They quoted and posted a link from forresttwilliams.com about our stop in Santa Claritaon the Tour of California. And I hope they’re not too offended. Since several other quotes were of similar opinion, I don’t feel so bad!
http://scvtalk.com/2008/02/26/february-26-2008-daily-brief/
This is, as far as I can tell, a strip-mall town. Which makes it a funny spot for a stop on the Tour of California. I cruised around to the vendor booths in the morning and saw the chamber of commerce booth. The lady said, “Would you like some gum?” I took the package from her hand and looked at it. She said, “It’s Santa Clarita gum!”. Sure enough, the package said Santa Clarita. “Does it taste like parking lot?”. She wasn’t amused.
The stage was set up across the bike race lane from all the rest of the vendors. We were pretty bummed at first about the poor positioning, expecting no one to pay attention to us all day, but they had also put one of the big screens next to the stage so we ended up having a descent crowd. The day started without a hitch. We had less playing time today because of the tight schedule and the BMX demos. Which was fine with me. We were all starting to run a bit ragged with one more day to go on the tour.
We played, had some good sets, enticed people into buying our CDs. We broke for the cycle race, which was full of wonderful drama today!
After the cyclists past us they looped around three more times before the finish. A pack of 5 riders broke away from the pack fairly early in the ride and maintained a nice lead up untill Santa Clarita. When they first passed us they were a full minute ahead. On the next pass the pack had kicked it up a notch and were only 30 something seconds behind. On the third pass there was a great crash in the corner that knocked most of the Rock Racing team. Their lead man jumped back up, his bike mangled and twisted, and apparently grabbed a fresh bike from his team car and was back in the race. He surprisingly caught up with the back by their last lap. By that time the entire group had caught up with the breakaway, which was amazing and everyone pushed hard to the final stretch. The crowd was whipped up to a frenzy at the final stretch. Cowbells dangling in the air, eardrums nearly bursting. Britain’s Mark Cavendish finished first but was penalized for riding behind a vehicle! He was penalized 20 seconds and the second man through the line took the first. I can’t imagine how that must feel. And our boy Levi is still in the first place standings, after not placing today but smoking the time trial in Solvang yesterday. Good times!
Our hometown show was a wash-out.
The San Luis Obispo stop was supposed to be so cool, all my friends would finally get to se me play with this group. But as luck would have it, we were soaked out. The stage was soggy and the day was worse. The overhead tarp sagged in the middle and held a dozen gallons of water on top.
We set up a small acoustic band set up without the full drumset.The reasoning was that if it started to downpour, which it was supposed too, we could throw less equipment in a dry area faster. So we played in the rain. And none but two of my friends actually saw us play.
The race, I think, was better than our acoustic set. People lined the streets of SLO, one of the bigger crowds, and waited in the rain for hours to see these guys ride by for a brief second. It was truly amazing. The riders were coming down highway 1 through Big Sur from Caramel, which is an absolutely gorgeous area. But it was windy and raining almost the entire time. What was originally supposed to be a 5 and a half hour race turned into a 7 hour race. And it had the opposite effect on the crowd. Instead of people getting burned out from getting soppy and wet, they stuck around for the extra hour and a half. The anticipation was contagious, and allowed the crowd to grow even bigger than it would have had the racers came through already. The announcers did their best to keep everyone excited, and they did a pretty good job, considering they had to kill so much time. I remember hearing something like;
“He’s burning so much calories here folks, he’s gonna have to eat a burrito the size of a new-born baby!”
We watched the big screen, trying to pick out the scenery as the cameras followed them down the coast,
“They’re passing Cuesta right now, look!”
By the time they actually came through town, the crowd was worked up into a frenzy. One break-away rider, Dominique Rollin, had a massive lead at one point and when he came barreling down the line the place went nuts. It’s pretty exciting when the cyclists finally do show up. It convinces you that it’s worth having squeaky shoes at the end of the day.
Our main concern was the weather. We’re set up to play on an outdoor stage with a back and a tarp on top, and a rather holey tarp at that. The rain stayed away for the first two days, but our luck was about to change. The clouds were dark and the forecast was grim. All the other vendors were setting up so we decide to give it a go.
The stage was set up on the steps of the state capitol, which was cool. There were squirrels and classes of school kids running around the grass, reminding me of the time I came here as a child. But the entire festival and race track were located a half a block in front of us, which was not cool. It was also inaccessible by vehicle, which meant the load in was more work than necessary. We got the gear up and the clouds were nice. Come sound check it started to sprinkle, so out came the plastic tarps to cover our precious equipment. The clouds continued to taunt us with their little pizzle of rain drops. Not quite enough to cancel the show, but enough to make us concerned.
We decide it’s time and fire up the system. We perform our ‘good set’ of material, being unsure as to how long we’ll actually end up playing we wanted to give them our best. At the end of our very first song, a group of about 2 dozen kids behind the stage gave us the best cheer of the tour so far. The teachers had them clapping and cheering and them took them along the rest of their tour. Nice, at least the kids dug us.
We played good, and the energy was high, as playing in the rain always tends to be. People came over to check us out from the festival that we were supposed to be a part of. That was encouraging. We had a few dancers and a few children getting down.
Our set wrapped up and I went out in search of a place to pee. I found two outhouses with at least 20 people in line in front of each one. Poor festival planning at it’s finest. I walked around the capitol area until I found a lone outhouse on a side street with no line. Gawd, what are these people thinking when they put these things together? Apparently, this wonderful girl named ‘L’ works for a non-profit organization that had their booth put at the end of the festival facing the wrong direction and had about zero foot traffic all day. She kept coming back to our stage to flirt with the announcer, Todd, and told us about her woes. She’s cool.
We played another set and it really started to downpour. At that point we decided to call it a day. I walked over to the race afterwards to watch the cyclists make their final few laps around the downtown area. It was pretty exciting actually. The sound waves of the crowd going nuts with their cowbells and noise makers, cheering the cyclists on as they past with furious speed. I got fairly close to the Governator as he gave a quick speech at the end an awarded the winners prizes. Snipers on the roof of the capitol building, paired with Arnold Schwarzenegger made for a pretty surreal vibe, like straight out of a movie.
Pack up, tear down, get rained on, and wrap up another interesting stop on the Tour of California. Next stop San Jose, and then our hometown show, that is predicted to be rained out. Damn.
The sound of cowbells drowned out the announcer as the cyclists grew near. The cheers from the crowd could almost compete. I went and got a little blue cowbell from the Toyota booth and this hot little brunette number made me relinquish my personal information for her little palm computer before giving up the noise-maker.
“What’s your name?”
“Frank Williams.” Obviously a fake name.
“Email?”
“fwilliams07@gmail.com”, again obviously fake.
“Would you like to be subscribed to our newsletters?”
“Not really.” A silly answer, considering it was a fake email anyways.
“Great!” She said with a gorgeously fake smile, “Here’s your cowbell!”
I’ll add it to my collection of cowbells, now 6 deep.
I’m hitting the road with Damon Castillo on Sat night and we’re playing at all the stops of the ‘Tour of California’, a huge bad-ass cycle race throughout the state. It should be pretty fun, and it’ll be the first time I’ve played with this band in San Luis Obispo, even though I’ve been playing with them for like half a year now.
So everyone come out to the SLO stage of the race and check out the group on:
Thursday, February 21 from 1pm to 5pm
http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/
See you there.