Las Vegas, NV – “Legends” – October 23, 1999
On three hours of sleep, we inched toward Vegas. I slept most of the way thanks to Kenny’s drawing the short straw before we left The Fairfield Inn. The sunset in the desert was bright—an orange peach against a purple bowl of a valley. The mountains, dark in the distance, made the skyline look torn from a kindergartener’s pad of construction paper.
100 miles out from the gig, Delucchi realized we were going to be late, relieved Kenny behind the wheel, and put pedal to metal. I changed into my pink top with big black boots the back seat while doing vocal warm-up exercises but I shouldn’t have wasted my voice. Legends was a tiny club inside (yet another) strip mall. We were less than thrilled as we unloaded and waited in a cold, back alleyway, where we had been told to “stay put” (like dogs) until the first band got their stuff off the stage. There was no sound check, no guarantee* and no audience to speak of. We were the second of three acts opening for a band we’d never heard of called “Honey Child.” Above the bar, directly in front of me, a TV showed a KKK march, people getting blown up in some far-off country, JonBenét Ramsey, and money stolen from innocent people—it all made me sick and sad.
Kenny’s, brother-in-law, ‘Stretch’ (a proud member of The Rough Riders gang), and his buddy ‘Pretty Good,’ took Kenny to a strip club after the show where, according to Kenny, they all got kicked out. Somehow, they’d managed to anger one of the strippers, who, as a result, threw a bottle of beer at them. ‘Reeree,’ Stretch’s wife, retaliated by throwing a bottle of beer right back at her, and they all got bounced out onto the street. Kenny laughed as he told us the story in the van in the morning and I got a second-degree burn snarfing so loudly that boiling coffee came out of my nose.
The continental divide, the last thing separating us from our beds, came into view about ten hours into our trip. October is when Colorado’s landscape begins to cloak itself in gray, breathless clouds in preparation for winter’s hibernation. There is a grave reverence in the stillness of the air as the aspen leaves glow golden and contemplate their departure from the branch.
At the last rest stop, I realized there would be no more last rest stops until we finished recording our next album. For the next 30 miles, I wondered about it like a pregnant mother, about an impending child. What will the album be called? I ask myself. What will it look like? And who will we be when it grows up?
*Guarantee: A financial sum a venue commits to paying a band regardless of attendance at their show.