Well folks, here it is. My last entry for my incredible West
Coast Phish Tour journey. So without further hesitation, please allow me to
present Phish in Los Angeles California on Aug 5th, 2013.
We got up rather
early to make the 6, 7, or 8 hour drive from San Fran to LA. It was gonna be 5
of us in Josh and Switzer’s car. Myself, Delorean, and her friend Tober were
squeezed into the back of the car. It was a little cramped to say the least.
And it was a long drive. As we rolled down Interstate 5, we went through the
part of California known as the Central Valley and is home to the breadbasket
of the US. With only 1% of the arable land, it produces 8% of the country’s
food. And it was just mile after mile of crops, with nothing breaking it up
except for the mountains and smog that surrounded us.
And did I mention
there were 3 of us in the back seat? It was cramped. At one point, D was lying
across Tober and me. Even with her legs across my lap, it was still better than
it was before. Geez, the things we do for Tour.
Josh did an incredible
job of navigating and got us to the W Hotel in record time. And what a hotel it
was. On the corner of Hollywood and Vine, right across the street from the
Capitol Records Building. See kids, there used to be a record industry, and they
had so much money they could design and pay for crazy ass looking structures
like this one.
Switzer got on a
name your own price website and got the W Hollywood Hotel for 120 bucks. This
place was a 5 star, high end boutique hotel. And it was all first class. 5
stinky heads, stuck in a car for 7 hours, roll in and a valet is there to get
the car. The lobby was open and in a slightly Asian motif. I used the concierge service and he hooked me
up with a ride to LAX before we had even checked in. While waiting for our room
to get ready, we headed to the bar. While there, a stunning beautiful brunette
in a miniskirt who was our waitress came over to give me a beer list. With
Buddha as my witness, I will never stink more around a more beautiful woman.
Luckily, our room was ready and her nightmare was over.
The room was super
fatty. There was gonna be 7 of us sleeping in this room so I immediately
claimed the ledge by the window. Yes, Nate, it looks exactly like a cat bed. I
quickly found out the W stands for whatever, whenever. We got extra towels,
extra glasses, and a set of knives for cutting up limes sent to our room.
The bathroom
design was something else altogether. It had a big sliding door that did not
have a lock on it. The shower was big enough to accommodate 5 people easily.
But alas, my experiment fitting 4 super models and I will have to wait until my
next visit. There also was a window looking into the shower. The middle was
frosted but the bottom 2+ feet and top were not frosted. So someone sitting at
the foot of the bed could see someone sitting on the toilet. Who the hell
designed this room? D even said you can really make out a person’s image, even
with the frosted class. Ladies, you’re welcome.
We made our way
out to find our “one meal a day since we’re on Tour” substance. It seemed every
place we came upon closed at 3 and reopened at 5. We finally found the Kabuki
Restaurant, which was a really nice sushi place. I know more about Mongolian
hip hop than I do about sushi but with a little help I got through it. And
unfiltered sake is rather good.
We then stopped by Trader Joe’s to get beer
and food. I had never been in one and was very impressed with the store. So I walked
up to the self-scan checkout and scanned my beer and bag of chips. But I couldn’t
find where to swipe my debit card. An employee then walked up and told me it
was not a self-scan register. D’oh! In my defense, employees at Joe’s don’t
wear uniforms, just name tags. I explained that I was from PA and the cashier
was very cool about it. I also mentioned I worked at a grocery store in high
school.
Chilled out at
the hotel room and changed into our party clothes. And why were we changing
into our party clothes? Because it was Switzer’s 100th show. She
looked amazing in her dress
and I looked
quite stylish as well, for someone who looked like Hunter S Thompson’s sobriety
coach. We walked to the show because LA traffic sucks, and it was less than 2
miles. Our leg muscles were in fine shape with all the dancing we had done the
last few days.
Chill little scene
outside the venue. There were a lot of picnic tables and it seemed to be a more
wine and cheese crowd than anything else. But it was a huge culture shock going
from the loving embrace of San Fran to the plastic posing of LA. Security was super tight, even stopping people
smoking cigs and it was an outdoor venue. Josh and Switzer stubbed us to their
seats and the show got underway.
