Here it is Monday night, and I'm still recovering from the weekend.
Saturday night was without a doubt one of the best musical moments of my life.
I'll start with the best part.
Sharing the stage with my closest musical co-conspirators again - some of them after 8-9 years apart was a beautiful and surreal experience. Looking next to me and seeing Cherry and Carrie (or Peaches as she went by Saturday)...looking across the stage and seeing Chris Summers and Matt Tomlianovich...and hearing Doug's familiar rhythms...and then in a split second sharing the stage with Stevie D, Boo...even jamming with Young Adam Erickson again. It was just this strange sensation of doing something you never thought you'd do again. Even the rehearsals leading up to the show were a blast, so, I should have known when we were all together again, that it was going to be magic. It was. I STRONGLY recommend if you have friends you haven't seen in a while, contact them now, get together, remenice, and re-connect. It's worth it. I'm inspired by the willingness for everyone to get back together and put the work it took into preparing the kind of show we wanted to put on...and by the talent that has past through the halls of Sammich Inc. over the years.
Next. The Music.
Going back and re-visiting the songs that made up our very first songlists for our very first shows....wow...again, surreal. Playing music by Tower of Power, Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Average White Band...it was a re-education, for sure...and doing it with Boo on the congas, Soup on the sax and with Cherry and Carrie lending vocals made it even better than the first time around. Hearing the girls do those few favorite songs of ours that we didn't get to play NEARLY enough back in the day was a treat. Personally, my favorite musical moment of the night was singing The Letter by Joe Cocker again. That was always a powerful song for us back in the day. I would have liked to hear it from the audience Saturday night. Watch for that one to re-emerge in the current Sammich songlist before long.
Finally, the audience. I know I say this a lot, and do so honestly, because we enjoy some AMAZING crowds and have great fans...but Saturday night, the crowd blew me away. We were told after the show it was the largest crowd Crusen's War Drive has had and seeing people dancing on tables and crowding into every available inch of space and standing in line outside in the cold to get in...it was the best part of the night. We have made some incredible friends over the years and to see such a huge number of them celebrating with us. There just aren't words. The Drunka Bunch, the Pekin Girls, our Galesburg Crew...it seems like everyone we know was there and when we get done piecing together the video of the night, you'll all be amazed at what crazy mofos you were...
It still blows me away that we've made it a whole decade and still manage to operate at a high level and still manage to remain friends. My thanks to Mike (the captain of our little reunion ship), Bill (who really worked his tail off organizing the music for the show), Soup (he switched to sax, peeps!), Boo (who busted ass organizing the filming of the show) and Stevie D (he took over 700 pictures from the stage!), to TBear and Marky Mark who support us faithfully, wihtout the benefit of groupies...and to our returning friends who took time out of their post-Sammich lives to help us pull of one helluva bash!
