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So this weekend was Boo, also variously known as the Boo Party and Boo Fest. The event actually has its origin in a bunch of late 70’s/early ’80’s Halloween parties in Gainesville which are the stuff of local legend. They appear to have fizzled out during the mid to late ’80’s (or at least there is no good record of them on the official secret webpage) and then come back on an annual basis in the early ’90’s, after which they’ve been held annually, usually the weekend following Halloween.
I played ’05 and ’07 with my side roots rock band Hoyt & the HotHeads, then last year with my pop side band Pedagogy. This year when Crash Pad was playing the local Labor Daze fest on the Bo Diddley Stage at the community plaza downtown at the start of September, I ran into Feck, the stage manager for Boo, as well as the band manager for one of its recent staples (and old buds of mine, with whom I’ve sold/traded a number of axes over the years) Big Oil. He asked if Crash Pad would like to be on the “reserve” list for Boo this year, because the bill was already full. I said of course, gave him my contact info and thought nothing more of it.
About a week before Boo Feck contacted me to see if Crash Pad could play. Of course I said yes. However, our bassist Joel was going to be out of state at a memorial for his grandmother, so I arranged for our former bassist Ronnie to sit in. We managed to get in one practice with the 3 guitars, and one full practice, before this weekend.
Friday we caravan’d out to Boo from my office (our practice space) with me in the lead and the guitarist Mitch and Ronnie in their cars, with our drummer to follow later. We set up camp with each of them pitching tents, but I discovered that the bag with my tent in it did not have the tent poles, so I resolved to just put my big cab in what there was of the the “tent” overnight and sleep in the back of the SUV. Which turned out to be a much warmer arrangement anyhow (though not as cold as the preceding year).
Sleeping quarters:
Gear “tent:”
Then we went to set up onstage, as we were opening the weekend’s festivities. Here’s a pic of me and stage manager Feck before our set:
One early problem was that Mitch had borrowed my Sunn 200S head for the set, which is an 8 ohm amp, but had brought a 4 ohm cab he’d borrowed from Ronnie. Just when I thought we’d have to borrow an amp from someone (there was no way I was gonna risk blowing up a vintage head), I realized that my Sovtek head had multiple outputs, so I let Mitch play through my 8-ohm Risson cab and used the 4-ohm output on my Sovtek head to use with Ronnie’s 4-ohm Fender 4×12.
The first 3/4 of he set went really well. Feck came up and said there was some sort of crisis and asked us to stretch. Fortunately our setlist was about 10 minutes longer than the allotted 35 minutes anyhow, so we said no prob. However, the sun had gone down by then (we went on a little after 6 p.m.) and the temperature drop started playing havok with my tuning. Nevertheless we toughed it out and Feck was happy we could play a bit longer.
Turned out Trish, from the act following us, had cut her finger open 10 minutes before she was supposed to go on. She ended up super-glueing it back together, putting a bandage over it, and playing her set. It didn’t start bleeding again until the end of her set. She was followed by my old buds the Root Doctors, who do a swampy psychedelic rootsy blues-rock; they were on fire, especially their lead guitarist Chaz. The night ended with Ancient River, a guitar-drums duo with lots of delay and effects and droney Hendrix-inspired psychedelia.
I didn’t get shots of the other bands from Friday, but here’s a few of us (note that Boo is a Halloween party, albeit a belated one, so I was in costume). The first shot is by my friend Rod Dark, from Big Oil (rest are by Mitch’s gf):
Next post, some more live shots, Boo site pix, and Saturday bands! Meanwhile, as always, your comments on my poseritude are welcomed, and questions gladly answered.
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Though a couple bands preceded them, the day two festivities kicked into high gear with Chicken Luv:
Penultimate band of night two Long Strange Day (note name’s initials)
Big Oil closes night two:
One of the many pumpkins carved by “Pumpkin Bill,” this one marked the entrance to the easterly portion of the Boo, housing the Main Bonfire, Music Stage, and Boo Cafe (free coffee all weekend!):
Laminates and the Big Oil “Boo Crew 2011” pin that glows in the dark (“so you won’t get run over by a crew golf cart”):
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[quote=”olemuso”]Great pics man. Looks like a great gig, makes me totally envious! ;)[/quote]
Thanks, other than the tuning probs caused by the cold it was great fun.
Here’s some more pics from the set. The usual silliness:
Duckwalkin’!
Bruce’s Cheap Trick-inspired drum head, on his Bun E. Carlos prototype signature kit (he’s a bit fixated, but since he was Bun E’s drum tech back in the day he has license):
The Ramones stance yields extra stability to bring the rawk:
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