New Morning, August 23.
Dave told me he really liked that Paris show.
--photo by Hanno Bunjes--
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1999 -- I was very busy during my off-the-Panic-tour week. Marti & I would be hosting American tourheads at a gathering here at 85 rue Blomet on Sunday, a day off before the juggernaut resumed at the New Morning on Monday night. So we had to whip this place into shape for company. In an example of impeccable timing, Arminda, our Portuguese housekeeper, was on August vacation. But we got it together by the weekend. Pat Goodwin, whenever he resurfaced, & tourmate Don Hess would be staying here for a couple of nights. And we'd reserved crash spaces & hotel rooms for several others. We were looking forward to a fun house party. Here's the menu for Sunday night:
M A R T I . & . P H I L ' S
M A R O C ' N ' R O L L . D I N N E R . P A R T Y
Lettuce/Orange/Red Onion Salad
Lamb Tagine w/Pine Nuts & Raisins
Chicken Tagine w/Green Olives
Veggie Platter
North African Bread
Sidi Brahmin Wine (Algerian)
Algerian Pastries
Fresh Fruit
Coffee
SweetMint Tea
A tagine is like a casserole; the name applies both to the format of the food (in this case, a stew) and to the pot in which it is cooked & served. A North African tagine is a two-part earthenware dish: a shallow, round platter with a tall, conical cover. You cook in the dish on the stove, then cover it to make a stove-top oven. It's also possible to put the tagine in the oven. Because of the amounts needed for Sunday, I cooked in larger pots & simply used the tagines for serving. I'd invited about a dozen or so tourheads. We were coordinating with our neighbor Dominique across the courtyard to hold the party in our two apartments. We had talked about it a few weeks ago, but she'd been away as plans have evolved & I'd gone ahead & invited what could be 30 or so folks. If I didn't find her soon, I could be in deep, um, water.
I had a modest collection of North African CDs & tapes to spin on Sunday night, including the funky Orchestre National de Barbès (from another of the Algerian immigrant neigborhoods in Paris), Algerian teen heartthrob Faudel, Rachid Taha, Khaled, as well as a number of Moroccan gnawa trance jam recordings, which go well with good hashhish. Dominique, the intrepid Moroccan traveler, has a lot of this kind of music too.
An Old Street In Belleville.
--painting by Jacques Bouyssou--
Yesterday I went up to the fabulous twice-weekly marché in Belleville, the North African immigrant quartier of Paris. I had heard about this street market for years, but this was my first visit. Prices were so much less than here in the upper-scale 15th arrondissement. I was buying olives, raisins & pistachios by the kilo (2.2 lbs.), so the savings were significant. A bunch of fresh mint sells there for the equivalent of 25 cents; the same item costs 83 cents in our neighborhood. I needed a bunch of bunches to make sweetened mint tea, the traditional capper to a Moroccan meal. So I'd be going back to the market on Friday to buy all my fresh ingredients.
I bought some small decorated tea glasses in one of the shops on the Boulevard de Belleville, then popped into a little Tunisian restaurant on rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud where I had a grilled whole black mullet for lunch. The dude cooked it over a charcoal fire, which he agitated & flamed with the aid of a hair dryer! Before I could decide that this was very odd, I noticed a primitive painting on the wall by my table that depicted a peasant cooking on a grill in the exact same way, except that he was using an old-fashioned fireplace bellows. Let's hear it for technological innovation!
Well, this blackened blackfish tasted great, served on a bed of lettuce with a few veggie items as garnish, sprinkled with diced onion & parsley. I had sweet mint tea afterwards & the entire bill came to a whopping 53FF ($8.83).
Almost makes me wanna move out of my bourgeois quartier.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 22, 1999 -- Today, a day off from tour, I got up & started cooking the Moroccan specialties for this evening's dinner party. Disco Don Hess, who took over the care & feeding of Pat Goodwin after I left the tour in Berlin 8 days ago, arrived from Belgium in the late afternoon with Pat in tow. They're sleeping here tonight and tomorrow night.
While I was rustlin' up the grub earlier, bedecked in my Ben & Jerry's tie-dye apron, Schools phoned to get details on tonight. I had mentioned the Moroccan munchout to a number of the Panic players & crew, explaining that it was pretty much open house & all were welcome. (As it turned out, tonight was a celebration of guitar tech Wayne Sawyer's tenth anniversary of the band, so they all went out to restaurant to party.)
