The Eye of Storm Hit around 9 1/2, & ended about 10 1/2 pm. No Injurys,probaly some Heavy lower End presperation RASH & Odor,along with a few fresh rolled DINKLE-BERRY's ( rolled sweaty lint) in the body crevices.Do to the Electrified Dancing & Singing of MOFRO Fans in the normal Florida Humidity. WOW, It seems to me that its getting better all the time.I don't do set list any more ,but they sang about 50% from "ORANGE BLOSSOMS". Sorry JJ,That I had to cancel the Duo we had planned, but my old pipes are getting kind of rusty, maybe next time,of course I was very upset because of a missing fan friend," CLAY".
Hey ya'll! Got home from St. Aug this afternoon and crashed big time. We did the tourist thing yesterday. BSR was fantastic. We were treated to some surprises, which was really cool.
I'll start with Mofro's set, and work backwards. They played for about an hour and a half. Thank you where_you_at for posting the setlist already! The only disappointment was when it ended. They stopped playing about 10:30; JJ said they were out of time. He then went up to the merch table and signed stuff for people.
Several people were heard saying "I wanted to hear 'I Believe'!" I got a hold of a setlist and sure enough it was the last encore song on the list. Couldn't figure out why they were out of time and couldn't just keep on playing, then it hit me after a while. The amph is owned by the city; state funds were used to do the major renovations of it. It has a state park and campground on one side, and neighborhoods very nearby. My speculation is they have to close shop at 11:00, have it cleaned up, cars out, band load out done, caterers cleared out, all the lights off.
So, we may have been lucky enough to see some of the songs from Orange Blossoms for the first time, we didn't hear all of 'em--some of ya'll will get that distinction!
On to the surprises--first off was right after the guys came out to their positions, 3 women came out from stage right and a man and woman from stage left. He had a violin, she a cello. The 3 very lovely ladies were there to sing backup. They were Linda Cole, Janet Walker, and Bonnie Holdeen. (Yes, THAT Linda Cole--noted R&B singer who also has the distinction of being the mother of our drummer AC.
Yes, these were/are the very same folks on the CD. (I had found out the night before at Cafe 11--somebody associated with the band told me but I don't remember who). We were on the rail a little to one side and they were in the alternate corner...they (and Daryl) were the farthest away of anyone. So we'll see how the pics came out with my little point and shoot camera. While you can't hear 'em, you can damn sure see how sexy/soul these fine ladies looked.
Next was Phillip Pan (on sabattical from the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra) on the violin and Betsy Federman on the cello. WOW. When the crowd saw the ladies and the string players we all went crazy. For anyone wondering, they only sang/played on the songs from Orange Blossoms. So there was no additional orchestration or vocals on Lochloosa or Ho Cake or anything like that.
They started with Orange Blossoms and never stopped. JJ kept banter to a minimum, I'm sure to try to squeeze in the setlist. They ripped through 18 songs, pretty damn good. We should be happy for who gets to hear I Believe first. (Hmmmm...) The acoustics were great. Of course when your riding the rails you're hearing as much from the stage monitors as anything.
As usual, the crowd was supernice. Cops kept off to the perimeters and let the rent-a-cops handle any problems; I didn't see any though. Usual assortment of drunk folks--but I was well behaved (I think.) Nah, you know how it is at something like this, and it's what's really cool about being a Mofro fan--it's a community. People of all ages, occupations, colors...everyone getting together with a common bond and barriers are non-existent.
One thing that was funny--if that's the right word--is I looked back behind me at the crowd several times during the OB songs and people weren't singing like everybody normally does. You could tell who pre-ordered and who hadn't. We're all singing along and lots of people aren't, that's a weird feeling at a Mofro concert huh?
All the guys were hitting so dead on man. AC has slid in after George and he's killing. They don't have the same styles, but who does? AC's drum kit has just 3 drums, and 2 of them have duct tape in use. He is a blast to watch. He works hard back there, all the while having a blast. He's very animated, looking at the other guys and laughing, smiling a lot. AC loves what he does and that makes it great for us. He's a more "cymbal heavy" drummer than George. I put that in quotes cause I dunno if there's a musical term for that style. I don't know nuthin' 'bout music, cepting what I like. I did try playing guitar by ear one time but I damn near sliced it off and it bled like a bitch.
