The Loud Family Tour 1998:

From: Roger J. Winston
Subject: [loud-fans] DENVER! (minor spoilers) [LONG]

This is probably sacrilege to report on the Denver show before todd has finished his SLC show report (keep it up, todd - very entertaining), but what the heck. I won't be able to do the same sort of justice to events that todd does, but I'll try to make it interesting. Please forgive in advance any self-indulgence or rambling on.

I just got done waving goodbye to Alison and the guys, and I'm taking a break from repairing the wrecked furniture and broken windows. Ha Ha - I kid! The Loud Family are perfect guests and you should all volunteer to put them up for the night when they come to your town, so they won't have to stay at any of those icky resorts with the hot tubs and all. Keep a close eye on Alison around your CD collection though... ;)

The double minivan caravan is now winding its way to Minneapolis via Omaha. The Fam put on a great, energetic show in Denver despite some problems here and there. They didn't even take the stage until about 12:15. It's really hard to get friends and family to go to a show that late on a Monday night, so it was just me, bandmate (and LoudList Lurker) John Ridges, and my friend John Z who entered the 15th St Tavern at around 9:30. After talking to Kenny awhile outside, we went inside and chatted with Scott, Gil and Alison while waiting for the first of three bands to take the stage. I got to meet some other LoudFans I'd never met before, including local ex-Lister/Lurker Mike Spak and local current Lister/Lurker Greg Langer. I also chatted with a nice guy named Brian(?) wearing a Nields T-Shirt - he was a big time Scott fan who had come up from Los Alamos NM (though he's actually from Mississippi) to see the show. I think I convinced him to join the mailing list and I hope we hear from him.

The first band was from San Diego and was called Shortwave Channel. They were a three-piece, with a singer/bassist (male), drummer (male) and synth player (female). Scott insisted that they were "noise pop", but John Ridges thought they were more "punk goth". Whatever you call them, I was not impressed. They were way too loud, yet you couldn't hear the (screamed) vocals. The music was fast and not very complicated. The synth broke down three songs into the set, which was the cue for my friend John Z to leave ("I...just...can't take...it...anymore!"). He had to get up early the next day anyway and had no intention of sticking around for the Fam, unfortunately. The band got the synth working again and resumed their noise fest for a few more songs.

I thought that the second band, Creeper Lagoon, were pretty good. Like the LF, they were from San Francisco, though neither band had heard the other before. I even bought the CL CD there. As Alison said afterward, their live sound is more straight-ahead alt-rock than what we had been led to believe. But they were tight and put on a good show. The most impressive thing was that when the singer/guitarist's guitar broke down in the middle of a song, he was able to switch guitars in a manner that had to be seen to be believed. Part of it involved singing with the microphone IN his mouth.

The Loud Family fared much better on the technical side of things than the other bands, as I detected no equipment failure. Scott even had his main guitar back, and it sounded very good indeed. I was pleasantly surprised at the choice of songs, which I thought was a good overall sampling of the Scott oeuvre. I was ecstatic to finally hear my favorite Game Theory song live, which I thought would be very tricky, but the band made it look easy. Like todd, I'm really glad I didn't peek at the set list on the web page. I like being surprised.

The Creeper Lagoon guys (who hung around to watch the LF) were very into the set, very enthusiastic. The Family gained some new SF fans that night. They went positively ballistic when the LF launched into their cover song, which was familiar to me though I couldn't quite pin it down. I knew it was something I had in my collection. They did a really good job with it.

The sound of the club was good - it was a small, dive bar, but sometimes those intimate settings are the best. The biggest problem with the club was the staff. I won't go into detail about all the problems Scott & Co. had with them, but suffice it to say they probably won't be going back there again any time soon. They wouldn't even feed the band, even though it was in their contract. They had to settle for a free pitcher of beer each. The whole staff just had a snotty attitude toward the band and the fans. The worst part was when the bartender started blasting the TV sound REALLY loud, which drowned out the quiet passages in the songs. Greg Langer luckily got him to turn it down.

Like Salt Lake, it wasn't a real big crowd - there were less than 20 people there by the time the LF took the stage. Like the professionals they are, they gave it their all anyway, they played for an hour but unfortunately didn't play an encore. The staff started shooing people out even though it wasn't even close to 2am yet (the traditional closing time of bars in Denver). The band made some good money on merchandise sales (which I manned while they played). They even sold a bunch of bumper stickers, Sue!

At the load-out, we had some weird moments with a fan that wanted to tag along and hang out with us back to my house. Everybody thought everyone else knew him, but it turned out that no one knew him. We were able to gracefully extract ourselves from him. Scott, Gil and Alison then followed me back to my house (with John Ridges' help) while Kenny went to stay with his sister.

The band had pretty much not eaten anything since lunch or breakfast (thanks to the club), so I brought out whatever I could find for them to nibble on, including whipping up some Denver style nachos. We chatted and ate while listening to some Tubes and Teenage Fanclub. They perused the Wall of Sound, and Watney the Blind Wonder Dog sniffed everyone and made a not-too-much a nuisance of himself. Everybody was pretty beat by this time, and it was very late, so John Ridges went home and the rest of us turned in.

After a fitful night's rest, Kenny joined us again and we all headed down to the local IHOP for a BIG late breakfast. It was actually a very pleasant dining experience, which I can only attribute to the fact that a certain California fan, who shall remain nameless but has the nickname of The Restaurant Weirdness Magnet, was in California at the time. ;) We had the World's Most Efficient Waitress - Gil was really, really scared when she took our order without writing any of it down, but she managed to get it all right. We chatted some more - I love hearing stories about making music and being out on the road, but I'm not much of conversation contributor. I like to just soak it all in and ask questions.

[minor spoilers]

One mystery we solved at this breakfast was: What exactly did Scott sing during the "I used to go out with..." part of Spot The Setup last night, which he has been varying from night to night. None of the band caught it, and neither had I. According to Scott, it was "school teacher" this time, but he really doesn't know why he did that. He said for some reason it sounded like it made sense right before he said it, but as soon as he said it, he knew it was WRONG. So, I doubt you'll hear that one any more... I also found out the reasons that they didn't play some particular favorite songs of mine from DfD, which were mostly technical (but interesting) reasons. [minor spoilers over]

After breakfast, I drove the band around a bit while they completed some administrative type details. Then we got back to the housea and we listened to a little Mary Lou Lord while they planned the next part of the trip, and then they were off!

Wow, I'm beat. It's been a pretty exciting 24 hours here. I'm glad I took these two days off from work. Anyway, I had a great time spending time with the band and finally getting to see them play live in my home town. They are gracious, fabulous people. I only hope the bad club staff experience and the general lack of an audience doesn't deter them from a return trip on the next tour. I'm really looking forward to flying out to SF for the end of tour show in August, and hope to see many of you there!

Sorry for the length!

Later! --Rog

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