Their absence didn't diminish the partying here at rue Blomet, as a good number of itinerant Spreadies gathered to enjoy a relaxing non-show night. (Ralph Metzger had hosted a similar convocation during one of the off-nights in Germany & the gang had assembled for a mountain jam on a no-show evening in Switzerland.) In the house tonight were Pat & Don, Bill Mixon & Stacey Gates, Deepesh & Karen, Robin & Doug, Jeff "Sequoia" McLean, Parisian homeboy Michel Ravinet & his houseguest, the ambassador of the German Head Community, Ralph.
We fed 'em lamb & chicken tagines, couscous veggies (turnips, carrots, zucchini & chick peas), a simple mesclun/oranges/red onion salad, Algerian breads, Algerian & Moroccan wines, North African pastries, fresh cantaloupe & sweet mint tea. I'd say it was a hit with the dining stoners, who fell into silent chomping as the buffet was served. It was a pleasant evening, so we were hanging on the balcony, scattered across the living room, clustering 'round the bar.
Disco & I had set up a dubbing system in the bedroom, so we ran DAT>analogs of the Hamburg show during the party. We listened to the dubs & I spun a few North African CDs as well, to help maintain the exotic mood. As if we needed any help maintaining our exotic moods.
MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1999 -- Another Panic Monday. Tonight Widespread Panic returned for a third adventure in the City of Light. It was Marti's first show of the European Summer Tour; tomorrow we'll fly with Pat & Don to Glasgow for the 3 U. K. dates. (Marti will skip Manchester for an extra day in the country of her ancestors, then catch up with Don, Pat & me in London for the tour finale.)
We served brekkie to our guests Pat & Disco, then the two of them & I went for a tethered balloon ride above Paris. The so-called Millenium Balloon is sponsored by an insurance company & for around $10 you can ascend 150 meters above the Parc Andre Citröen, site of the former auto plant, right here in the 15th.
Up Up & Away, August 23.
--photo by Disco Don Hess--
After the balloon ride, a bunch of us Panic freeks reconvened at 1:30 p. m. for lunch à la terrasse at Les Petits Bouchons de François Clerc in Montparnasse. We had a traditional leisurely two-hour, four-course French lunch, accompanied by fine wines. The four Les Bouchons restaurants have a revolutionary pricing policy on wine: no markups over cost. So instead of paying an addition 200%-300% for a bottle just because you're ordering in a restaurant, the customers get great wine at supermarket or wine shop prices! This allows you to ratchet up the quality of wine you order, with no fear of being gouged.
Our luncheon party included Disco & Pat, Stacey & Bill, Robin & Doug, Marti & me.
Back at the apartment, we were getting ourselves organized to go to soundcheck when I accidentally stumbled over the cheesy little stacking tables in front of the sofa & crashed into one of my new Sony speakers. The speaker wasn't damaged, but as I was to discover later, I had been. The wound on my shin would plague me for the rest of the tour.
Pat, Disco & I cabbed over to the New Morning for the soundcheck. It was good to see all the guys again. I congratulated Wayne on his tenth anniversary with the band. He said the time's flown by so quickly that he can hardly believe it's been that long. I was hanging for awhile with a French magazine photographer who posed the band in a lineup shot in front of the stage. Later I learned that he had gottten into a scuffle with the security people & had been thrown out before the show began!
I know that the band wanted the place cleared of tapers and hangers-on just before the actual check, which was of a new song for them, the ten-year-old fIREHOSE tune "Sometimes." How I escaped the room clearing is beyond me, but I just sat quietly talking amongst myself & nobody asked me to screw on outta there. This band is by far the most gracious & hospitable of any I've encountered.
After soundcheck, I hooked up with Todd, J. B., Sam, Mikey, Sunny & JoJo (who of course had been walking the streets of Paris all afternoon) & led them over to the nearby Passage Brady, where there are a lot of Indian & Pakistani restaurants, grocery stores & Third World barbershops. We assembled around a long outside table under the glass roof of the passage, but J. B. & JoJo were in more of a drinkin' than eatin' mood, so we left the others & walked up to the Motown Bar, near the Gare de l'Est railroad station.