YES, JJ played the "sitar." He has made it clear that it's not really a sitar, it's hybrid electric sitar--it has a guitar neck and a sitar bottom. He told me at the CD release that he didn't even know what a sitar looked like much less the time to learn how to play one! (I'm guessing the first part was a joke; I'll bet he knows.)
Oh, I almost forgot the added horn, the trombone player; he's not the one on the CD (that's Clay Watson from the Legendary JCs) but he played BSR last year, and he also played with the guys earlier this year at a show in NY. I'll find out his name because he deserves credit too.
The songs with the backup vocals and strings were just incredible. They were rich and full and so added to the special feeling in the air.
What else...Oh, pictures. I took over 200 pics. By the time I cull out the out of focus and bad lighting shots, I'll probably have 50 good ones; I'll get them up in a few days. I also made contact with 2 professional photographers that were there. I'm hopeful to get some of their shots, which will make mine look like cartoon drawings.
JIMBO...where in the hell were you?? I looked for you, and I ain't kidding. I went up to 2 different men thinking they were you and made a complete ass of myself. I am not SHITTING. I ain't even told my wife about it yet cause once she gets over being horrified about it, she'll laugh at my ass for the rest of my life. I knowed what you looked like and, well, at least I thought I did. So I go up to this one guy I think is you and I say something and he looks at me like I have an 18 inch penis growing out of my head and says "...what did I do to you...?" I'm like, "...uhhhhhh, you're not Jimbo are you?" He wasn't. I'll be goddamed if I did'nt haul off and do it again a few minutes later. He wasn't Jimbo neither. I'm just REAL glad that at the time my wife was with some of our friends and I was wondering around by myself looking for YOU. God knows if someone had been with me I'd never live it down. No, I ain't gonna tell you what I did. Yes, it was silly and stupid and as said generally made an ass out of myself.
Saw LOTS of people we knew from all over Florida, as well as meeting some great new fans.
Skottdee and 2 friends shot video of the show--2 moving cameras and one stationary. So not only will we get audio of the show, we'll be able to get video too.
I'm fading fast, need to hit the bed ya'll. I"ll post more tomorrow.
Finally! Clay has quelled our curiosity. That's almost a tongue twister! (Jimbo too, though.... Jimbo has jived our jumbo jookhouse jammin'??). I've been sitting here riding out this storm. It's raining and windy and we have lots of evacuees here in North Louisiana. School has been canceled til Thursday (WOO HOO). If I had known, I'd have gone to St. Aug this weekend! Damn! Instead, I have been sitting here on pins and needles wondering how the show was. Thank goodness for the report! Whew! Now, JJ and the guys are supposed to play Baton Rouge Wednesday, but I am not sure if that will come to pass. At least they should be able to play the Fayetteville show I plan to attend Saturday. If I'm lucky, I'll be hearing "I Believe" -- and I can make all the rest of y'all jealous! :-) You'll be sure to hear from me Saturday night or Sunday.
I cannot wait to hear the show and see some video and pics. Thanks to all who are working on that! It sounds like it was incredibly amazing. As Hanna, Ike, and Josephine approach our good borders, they best not interfere with the Mofro tour any more! And I hope all the good people are safe and sound from this string of storms.
My Labor Day weekend is finally ending. BSR was awesome. I did get to meet Mr. Clay and you were as nice and genuine as I expected you to be. Getting to meet the guys was truly a great experience. I got a picture signed and a shot taken with JJ as well.
St. Augustine was awesome and I hope I do get to make it back down there. Unfortunately I "overindulged" Friday night at a handful of bars so I was feeling like total hell Saturday. I did get my pep back after a beer and watching Hill Country Review rock out. Not a huge fan of Toots unfortunately so I used that time to relax and grab some food. Then Mofro took the stage finally and I was SO excited! I wish the other bands could have kept to the schedule better and given JJ and the Boys more time to play, but there was a lot of breakdown / set up between bands. I loved hearing the new stuff and they mixed in some old favorites as well. There were a couple sound issues that were PISSING ME OFF!!! It was funny watching JJ rip up a mic chord. hahaha But overall a great show! I didn't make the after party, my body just couldn't take anymore abuse at that point!
