Hey now! My friend Dr Klaus Von Jon just returned from California ... Where he went Just to see Grace Potter And The Nocturnals! Here's his report. Any mistakes/typoes are the fault of my translation.
"Went to California just to see Grace Potter And The Nocturnals"
Frankfurt Airport, Tuesday November 6th, 9am, ready for boarding Lufthansa flight LH 455 to Los Angeles. We, that is myself and my friend Olli, are expecting a 12 hour flight to California. A few weeks ago I bought four concert tickets for Grace Potter & The Nocturnals shows in San Diego, Los Angeles and two nights at the famous Fillmore in San Francisco. But stop right here, isn't it crazy to fly 5800 miles to see a band, still pretty unknown in Germany (it will change, I bet), in California? Ok, so take a look, how that has started.
It was in Lexington KY, on a cold and windy Sunday in April this year. I was there for business reasons, and due to the ugly weather, I spent the whole afternoon at the local Barnes & Nobles shop to watch out for new CDs. After a while one CD took my attention. It was a CD packaged the old Vinyl-way in a carton box instead of a jewel case. The title was "Nothing But The Water" from a never-heard-before-band called "Grace Potter & The Nocturnals". The whole outfit was somehow old fashioned, what I like, and so I took the CD and scanned the bar code to hear some of the songs. I remember, that the first song (Toothbrush And My Table) reminds me of some old J.J.Cale tunes, second song (Some Kind Of Ride) I liked immediately due to the melody and the nice groove and than it took me another few seconds of "Ragged Company" before I bought the CD. I was pretty sure, I discovered a CD from an old well-settled band which I have just missed during all my stays in the US over the last 15 years. I was quite surprised to see, that GPTN is a young band from Vermont and this CD was just their second CD. Back in my apartment I first wanted to take a look at the attached DVD, taken from a concert in Vermont. This DVD blew me away, even though this was the first time I have seen or heard this band, I immediately loved all the songs on the DVD. My colleague came in just as "Over Again" was on the screen. He looked at the screen for some seconds and than he said: "Holy cow, what's that?". The outcome of this shopping afternoon was, that the CD never left the CD player for weeks.
The first time I saw Grace Potter & The Nocturnals live was in Cincinnati in June 2007. The concert was different from the sound on NBTW but awesome. After the show I spend some minutes at the merchandise table and Grace signed my NBTW CD after the show with the words "See you in Germany", but I couldn't wait until this becomes real. So I decided to come to California for the shows. Also I decided this night to start a company to bring Grace Potter & The Nocturnals over to Germany.
Arrived in LA, we took a car to drive down to San Diego.
There was a shopping mall close to the concert hall and I had to buy something to bring back for my daughters. Finally it happened, I recognized Matt Burr coming towards me accompanied by a woman wearing sunglasses. Short hello and Matt remembered me from the Cincinnati show. The women took off the glasses and I was more than happy to see Grace again.
The place where GPTN opened for Gov't Mule was like a big garage, but with less atmosphere. I came in early, because I always wanted to be in the front row to see the band. As the show started, I was really disappointed; only about 50 other people are there and everyone was pretty quiet. GPTN tried to make the best out of it, and for me personally the show was good, but not as exciting as my first GPTN show. During the show, more and more people came in, but I really missed the typical excitement that I have come to expect from the Americans. After the show we met Matt and he invited us to take a short look into the tour bus to meet the whole band. I had a good time with the band and I met all the other crew members like Justin, Dan, Nate and last but not least Jana. Everybody was exited to hear that I came to California just to see GPTN. Grace was surprised that I knew all the songs and she asked me about my favorite song. "Over again", I said, knowing that this song was not played too often during the last months. "We're gonna play it for you" Grace said and asked which shows I will attend.
