Scottsdale, AZ – “Pissin’ in Bottles” – Martini Ranch – October 22, 1999
The heat of Arizona should not be underestimated. I found myself desperate for a bathroom on a two-person line outside a gas station in Buckeye. But, five minutes into the wait, I abandoned my effort fearing I’d either burn up or die of heat stroke.
“Arizona is an oven!” I said climbing back into the the van, requesting the empty lemonade bottle from Kenny, and asking the boys to turn around. The guys laughed at me but this sun in the desert is no joke. “I could feel my organs baking,” I said, screwing back on the lid and re-fastening my overalls. “Let’s not go back out there,” I suggested.
Delucchi went to school at ASU in Scottsdale. As we pulled up to Martini Ranch, he casually mentioned it was the venue he learned to mix sound in. Leave it to Delucchi to wait ‘til we’re in a place to let us know it’s his backyard. Immediately he started running into old friends. His Pantene shampoo shoulder-length curls bounced higher than usual as he led us down Scottsdale’s broiling main street, high-fiving strangers like he were the mayor.
Martini Ranch was a small college bar. The stage was high and oddly angled away from it’s audience. We were escorted to a dressing room by a chain-smoking barmaid with the mouth of a sailor. A water cooler groaned beneath a blinking halogen light, which seemed to be making the room somehow darker. We sat on a pair of beige velour couches with broken springs while we waited for our sound check to begin. We were opening for a very popular local pop cover band called ‘The Chadwicks.’
I’d never opened for a cover band and found it almost impossible to get their audience’s attention. Though the venue was small, there was a huge screen next to the stage that projected our show. Every once in a while, a hissing snake-like sound scared the bejesus out of us and we’d find ourselves enveloped in clouds of dry ice. “That can’t be good for you,” I said turning to Soucy after the 3rd song. Chris responded by inhaling and promptly coughing out the dirty-smelling white smoke. Eventually, the crowd warmed up to us, stopped their chatter, and danced.
The Chadwicks were charismatic, talented musicians who, as it turned out, wrote their own material but performed only covers due to collegiate Arizonain’s apparent distaste for anything not played on top 40 radio. I joined their band to sing backups on “Brown-Eyed Girl” when they invited me on stage.
After the show, the boys wanted to go back to the hotel and get a good night’s sleep before starting our route home tomorrow. That’s when I told them to dig deep and gave them my pep talk.
“My boys. These are the last days!” I geared up, “The last days of the tour, the last days of the year, of the century for god sake. These are the times we use up the last drop of shampoo from the tiny bottles we’ve rationed all tour. The times we don’t have to feel so disgusting about putting on our unwashed jeans for the 20th time. The times we get to stare out the window with extra abandon dreaming about our real beds with real wives, boyfriends, and lovers. These are the times we are absolutely OBLIGATED to stay up all night. We owe it to the gods of the road to take tonight and burn the candle at both ends. Let’s celebrate.”
Needless to say, the five of us hit the ground running and danced our booties off at a spot called “Club Insomnia” till 4 a.m. Cheers to the road!