Blogs
July 03, 2008
Summerfest..Tales of Hot Dogs and Tornado Warnings...
I’m once again riding down the great American highway, now headed south into the homeland, the fatherland, the corn land, southern Indiana. Tonight we are supporting Lifehouse.It’s a funny place, the Midwest in July. We have two things that spring up without any advance notice or warning….First is what’s known as the Midwest Microburst (aka the common North American reticulated thunderstorm) and county fairs/traveling carnivals. Some say the corn can be blamed for both of these occurrences. The corn acts as a natural heat soak and over-humidfier, which when combined tend to whip the inner-atmosphere into a frenzy similar to the fury of a toddler’s temper tantrum in the ice cream aisle when I don’t get the Moose Tracks ice cream that I want so bad. Growing up in Indiana, I learned early that when the whirring hum of an off-pitch C note breaks into normally scheduled broadcasting on the AM radio station, a robotic voice would scarily come on and either tell me that the Soviets had launched a multi-kiloton missile attack (and I should hide under the kitchen table), or a storm capable of producing quarter size hail and potential tornados was making it’s way down the road traveling at a speed not nearly as quick as the drunks that would crash their cars through the fence across from our house. I and most other Hoosier kids became immune to the threat of tornados by the time I was in Jr High. If a funnel cloud wasn’t touching down in the neighbors yard, there just wasn’t much to worry about. One year, we had a really powerful batch of storms roll through. My family was at a summer party, and when the sky turned green (a known precursor to the tornado) Dad loaded us up in the car. We stopped at a little store on the way home to grab some hotdog buns so Dad could continue grilling when we got back. In and out of the store in a flash, lightening striking all around, the sky looks the way it did the night of the Passover in the old movie the Ten Commandments. It’s like complete bedlam. The radio is blaring with the frightening pitchy whir of the off-key C note. Surrounding counties are sending in reports of funnel clouds spotted. Mom sequesters us kids, my sister and I, in the bath tub, I a calculated move that I assume would keep us safe AND clean. I mean, a TV crew would be by shortly, and it wouldn’t do to have your kids dirty on TV, even after the cataclysm.
So three tornados pass right over our house in quick succession. And where is my dad this whole time??? He is on the back porch grilling hot dogs. Steadying himself between the limestone wall of our house and a fence post, feet locked in tightly, methodically turning the hot dogs over to keep the cooking evenly, the way a master grill chef does. He calmly strolls into the panic filled house, a platter of juicy red hots with their skins cracked open in one hand, and a half eaten hot dog in the other. As he chews, he tells us that he watched the tail of the third tornado pass right over the house, and doesn’t decide to pack up the operation until the roof of a house trailer from the trailer park three miles away crash landed into the front yard like one of those Soviet missiles. Later we find out that the little store where we’d stopped for hot dog buns had been completely obliterated minutes after we’d made the condiment purchases, along with lots of other houses and businesses in the Hwy 50 corridor. We didn’t have electricity for another week, but thanks to dad’s hot dog cart, we didn’t starve. And after seeing a man that had laughed in the face of nature’s wrath, shaking his grill tongs at it with contempt. Picture the scene from Forrest Gump, where Lieutenant Dan is hanging from the top of the boat, screaming and cursing at the hurricane “YOU WILL NEVER SINK THIS SHIP!! HAHA!!” To this day that’s how I picture my Dad that afternoon, screaming at the storm, only he has legs, and instead of a shrimp boat he had a Charmaster grill. Same shirt and shorts though. Anyway, I learned a thing or two that day, and I never again feared the Midwestern Microburst.
So last night we played at Summerfest in Milwaukee WI, supporting Coheed and Cambria. It’s the biggest music festival there is. Seriously, it’s huge. It goes on for like two weeks, and there are top flight bands everyday, staggered in just such a way that you can catch them all. And the place is just for the purpose of seeing music, with big amphitheaters built everywhere. We were playing at the Miller Lite Oasis, which is a 7000 seat outdoor venue, with the big shed style stage on one end, and a bench seat pavilion ringed with booths selling, what else, Miller Lite. But Summerfest is even more than that, because of its Midwestern roots, its also the worlds largest county fair, with all the greasy rides, greasy foods, and just a general sense of down home fun. It really is awesome.
On the way to the show it was raining. The sky was beginning to turn dark and ominous. We had the radio on, listening to the broadcast from Summerfest, various band interviews and the DJ talking about all the hot shows to catch and which stages they would be on,
Then there is a pause mid-sentence. Then: ERRRRR ERRRRRRR ERRRRR ER ER ER ER ERRRRRRRRRRR WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
For some reason, even though the rest of the nation has got to the new emergency broadcast system signal of ER sounds, Indiana still plays the Eisenhower era WHIR. My ears perk up. Here comes the robotic voice. Severe thunderstorm. Quarter size hail. Chance of strong tornados.
Doesn’t mother nature know that Absentstar has a show tonight? One the Miller Lite Oasis stage, with Coheed and Cambria?
We get to the venue. As we were loading our gear onto the stage, the sky looks terrible, and it’s pouring rain on thousands of concertgoers who are standing out in the open, standing on aluminum benches, just waiting for lightening to kiss the tops of their heads. Then I can’t the aroma of HOT DOGS. I almost turned to Marshall and in my deepest voice say “The prophecy has been fulfilled.”
We take the stage, and the rain is coming down. And the crowd is so awesome. They don’t even seem to mind the rain, and perhaps it was even a welcome respite to the heat of the day.
There was a video crew there that was working the stage, pointing huge cameras at us to broadcast our images from the massive overhead projectors so the people way in the back could see. Right next to me there is a tripod set up and a camera pointing down at me. Marshall struts over and mouths “What is this??” The thing doesn’t really look so much like a camera, but more like the decapitated head of Johnny 5, the robot from the 1980’s comedy Short Circuit, starring Steve Gutenburg (sp?). Later I tell Marshall that it was the cousin of the guy that does the voice-over work for the national weather service’s emergency broadcast. I hammed it for the camera a bit, which was fun, as I don’t usually do that. The crowd got especially rowdy and into our newest setlist addition, called Slow Motion Change.
Supposedly we got a DVR copy of the performance, so I’m gonna see about getting that up online ASAP. I thought it was a particularly great show. Coheed and Cambria. Just, wow. Great band, great performers. And yes, Claudio Sanchez’s hair really is that big in real life. In fact, it’s much bigger. But man he is a monster on guitar, what a treat to watch and listen to.
See you soon! Have a great 4th of July!!
Heath.absentstar
posted by Derek Ingersoll on 7/3/2008 2:50:42 PM