Next was in LA, Henry Fonda Theatre, much better place than in San Diego the day before. This night I took on my red GPTN T-shirt, again going early and standing in the middle of the first row. GPTN started with "Mastermind" followed by "Treat Me Right". After "Treat Me Right" Grace said "Hello" to crowd and "Thanks for Coming". I couldn..t believe what she said next. She said a very special thank you to a person named Klaus in the front row wearing an old red GPTN t-shirt for coming all the way from Germany to see GPTN! All the people around me looked at me and clapped their hands and gave me lots of "High 5s". I was overwhelmed and couldn't say anything during the show. After the show I wanted to thank Grace, but I missed her.
The next day was a long driving day (for somebody from Germany it is a long drive from LA to SF) but we arrived on time and made it in the front row in the Fillmore too. I met many of the people which I met the two nights before. The Fillmore is one of the best places for music I know in the world, very nice balcony and bar. Maybe the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco can compete with the Fillmore. The Fillmore was almost filled up as Grace & the band started. The set list has been changed a little and was as follows:
Mastermind, Treat Me Right, Stop The Bus, Ah Mary, Lose Some Time, Arizona (King of Leon), Watching You, NBTW
I haven't heard the cover song Arizona before. The sound at the Fillmore was great, also the atmosphere was getting better and better every minute. The crowd was really loud after "Watching you". Grace is unbelievable singing this song. The show ended again with NBTW, which still includes the drum part where all members of the band are drumming together. Matt Abts from Gov't Mule joined this night for the drum part. This is a great way to show GPTNs team spirit. To my feeling, Scott was highly impacted to see and hear the large San Francisco crowd, he played two very good sets, it was obvious that he liked the Fillmore.
The next day was a typical rainy day in San Francisco. We had to stay in the rain outside the Fillmore for more than an hour to make sure to be one of the first coming in again.
Grace and the band changed the set list again. Sound, atmosphere, crowd, setting, everything was perfect.
GPTN started with "Meantime", followed by "Joey" and "Ain't No Time". For me "Ain't No Time" is one of the most complete short songs I have ever heard. Great melody, nice groove, great organ! Next song was "Who Knows", a very rocky song, which reminds me of a lot of famous songs of the 60ies (with greetings from Jimmy Hendrix, Ten Years After or who ever played the intro 40 years back!). The crowd got more and more involved in the show. "If I Was From Paris" was followed by NBTW, which was the last song in the shows before. The first part of NBTW was started with the "old" a cappella part by Grace followed by a very good electric part. After NBTW the crowd was really exited, it looked like they all came out just to see GPTN. It was obvious that Grace Potter & The Nocturnals was … for everybody in the Fillmore … much more than just an opener for Gov't Mule. After NBTW Grace started again saying "This is our last song called "Over again". So they didn't forget to play that song! The next 15 minutes have become the best minutes during this trip. I can't say more than just "Over Again" is one of the best rock songs I have ever heard. "Farmer John" finally closed a great show.
As though it were not enough to just have seen an excellent show; Scott invited me and my friend to join the band backstage. Grace said "we played it for you before you leave to Germany again". We had a great time backstage with nice conversations with all of the team members. I gave my promise to Brian, who loves German Weizenbier, to provide a box of assorted bottles of Weizenbier every evening GPTN will play in Germany. We also learned that GPTN is a big fan of a German television show called "Rockpalast". Rockpalast became very famous for their life concert television shows. Rockpalast showed concerts from Rory Gallagher, Little Feat, Roger McGuinn, a 4.5 hours show from Greatful Dead (Opener: The Who, imagine that!!; the only live TV Concert Grateful Dead ever did in Europe) and many, many more. We ended our evening backstage preparing a short video clip where GPTN welcomes their German fans and where they expressed their wish to come over to Germany. This video will be posted on the German Grace Potter fan page (www.gracepotterfans.de) as soon as it goes online.
Now I am back in Germany, concentrating on my main business, pharmaceutical consulting. But I am sure that I will not wait until Grace Potter & The Nocturnals come to Germany! I am planning to see them again on the East coast as soon as possible and to meet with friends from the GPTN street team!
Best regards, Klaus