the mix for both the mains and the monitors. We also spent extra time setting up the lighting that we brought with us and tweaking the lights in the hall that would impact the stage lighting. We were ready to go at 8:00 PM. The start time had not been etched in stone and after some discussion with Roger (the Morgue liason) and the head bartender we waited until about 8:20 as there were only 5 people there. After we got 4-5 songs into the set list people started pouring in thankfully. If you live in Fairmont you can probably find a band to check out somewhere in the county every weekend but it is not like Fairmont is a music Mecca. This particular Saturday however was a bit different. The band Sinister was playing outdoors at the Granada street dance and the band Uncle Fester was playing on a flat bed trailer right across the street from the VFW at the Fairmont Street Dance. BUT……we had one thing NEITHER of these bands had for this evening of music………

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AIR CONDITIONING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This particular evening even at 9:00 pm it was still 95 degrees with 70 % humidity.
WICKED HEAT SPELL!
We had our fill of the heat just hauling our gear from the vehicles into the hall. Amazing how much sweat comes out of your body in such a short time. There would have been NO WAY playing in the heat would have been any fun at all. Hopefully those two bands gutted it out and survived. We had many people make the trek across the street to see us and get some AC when they finally had enough of heat.

The first set was pretty much 15 songs….we got acquainted with “I’m OLD, I’m DRUNK and I’m IN YOUR FACE” gal. God bless her…she kept coming up to the stage requesting something they would know…Didn’t we know they were old farts and they don’t know any of this new shit??? (hmmm let’s see we just did back to back Beatles tunes, back to back CREAM tunes, a Monkee’s tune and a Yardbirds tune all from the 60’s) Finally, we were like “Oh yeah we’ll do that one later”. (we were going to throw in her request for “House of the Rising Sun”…but hadn’t played that in a while. In hind site we probably should have worked that one up.)


Then there also was Pete’s dad. Russ is a trooper. Russ has come and seen us on various occasions. Russ had an AWESOME Halloween costume when we played the Fairmont Legion gig last fall. Russ is a huge fan of the band and it is just totally obvious from the joy on his face that he is so happy Pete is living the dream. Heck, Russ is almost 80 years old and he has danced recently to FAIRIES WEAR BOOTS!!! How many 80 year olds can stake that claim? One thing about Russ, he likes to just get up on stage and feel the vibe and his timing is impeccable. We were mid song and there was Russ right up onstage, heckling Pete and enjoying the vibe. On his way off stage he paused near the bass player.

Russ = “you having fun?”

Lonzo = “most fun I’ve had all week” (back to microphone…..harmonizing)
…I’m in my cabin dreaming. Or are you really scheming”

Russ = “sounds way different up here”

Lonzo = (still harmonizing at the mic) “to take my ship away from me” then while playing the “important bass line” turning to Russ “sounds great doesn’t it”

What a riot. Russ exits stage left.

We were happy to have BOTH Randy and Andy’s mom and dad there for two full sets!! (of course we were too loud up close where they were originally sitting but they found their sweet spot a bit farther back where they could still carry on a conversation) Even rearranged the second set to play a request for them they were going to dance to.

Somewhere early second set someone decided to fiddle with the lights in the hall at the fuse box and suddenly we had bright fluorescent lighting in our face. The rest of the hall was still properly lit with subdued lighting. Bright Fluorescent Lighting….just on us of course. Pretty much took the wind out of that song……and then no one could figure out how to turn them off. We had to run back there and fix that in between songs.

Speaking of “stage crashers”….during the third set Dawn her friend Michelle and bro Todd decided to crash the stage and dance their way around and through us. Thankfully nothing got tripped over or unplugged. They all managed to keep their clothes on too!!

It was another AWESOME gig overall. The hall is so big that even with 200 people it seems pretty empty. Once again we got more offers to perform potential future gigs.

Everything pretty much went according to plan until the very, very, very, end when all our stuff was packed up and we were sitting around in the empty hall at 2:00 a.m. the bar manager pretty much kicked us out. We were not asked to leave. He did in fact kick us out but the exact quote is memory blurred. Hey we were just trying to relax for a moment. Didn’t matter at that point.

Thanks to Roger and all "the Morgue" members for having us down to crash your bash!

(OK - so you are wondering what the heck is "the Morgue") Back in the 60's in Fairmont there was a farm house outside town where people would go to hang out and party. Remember of course this was the sixties...you know Peace, free Love, hippies,Woodstock !!) They had some sort of name for it but somewhere someone made the comment "it doesn't look like a frat house to me it looks more like a Morgue" !! Maybe it was due to all the passed out partiers laying around on couches???? So eventually "the Morgue" became a reference to the exclusive clique who frequented said space.