Fandom: original Word Count: idkmybffrose Title: "Why I Love Little Feat"
When I was in college a million years ago, a guy named Lee who had a thing for me. Picture Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters but with long blonde hair and you've got Lee exactly. Glasses and all. He worked production for Don Law, a Boston-area concert promoter. To get on my good side (and to try to get into my bed), Lee invited me to see Little Feat with him. Because of his status he had comped tickets (they were all comped; in our music production circle it was a question of honor not to pay for concert tickets) and the seats were pretty good. I didn't know a whole lot of Little Feat's music, not really being into the whole trucker rock thing outside of an abiding affection for the Grateful Dead, who used to blow through Springfield on a regular basis. This guy friend of mine had a story about being picked up hitchhiking by Bob Weir (yeah right) who shared his exceedingly good Columbian with him. Stoned people make up the funniest stories. I was more into the whole neo-punk movement: the Clash, the Damned, Richard Hell, stuff like that. I wore a black leather motorcycle jacket covered with pins and buttons and they were all full of attitude. The night of the Little Feat concert the one featured right on my lapel was a Clash one: I Want Complete Control. It was very bright, black and white and pink, but small so you had to bend over to look at it because I'm a little bit tiny. 5'3 on a good day. A petite prize for Lee and his long blonde hair, maybe, like that was going to happen.
So we got to the Springfield Civic Center and we had pretty good seats but not the best. It only took a few minutes' contemplation to assess Lee's importance to the Don Law organization based on the seats. Nowhere near the most important guy, nowhere near the least. Yeah, just as I'd suspected, and the lights went down and the Kaz-Fuller band (Pure Prairie League in disguise) opened. At that time, who didn't know their hit song "Amie?" But you know concert crowds and opening acts, and besides, this was Little Feat so the joints were flowing freely down the aisles, one lucky concert-goer to another. Wasn't the Feats' theme song Don't Bogart That Joint? For those in the know it sure was.
My future-Mythbuster-in-disguise date took advantage by throwing his arm around me for the whole set, passed the jay on to the next person. Between sets I was too wasted to remember if he got up to "check" on things backstage or not -- he wasn't working this concert -- but he was back and forth a bit. Maybe he was out buying condoms in hopes of a lucky post-concert thing, I'm not sure. What I do know is this: Little Feat, once they got going, kicked ass. I even wrote down the set list sometime later, because when you worked as many concerts as I did in those days, you had a tendency to forget. And it wasn't just because of the smoke.
All that in a three-and-a-half-hour concert. And damn if it wasn't one of the best concerts I'd ever seen, both technically and artistically. I ran stage crew in those days for a lot of bands. Roadied, set up lights and sound systems. That gives a girl a unique perspective on the craft that goes into a stage show and Lee had the same appreciation although he did more of the grunt work than me. I didn't want to lift 40-pound amps. I just wanted to crawl up around on top of a cherry picker adjusting lights and swapping out gels. Back in those days we ran everything manually. An actual human ran the lighting board; it wasn't all computerized and pre-programmed. We did what worked in the moment, and it was a precision art and a thrill and a privilege. This Little Feat setup -- their Waiting for Columbus days, Lowell George's last gasp with the band -- knocked my socks off, or would have if I'd been wearing any.
One of Two
Word Count: idkmybffrose
Title: "Why I Love Little Feat"
When I was in college a million years ago, a guy named Lee who had a thing for me. Picture Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters but with long blonde hair and you've got Lee exactly. Glasses and all. He worked production for Don Law, a Boston-area concert promoter. To get on my good side (and to try to get into my bed), Lee invited me to see Little Feat with him. Because of his status he had comped tickets (they were all comped; in our music production circle it was a question of honor not to pay for concert tickets) and the seats were pretty good. I didn't know a whole lot of Little Feat's music, not really being into the whole trucker rock thing outside of an abiding affection for the Grateful Dead, who used to blow through Springfield on a regular basis. This guy friend of mine had a story about being picked up hitchhiking by Bob Weir (yeah right) who shared his exceedingly good Columbian with him. Stoned people make up the funniest stories. I was more into the whole neo-punk movement: the Clash, the Damned, Richard Hell, stuff like that. I wore a black leather motorcycle jacket covered with pins and buttons and they were all full of attitude. The night of the Little Feat concert the one featured right on my lapel was a Clash one: I Want Complete Control. It was very bright, black and white and pink, but small so you had to bend over to look at it because I'm a little bit tiny. 5'3 on a good day. A petite prize for Lee and his long blonde hair, maybe, like that was going to happen.
So we got to the Springfield Civic Center and we had pretty good seats but not the best. It only took a few minutes' contemplation to assess Lee's importance to the Don Law organization based on the seats. Nowhere near the most important guy, nowhere near the least. Yeah, just as I'd suspected, and the lights went down and the Kaz-Fuller band (Pure Prairie League in disguise) opened. At that time, who didn't know their hit song "Amie?" But you know concert crowds and opening acts, and besides, this was Little Feat so the joints were flowing freely down the aisles, one lucky concert-goer to another. Wasn't the Feats' theme song Don't Bogart That Joint? For those in the know it sure was.
My future-Mythbuster-in-disguise date took advantage by throwing his arm around me for the whole set, passed the jay on to the next person. Between sets I was too wasted to remember if he got up to "check" on things backstage or not -- he wasn't working this concert -- but he was back and forth a bit. Maybe he was out buying condoms in hopes of a lucky post-concert thing, I'm not sure. What I do know is this: Little Feat, once they got going, kicked ass. I even wrote down the set list sometime later, because when you worked as many concerts as I did in those days, you had a tendency to forget. And it wasn't just because of the smoke.
(Teenage Nervous Breakdown. Rock and Roll Doctor. Time Loves A Hero. Day Or Night. Texas Rose Café. Keepin' Up With The Joneses. All That You Dream. Fat Man In The Bathtub. Spanish Moon. Gringo Jam. Day At The Dog Races. Old Folks Boogie. Dixie Chicken. Then there were the encores: Willin'. Don't Bogart That Joint. Feats Don't Fail Me Now.)
All that in a three-and-a-half-hour concert. And damn if it wasn't one of the best concerts I'd ever seen, both technically and artistically. I ran stage crew in those days for a lot of bands. Roadied, set up lights and sound systems. That gives a girl a unique perspective on the craft that goes into a stage show and Lee had the same appreciation although he did more of the grunt work than me. I didn't want to lift 40-pound amps. I just wanted to crawl up around on top of a cherry picker adjusting lights and swapping out gels. Back in those days we ran everything manually. An actual human ran the lighting board; it wasn't all computerized and pre-programmed. We did what worked in the moment, and it was a precision art and a thrill and a privilege. This Little Feat setup -- their Waiting for Columbus days, Lowell George's last gasp with the band -- knocked my socks off, or would have if I'd been wearing any.