I got some pics as we as some video that I will be messing with this week. I spent quite a bit of time in my seat trying to snag video though so it isn't the best.
If you were there I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did. Glad I got to meet Clay in the flesh. You were pretty easy to pick out in the room when we were waiting to meet the guys! hahaha
fav song of the night was the Jam at the end. Willie Green joined in on the fun and the fun and excitement rose to a point and then everyone just seemed to go CRAZY! At one point AC jumped off of his drums and had to " walk it off " when the Hercules Horns lit the stage up.
Great show, great fans, great band and a great time. It was worth the 14 hours I spent on the road for the trip.
Great write up Clay! I kept trying to come up with something yesterday, but couldn't quite corral the words. I think my brain is still mush from trying to pull of the tape job of the century. Im still sorting through it all, but so far everything came out great, and I will have lots of goodies to share in the days to come. Steve Bazley (kluyfrtliu) from down in your neck of the woods taped with his sweet schoeps rig, and should have that up on the archive in the next day or two for some instant gratification. I'll be starting the editing on this video asap, but with 3 camera angles to go through its gonna be a little before I'm finished with this project, but it will be well worth the wait!
Anyway, as Clay said, another AMAZING day of music, what a great time these shows are, I hope this continues to be an annual event! I just KNEW the song they didn't play was I believe, oh well, catch it next time. And speaking of next time, Im about to post something I haven't seen mentioned here, but it needs its own thread...
But again, GREAT TIME! HUGE THANKS to JJ Grey & Mofro and all the bands involved for putting on another incredible event!
I know ya'll didn't think I was going to leave it at that did you? As much as I can go on and on and on? Shieeeeit.
I ain't even warmed up yet. Thanks Briggzz--only reason I was nice was cause I were drunk. You ought to see how mean and ugly I am when I'm sober.
It was great meeting YOU and several others from the site actually. First we hung out with Elizabeth and her brother Sean. Fine people, big time fans. We love to hang with them at shows cause they are so much fun. Sean's a riot, he'll pretty much say anything at any time to anyone. Once he does then I'll jump in; I laugh more when I'm hanging with Sean than I do in a month. And he's a great guy--a big heart. Elizabeth is great fun too. She loves to party (ahem, but I don't) and she loves her Mofro.
On top of that, you get respect when you hang with Liz. She's been to more shows and is a more dedicated fan that I'd challenge anybody to go up against her as the world's biggest Mofro fan.
We also hung with Kortni and Stacie. Talk about a riot! Those girls are a hoot!! And man they love their Mofro too. They're real sweethearts, both of 'em.
Saw estanley1 and his lovely lady at BSR and the after show. Was fun yakking with them, nice folks, really cute couple. Doug from Oveido and his son were drinking a beer together and having a good time. Got to love that.
Smokey and Suzanne from SE Florida are always a pleasure to see. They're so nice. They thought Nervous Turkey was great. They had a better spot than us for Mofro. We were on the rail in front of the strings. They were center stage (fckers). Oh, these cats can dance. Smokey's got more soul and rythym is his little toe than I got's in my whole body.
A few times people said to me "...oh that's YOU!" Others hadn't heard about this site so I told 'em about it. I'm sure I'm missing somebody I met, but there's still a fog between my ears, so hopefully it'll clear soon.
On the BIG NEWS front, it is confirmed that Danny Owen is returning as Tour Manager in October. For those who don't know, Danny's been with the band a couple of years (more?) and took a little summer break. For me, BSR was like he never left. Wanee was his last gig before his break and I was there. BSR wasn't no vacation day in Florida for him. He was on the proverbial bicycle you never fall off, working everything including introducing all the bands. We're all extremely lucky to have a guy on the bus with Danny's credentials, work ethic, and attitude.