The Motown Bar has nothing to do with the 1960s music of Detroit. In fact it's a Parisian late-night gay hangout. The bar & restaurant are owned by the parents of Isabel, the partner of Christophe Rossi, editor of the French drummers mag BATTEUR, & drummer for the Paris-based Grateful Dead cover band Deadicace. I phoned Marti & suggested that she taxi there to meet up with me for the show. Isabel & her dad were there & I introduced them to J. B. & JoJo. We got a table near the open-to-the-street section of the restaurant. Christophe arrived with Deadicace guitarist Stephane Missri & Jean-François, another friend, then Marti showed up. She was welcomed warmly by J. B. & JoJo, whom she had not seen since last summer at the Bataclan.
This was a sweet, laid-back pre-show hang. J. B. & I talked baseball; both his Indians & my Red Sox were in the American League pennant race. Marti asked after J. B.'s bride Laura, with whom she had enjoyed visiting during the Chesterfield Café run. We all walked back together to the New Morning after an hour or so.
Tourmates Goodwin & Disco, August 23.
That's Garrie Vereen back there.
(Someone in the house who is actually working!)
--photo by an associate of Disco Don Hess--
The joint was jumpin'. Our tapehead friends were busily building their world near the soundboard. Hanno Bunjes was here from Strasbourg. He was staying with us tonight. Ralph Metzger, on the heels of all those German dates & biergarten hangs, told folks he couldn't stand the weak, overpriced French beer served at the New Morning. Our pals Maria de LaGuardia & her French boyfriend Charles were in the house, along with a number of our friends from the Parisian Deadhead community. (Knowing that August is a dead month for live music in Paris, I had contacted the show promoter, Assad Debs of Corida Productions, & given him a mailing list of area freeks. Corida sent out a flyer based on their concert poster. Marti & I had put up posters in a number of youth hostels & other locations around the city where we thought we might snag a few additional Americans to help fill up the club.)
New Morning, August 23.
--photo by Hanno Bunjes--
In the end there were maybe 200 folks in the club, ready for a rockin' Monday night in the City of Light:
C. Brown>Disco>Going Out West>Pleas>Barstools & Dreamers>Ain't No Use>A Love Supreme Jam>Blue Indian
Porch Song>Machine>Blight>Jam>Tallboy>Fishwater>Drumz>
Fishwater>Impossible>Traveling Light
E: Sometimes>Me & The Devil>All Time Low
--photo by Hanno Bunjes--
After the show Marti & I were hanging out backstage with Jojo. He was beaming. "I'm always happy when we get to do a new song!" The "Sometimes" encore had been a stone hit with the Spreadies.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1999/PARIS>GLASGOW -- Travel day. This afternoon we were due to fly to Glasgow, for tomorrow night's show. There were five of us getting organized as we regained consciousness in the morning. Five bags to pack: Pat, Disco, Marti & I were continuing our tour, Hanno was headed back to Strasbourg. I had a nasty blood blister topping a huge lump on my left shin, plus a bruised ankle, from the previous afternoon's crash into the stereo speaker. I put a couple of bandaids over it & hobbled onward.
We had lunch down the street on the terrasse of the Tabac de la Mairie, so named because it sits across from the Mairie ("town hall") of our quartier, la quinzieme arrondissement.
That was the last thing that went right today.
What transpired in the ensuing hours does not warrant recollection in detail. In fact, remembering it will only cause your correspondent's blood pressure to rise. Suffice it to say that our party of five weary pilgrims (with the addition of fellow road warrior Chip Lassister) were subjected to a level of customer service best described as having been scraped off the street side of the Air France corporate shoe. Through no fault of our own, we missed our flight to Glasgow. We were rescheduled on a later flight to . . . Edinburgh. Our party cabbed from Edinburgh to Glasgow, where we were afforded a survivors welcome & the warm hospitality of our friends Marie & Kevin Devlin. Marie is a British Telecom colleague of Marti's, whom we got to know on a trip to Rome in 1991. She & Kevin lived in Paris for a few years, had homes in Wimbledon, then Esher, England, before moving to Scotland. They were sweet to host us & our hippie posse. It was 11:30 p.m. when we arrived; we had originally planned to be there in time to take Marie & Kevin out to dinner.
