Saturday, August 30, 2008

SoCal

Left: Me, sweating it out with the Rogue Wave guys.

The second hottest show day of the tour was in Irvine! We all agreed it was the hottest after Salt Lake City. The venue is where Lion Country Safari used to be, so imagine hot, dry Africa. Musicians, caterers, roadies and all of us in the Village Green were all sweating well into the night. It seems that since it was everyone, no one minded the sticky smelly others around them! I was just happy that I got to go home to my own shower last night, even if it was 1 a.m. before I got one. It was perhaps the worst day for the poison oak from The Gorge hike to show up on both me and Elissa. We have itchy dots in a few places, but it doesn't seem to be spreading on either of us. That's the last time I hike in my bikini!

Despite the heat, a bunch of really cool things happened at the Irvine show. First, I was able to spend some time with Jack and tell him the story of a Swami's surfer named Gus Fleming who has Lou Gerhig's disease and listens to Jack's music every night. He says it helps him stay connected to the ocean. Rich Pavel and John Moseley, as friends of Gus, collaborated on a board that will be sold with a portion of the proceeds going to Surfrider (at Gus' request). I brought the board to the show and Jack signed it for him and I took a photo of Jack with the board for Gus. The board will sit in Gus' living room for now - a special reminder of good things for him at this difficult time. After we spoke about Gus, Jack asked me about the Save Trestles campaign and asked me for a shirt to wear on stage that night. He ended up wearing the green one with the California flag and every time the cameraman focused in on Jack's guitar for the jumbotron, fans got a huge "Save Trestles" message. I missed the first few songs of the show since we were taking down the Village Green but Adam Topol told me that fans were shouting out Save Trestles! Jack also dedicated the third song in his set to Surfrider - such a nice shout out! OC is ground zero for the Save Trestles campaign.

A bunch of Surfrider Global folks were in attendance and it was great to see all of them, and I was glad they could see the booth in action, and could see our good friend Jack showing his support.

1 comment:

JP from Surfy Surfy said...

Thanks for posting about Gus. Sadly he passed away last week. There is a memorial paddle out for him at Swami's this Saturday, September 20th at 2 pm. I hope all the friends of Gus will show up to remember this great person.