We survived another 3 day weekend with Dave and the crew at the Gorge in George, WA. We stayed in the campground with our Class-C camper and had tickets for all 3 nights. We had some weather issues on Saturday and Sunday evenings, but everything cleared up for show time, and things stayed rather pleasant during most of the day.
We attended the 3 shows last year immediately after the untimely death of saxophonist LeRoi Moore. It was a very somber and memorable performance last September, and we were glad to see the band pour some of that grief into their latest release. Their new album, in my opinion, is certainly worthy of the accolades it is receiving internationally.
All three nights were good shows. The opening act, G-Love and Special Sauce, was good for a listen on Friday night, but we decided to skip them Sat and Sun. The set list consisted of a great mix of old and new songs, and a couple real surprises like 'The Maker' which they played as an encore on Saturday. Sunday was by far the best night of the weekend in my opinion. We got some great solo's and some great intertwining jams with Recently and Crush, two of my personal fav's.
The Tim Reynolds PA over mix.
As a moderately bad guitarist, I worship Tim Reynolds. Its amazing how such a small man can stretch his fingers so far along the fretboard. Tim's playing was his usual spectacular, and his jam with Jeff Coffin on Crush (I think it was Crush) was simply unreal.
My only bitch is how loud Tim's guitar was in the PA mix. It was loud and on several songs it was overwhelming. I know Tim is there these days to cover for Dave on some of the more vocal heavy songs on the new release, but Tim's mix got so loud at times that I couldnt hear any of Dave's guitar, and had to fight to hear Stefan's bass licks. Tim's guitar was so loud I could hear his fingers sliding across the muted strings on his Flying-V. Would be nice if the sound board guys could lift Tim's volume during his leads, and get him back to average input during the regular parts of the song.
The Danny Barnes Show
What the hell was this all about? First, I love the Banjo, and after this weekend I love Danny Barnes. The guy is an amazing Banjo player, on par with Bela Fleck, so lets get that out of the way. I have no quarms with Danny Barnes as a Banjo player. He was a great addition to the DMB songs he joined the band on, even if he did remind me of my overtly bi-sexual middle school gym teacher.
So here's my beef... I didnt pay $70 a ticket to hear the same 2 Danny Barnes songs all three nights. Yeah, they were good songs, and I get the whole Creole, Bluegrass direction the band has been taking the last few years. But did they have to play the same two songs every night? Could they have maybe played one Danny Barnes song and maybe done a cover tune each night? I dont know, maybe I'm being silly. But if the crowd was any indication, I was not the only one who was a little disappointed when 'Side of the Road' started again on the third night.
The Gorge seating sucks! (Adults only!)
I hope somebody, someday, sues the living fuck out of the Gorge and the idiots in their management ranks for the outright dangerous situation they create with the 'Reserved Seating' section in their amphitheater. And I'm not a litigation whore by any means, but these bastards deserve to lose the whole establishment if they cannot provide a safe environment for their patrons.
If you have yet to experience this idiocy, let me try to explain.
Image 50 rows of folding metal chairs, squeezed side by side, connected with plastic cable ties, with about 8 inches of space between each row. Remember of course that the chairs are not connected to the ground, so one can easily push any empty chair in a row against the chairs in an adjacent row, removing all space between the 2 rows. And because the chairs are connected with cable ties, all the chairs move together, collapsing any space between rows and making movement by humans impossible.
This leads to the inevitable. People cut the cable ties and start folding down empty or unused chairs, and laying the folded chairs on the ground, creating an incredibly dangerous situation once the lights go out. Take this into account with the migration and shifting of loose chairs, and the unacceptable distances between chair rows, and we have a mass casualty situation just waiting to happen.
During the show people are force to navigate to their seats by walking on the seats of the movable, collapsible metal chairs. One wrong step and you're falling into a dark pool of collapsed metal chairs, cigarette butts, and beer soaked concrete. The Gorge is clearly negligent in this situation. The seats in the reserved section need to be fixed to the ground, and clearly marked with their seat number, instead of the current piece of peelable tape provided. The rows need more space between them so that people can access and exit their seats safely even with little to no light.
If anyone reading this has been injured while navigating the metal jungle at The Gorge, feel free to contact me if you need a good witness who has years of crowd control experience. I'm willing to travel (within reason) and testify for free. My only condition being, when you own the place, I get my beer for free.
I agree with everything you said above. We're from Olympia and have gone to the Gorge for DMB the last 7 years. Your blog hit it right on the nose!
Posted by: Angie Cherry | October 02, 2009 at 10:21 PM
I'm also a fan of Tim Reynolds I just love the way he plays the guitar, such an amazing man.
Posted by: Perth Hotels | January 07, 2010 at 04:49 PM