At least we finally made it to the land of whiskey-swillin' men in plaid skirts.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1999/GLASGOW -- This morning we met Marie & Kevin's little boy, Joseph. He's a year old & is a happysmileyguy. At least he was when we saw him. Reports had it that he had been an absolute terror over the weekend. Thankfully, he was now over whatever baby issues had been troubling him. We had brought Joseph an infant's track suit: red & blue sweatshirt & sweatpants. Because it's never too soon to start getting rid of that baby fat.
Marie & Kevin were getting ready for work, so I whipped up brekkie for our foursome. Bacon, eggs, the whole enchilada. Just breeze into someone else's kitchen & go to town. Kevin gave us a ride into the city center, where Pat & Don had railroad station business. Then we cabbed over to the hip little Glasgow University quarter, for a bit of liquor (Scotch, of course) & CD shopping. I was feeling my shin injury by now; it would be taxis from here on out. I picked up some tasty '70s items in the CD shop, like Rick James' Greatest Hits and Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters. I also bought an all-weather jacket, a good thing to shop for in Scotland -- it's invariably raining.
George Square, Glasgow.
--photo by Brenna Green--
Disco, Pat, Marti & I took Marie to lunch at a quaint little restaurant called The Puppet Theatre. Kevin was unavailable. The food there was excellent; the restaurant scene in the U. K. has certainly improved in recent years.
We did more shopping after lunch, then we picked up Disco's taping gear & headed to soundcheck. My leg was hurting pretty badly, so Deepesh gave me his little taper's stool to sit on.
Pat at the Hut, August 25.
--photo by Disco Don Hess--
Our Glasgow host, Kevin Devlin arrived; Marie had a business commitment. Sam & J. B. thanked Kevin for his efforts in arranging a golf afternoon for Panic the day before. Unfortunately, working papers problems at Dover had detained the band bus for several hours. They missed their Scotland tee times. Now it was showtime. Indian Bone, a hot little indie band, kicked off the evening's entertainment. J. B. watched most of their set from the back of the crowd, then invited the Indian Bone guys to hang out with Panic after the show.
Pigeons/Weak Brain, Narrow Mind/Sleepy Monkey>One Arm Steve/Li'l Kin>Lzt It Rock/Christmas Katie>Arlene>Jam>Driving Song>Drumz>Pusherman>Driving Song>Ain't Life Grand
E: Watching The Sleeping Man>Makes Sense To Me
Widespread Panic had reverted to the long single set format, to the delight of the Spreadkin. This show had lots of great moments, but I spent a good part of it in a back booth with my injured leg elevated. At one point a kind Spreadie medical student took a look & got some first aid items to dress my wound. He cautioned me to keep an eye on the healing. If anything turned color or weird-looking, I should see a doctor.
I did a little aftershow schmoozing, then we all piled into the Kevinmobile for the trip back to his place.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 1999/MANCHESTER -- Marti was staying on one more day in Glasgow; we'd all reunite tomorrow in London. Pat, Disco & I trained to Manchester for the penultimate Panic concert of the Europe 1999 tour. I had a reserved seat, Pat & Don sat elsewhere. I worked on trip expense reports & listened to my Discperson for a couple of hours. When the conductor announced that the bar car was open, I remember seeing a blur rush past me even before the loudspeaker had stopped crackling. It had been Disco & Pat, of course. A while later I went to the bar car myself & when I didn't see those two, I had them paged.
"Would Mr. Pat & Mr. Disco please join their colleague in the refreshment car," the dude broadcast to the rest of the pilgrims rollin' down the line. Pat later said it was one of his favorite moments on the tour.
Manchester.
We checked into our hotel in Manchester, then walked to the nearby Rain Bar for lunch. Disco had gone to Boots The Chemist to get me some dressings & antiseptic cream for my leg wound. We were romancing our cute waitress (I even put her on the guestlist), drinking the bar's own brews. I took an R & R break at the hotel to rest my leg, then the three of us cabbed over to soundcheck.
The venue -- the Hop & Grape (!) -- was a university student union. With nary a student in sight here in the dead of August. Plus they were doing heavy construction work on the building; it looked like Beirut. All the usual suspects were at this show, but there was nobody else. Maybe a half dozen locals. The crowd, if you can call it that, numbered 50 people!
This one was so intimate we were calling it the party at your mama's house!
