Down The Road Again

The last post brings us to Thursday, that would be the 14th. And I'm hoping in a van and heading on another Westerberg adventure. This time it was not a solo trip. Nope I was going all out and heading out with some fellow Westerberg fans, whom I had never met. And we were meeting up with a whole crew of fans in both cities.

First stop, Milwaukee and the show was at the Rave. Ok well not actually the first stop, we hit the Culver's in Tomah on the way from Mpls. I can't tell you how many eastbound road trips I've been on that we've stopped in Tomah. It seems to be the thing to do. Ok back to story at hand. We arrive at the Executive Inn which is a block away from the venue. The selling point on this hotel was the winding stair case. Yeah thats about it. There was an elevator that said it had an 8 person capacity, we could only fit three. I have a closet bigger than the elevator. Our room was a flowerbedroom. Beautiful hotel artwork everywhere, ha! And it was complete with track lighting and fake wood paneling. Classy to the max!

There was pre show dinner and drinks at the Water Street Brewery consisting of 13 Westerberg fans. Good food and 8% doppelboch. From there we went to the Rave, a place with a hack bar that charges $6 for Miller Light and MGD and $6.50 for mix drinks. I ordered one and that was it. Fucking rip off. This show was so fantastic. He opened with Stain Yer Blood and I almost pee'd my pants. Poor people hanging out with me had to put up with that. But he also played Gunshy which I yelled for at every west coast show I attended. It was pure bliss. The show was tight, rockin and kicked everyone's ass. During an emotional Here Comes A Regular Paul injected, "Two days ago, my uncle died. My uncle Paul-my namesake. He was a musician,
but never made it. His son came up to me and said that he(the uncle) had
video, records, and newspaper clippings of me pinned on his wall. I never
even talked to the guy". He was choked up through the rest of the song and screamed out "All I know is that I'm sick of everything that my money can buy." And he was whiping his eyes when he finished the song. It was really a quite moving moment. And they ended their set with IOU, that song is so god damn amazing live, I can't even begin to tell you. So much energy in it.

The people I road down with and I decided to do the meet and greet after the show. Waiting by the bus for -ever and Michael Bland came out, who had been exchanging emails with a chick in my group. After leaving and coming back she finally talked to him only to find he had left her backstage passes at the door. But he promised to leave some for the next night in Chicago for all four of us. RIGHT ON! Michael Bland was really cool and we chatted him up while waiting for the line around Paul to go down. Bland finally made sure we went over to say hit to PW and just as we were getting to that part some blonde hooker (well not really) came up "Paul I'm Tiiired, Pauuulll I'm tirrrred" and pulled him away. We were the last people in line she could have waited for a minute. Oh well. Needless to say we were all giddy with the thoughts of backstage passes for the next night. We went back to the lovely Exec Inn and Wolfdog played his guitar for quite a while. The fack wood paneling and track lighting made me feel like we were in a basement somewhere. It was a lot of fun.

On the way to Chicago we saw a motel on 94 called Paul's Motel, and the great thing about it, it had a skyway. Just thought that was fitting. Got to the lovely Chicago Lodge and boy was that a site. Pink toilets various stains and chips in the furniture. Since I of course was packing the Jim Beam I commenced the drinking right away. Our other we had 4 other westerberg fans staying at the same hotel with us. By the time they all arrived we hit the El and went to meet more fans at the Goose Island Brewery. Many more drinks and some good food and we were already to hop the train to the show. We get there and I'm freaking out as Jodi's hitting the will call to get our passes. This show again, had the same damn drink prices. I was pissed. But I got to rock out up front with two of the fans from dinner. I also met a guy named Bill who lives in Chicago but he went to school in MN because of the Replacements. Wow, that was a trip, the guy was really into the show though and that was cool to me. The show was crazy and amazing. I finally got to hear 23 Years Ago, so damn good. There was some smashing, a TV that was smashed in with a guitar and a phone also got the shit kicked out of it. During Can't Hardly Wait Paul threw out the microphone to the crowd. Well he then decided to join it. Guitar in hand he literally dropped into my arms. It was so weird. There was some older hippy like lady giving him a full on head massage. He kept playing, it was great.

The show spiraled off into some really great covers and a lot of people refer to it as a "train wreck" but the rock was brought and the band was having fun. I loved every minute of it. After the show we waited around for what seemed like forever for a guy to come take us "backstage" which was actually downstairs. He was taking us to meet up with Michael. Well Michael was obviously not down there and the guy just left us. So we went outside and I guess he and PW had already gone to the bus. The line was long and we had people to party with so we just went back to the hotel.

The after party was a group of people, lots of liquor and one guitar. We were singing til 6:30 in the morning. Outside the hotel a group of asian fraternity pimps and their hookers were having a dance party in the parking lot. I'm not kidding you there was 50 of them if there was 5. They paid for their rooms in cash over $1200. But that wasn't the excitement for the night. The majority of that came from a 59 year old woman who knocked on our door requesting Greensleeves and Kumbaya. After someone was able to supply Kumbaya she went and got her beer and joined our "club" as she refered to it. She was quite the trip telling some crazy stories and requesting Dylan Thomas music. You know Tamborine Man, yeah she was a bit off. But all in all it was a great trip. I met so many cool people and rocked out to two amazing shows. There's so much more I could say about the weekend but this is starting to be enough.