Monday,
08/05/2013
Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, CA
Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, CA
Set 1: AC/DC Bag
> The
Moma Dance > Sparkle, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, Lawn Boy,
Wolfman's
Brother, Roses Are Free > Scent of
a Mule[1], Ocelot, Cavern, While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Set 2: Chalk
Dust Torture > Golden Age > Birds
of a Feather, Sand > Down
with Disease[2] > My
Friend, My Friend > Harry Hood > Character
Zero
Encore:
Loving Cup
[1] With full band drum solo and
Fishman using mallets on bass.
[2] Unfinished.
[2] Unfinished.
Teases:
· My Friend, My Friend quote in Harry Hood
· My Friend, My Friend quote in Harry Hood
Notes:
Scent of a Mule featured Fishman playing Mike's bass with mallets and all
four band members playing Fishman's drum kit at once. Disease was
unfinished. My Friend, My Friend's "Myfe" ending was quoted in
Hood's intro.
You can stream it here
First set was
really solid. Without a doubt, the highlight of the show was Chris Kuroda on
the lights. With the clamshell bandstand as a back drop, here was an artist
with perhaps his greatest surface to work with. The light show was unlike
anything else I have ever seen. He was on fire. The weirdest point came during
Mule. As Page started his part of the solo, roadies were furiously messing
around with Trey’s amp set up. Steve remarked after he knew a lot about Trey’s
set up and said it looked like they were switching out one of his amps. While
this was going on, Fishman played Mike’s bass with his mallets as Mike fingered
chords on the frets. Trey and Page then were hitting cymbals. Pretty cool and definitely
unique. While My Guitar Gently Weeps was a nice tip of the hat to the famous
Beatles show that happened here in 1964, which I snagged of the Internet a
while back.
During Lawnboy,
this loud woman behind us kept proclaiming that today was (Aug 5th)
was the day Jerry died (it was Aug 9th) and that Bob Weir was gonna
show up at the show. Well she was so wrong on the Jerry thing and the SF Giants
were having Jerry Garcia appreciation night and Bobby was there. Switzer turned
around to this woman and said, “When Page is singing you shut the fuck up” .
That’s why she is HMLL and that loud annoying woman is not.
During set break,
we made it down to Shawn’s seats. He
was about 30 feet from the stage in these weird boxes that held four people and
a table for the food a waitress could bring you. How very LA.
No celebrity
sightings but second set kicked ass. Golden Age through DWD all had nice tight
deep jams that the boys wasted no time getting to. The highlight of the show
was the Hood. Unlike any version before, they went way out there, at least 2 separate
jams that we all called the best Hood ever. Shawn even remarked he doubted if
they would return to Hood. They did and it was such a stupendous release that
only something like that should be played on the tour closer.
Before the encore, Page thanked all the people
who followed them around. When he said that, he was looking right at us. Loving
Cup sent us on our way into the LA night. With a few stops, we made our way
back to the hotel and crashed. I had a 5 hour plane ride ahead of me.
Somehow, I roused
myself out of bed and was packing up my shit. Josh remarked he had a hold on
his credit card for 4 three day passes to the Atlantic City shows. We had joked
earlier how we weren’t even done having Phish break our bank accounts for
summer tour and we had to order tickets for fall tour. I didn’t have an email
(thanks to the enormous clusterfuck of Comcast not allowing emails from
musictoday.) But as I was waiting in the lobby for the shuttle, I checked my
credit card as well and it had a hold on it. I can’t describe that feeling of
knowing I had just finished a tour and I already had my tickets for the next
great adventure.
So that’s it
folks. 10 days out west, 6 shows in 7 days and a lifetime of memories. Thank
you for reading and supporting kempepedia. I don’t think I’d be writing any of
this without you guys. And my next 2 Phish shows? One is in Reading, PA, where
my mom was born, raised, and met my dad. The other? Just my return to Halloween
since 1994. And if the Montana Dave Kemp shows up, Phish is gonna cover the
Grateful Dead, because that’s how we roll.
Dave Kemp
BA American Studies
PhD Rock and Roll