Wonderin'>Blackout/Can't Get High/Radio Child/Knockin' Round the Zoo/Rebirtha>
Do What You Like>Big Wooly Mammoth/Jam>Love Tractor>
Drumz>Party At Your Mama's House>Pilgrims/No Sugar
E: Nobody's Loss
A great opportunity to see Widespread Panic live in your face, with plenty of twirlin' & spinnin' room.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 1999/MANCHESTER>LONDON -- This was it, the tour finale. Marti trained in from Glasgow; Disco, Pat & I rode the freek train from Manchester to London. A whole bunch of us were staying at the St. Margaret's Hotel, off Russell Square, in Bloomsbury. Marti & I love this part of the city & it was close to the Embassy Rooms, Panic's venue.
Russell Square, London.
In the big room next to ours were Bill Mixon, Stacey Gates & Jeff "Sequoia" McClean (who had produced a pair of excellent limited-edition bootleg teeshirts for this tour). Disco & Pat had rooms upstairs. And we kept running into more Panic heads every time we looked around.
A number of us gathered for lunch at Govinda's, the Hari Krishna restaurant I'd mentioned in my June 1999 article on London for RELIX. After lunch I went to a web café to check my e-mail & post to my page. Then we had beers at The Friend At Hand, a pub near the Russell Hotel. Marti & I went to soundcheck. Dave Schools sat down across from us in a booth & remarked that he had particularly enjoyed the Paris gig. I told him I hadn't seen a bad show on the tour. And I was sorry it was almost over.
Mr. Schools.
-- Photo by Gerardo Carriero --
Starting tomorrow Schools & Mikey were going on vacations in England & around Europe with their respective squeezes. They could hardly wait.
I spotted Sam Lanier heading out for fish 'n' chips & I asked if Marti & I could join him. Sure, he said. We walked all the way down the Tottenham Court Road with me limping on my fucked-up leg. But it was worth it, in more ways than one.
The fish 'n' chips were great. Sam smiled & said, "You know, Phil, you've really got to see us in the States, with our full sound & all the lights. Why don't you come to New Orleans for Halloween?" I was bowled over. Needless to say, I took Sam up on his offer immediately. I had already scheduled a November flight to the U. S., to visit my mom in Massachusetts. All I had to do was change the booking!
Sam walked back up to the gig. Marti & I took a taxi, because of my hurtin' leg. When we got to the venue, the place had a special end-of-tour buzz to it. I was wearing my Alien glasses, partying with everyone in the room. Bill Pannifer, who runs the London Deadheads website Franklin's Tower was in the house. So was a fan from Sweden. And a number of limeys who are into Panic. We were ready to rock, Panic was ready to get down to business:
Let's Get Down To Business/Papa Legba/Bear's Gone Fishin'>Jam>Hatfield>Jam>Porch Song/The Waker/Dyin' Man/Diner>Jam>Drumz>Bass Jam>Let's Get The Show On The Road>Surprise Valley>Stop-Go>Climb To Safety
E: Sometimes>All Time Low
That was it. One last one-set extravanganza. Loved that "Climb To Safety" set closer. And here was the new item, "Sometimes," kicking off the encore. A super night.
It seemed like half the audience stayed for the aftershow. Way back in Hannover Schools had been whining that he didn't have any mementoes signed by the fans, so we presented him tonight with a New Morning poster that I had been toting from town to town, collecting autographs for Dave. He was thrilled, he said. I had a marvelous time on this run. What great fun getting to know & gettin' down with folks like Pat, Disco, Deepesh, Stacey, Bill, Sequoia, Harmut, Ralph, Rudi, Hanno & all the rest of the Spreadkin. Marti & I said goodbye to all our Spreadie pals & the crew & the musicians, but my farewell was made less bittersweet by the fact that I was going to New Orleans for the three-night Halloween run.
Over the past 18 months I had seen 20 Panic shows, all in Europe & none before a crowd of over 500 people. Not that I'm complaining!
Now I was gonna see the real -- make that surreal, it is Nawlins -- deal.
Thanks to the kind hospitality of my favorite band.
Ben.
For additional photos of the band & crew relaxing, at soundchecks & in performance . . .
of my tourmates Pat Goodwin, "Disco" Don Hess and my bride, Marti . . .
and, of the many wonderful European and American Spreadkin
with whom we shook it on down,
click here!
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Email: phildemetrion@yahoo.com