For anybody wondering out loud, no the backup singers and strings are not touring with them. It was just a one-time deal for the CD release. (DON'T WE WISH!!)
For anybody wondering if Daryl wore orange/rust chords, what are you thinking?? Of course he did.
For anybody wondering about the weather, it was mostly cloudy, which helped considering it was really hot and sticky. It tried to rain a couple times but nothing would come out. By the time the boys went on a nice breeze kicked in and it was great.
The VIP was much the same as last year and was well organized. I'd put the number of people at somewhere between 50 and 100 for the meet and great. The guys were seated at a table, posters were already signed, and you could get other stuff signed too. (The backup ladies and two extra strings were not there.) I took a few pics that I'll put up.
More still to come. But to sum up for now...the guys are hotter than ever and the new songs are going to BLOW YOU AWAY when you hear them live. ---------- MofroFan1
CLAY, Sure glad you made BOND,I done about the same thing you did,I never let-up looking for you & yours until we left, I ask hundreds of people if they new or seen you & described you as real UGLY with a Beautiful Wife. However I'll confess that my normal style has been altered to were no one really reconized me as before. I even had JJ convinced that I was a big Time Cruner,& was going on Stage as a Duo,but I weasled out of that one.Was wearing a BLUES BRO.Style HAT,Wrap around Sun Glasses with a WHITE Shirt & real white GOTTEE.Hung around backstage & upper high center row 1 At top rear of canopy,with 3 lovely OLDER FEMALE TEENAGERS, who were trying to protect me from .....? (I guess, I looked like a GANG Member from the KFC or MOFRO KLAN.) PS; WE had lunch at Panama Hattis's ,then to show around 2 1/2 pm.
So did we ever find out who the Trombone player was? I definitely recognize him, but Im not sure exactly from where. I got his autograph, but all I can make out is his nickname underneath, "t-bone"
Stacie and I had the time of of lives in Auggy that weekend. We came for the whole weekend for sand, sun and of course MOFRO.!!!!!!! We got there around 12:30 or so to tail-gate with Elizabeth, Sean , Clay and Jenn. Elizabeth and Sean are two of our favorite people in the world at a show! Now we added Clay and Jenn to our fav people file. Just want to say real quick that we love you guys and we could not have had that much fun without yall!! That was a great start to the day! We all parked under a nice shady oak tree and opened the Patron! Double thumbs up to Jenn, who can handle her shots without even a face! I think I was pretty loaded ( I think, now) walking in. The security pissed me off right off the bat, but whatever, the Turkeys were starting and listening to them is way better then arguing with a rent-a-cop! We went on down to the railing stopping by the rumrunner bar ($12!!) I love my Turks, so we stayed right at the railing. Ernie started messing with me about some quarters stacked on the amp close by. He had us all laughing!! After them we tried to go into our VIP a/c lounge where we were rudely turned away. I lost a little time in the next little while,b ut that's normal for me. Last year at BSR when I got lost Stacie found me sitting on the side stage between Rome and Simone which was REAL cool! I got to meet Eric and his girlfriend, Susan who are both awesome!! At this point we were hanging by a pretty cool trashcan having a refreshment before the meet & greet! Then we were all allowed into the lounge for the meet and greet. It was so much fun to see everybody from the band. It's real cool when they know you by name (which we have been seeing them for five years this Mag Fest) And I guess when you are as crazy and loud as Stacie and I..especially Stacie!!! Just kidding, she keeps me in check most of the time! Now it's time for more music. First I want to give major props to Mr. Willie Green and Chris Woods, who rocked my Reef's off! I wondered off again during Toots with Danny to the truck to get a shirt JJ ordered from me. Of course I made it UGA colors! He told me to surprise him! We finished the Patron unfortunate for me b/c now my head is spinning but I knew what ahead and could not wait!!! (uh...mofro) I don't even know where to start... What was so cool is that I knew everybody on the front line from various shows. Clay was right about how you could tell who had the new album and who didn't. It's real cool to turn around and see people with their eyes closed, singing their hearts out!! I got to meet Scott, who was on stage shooting the night! Please Scott cut out all really bad shots of me and Stacie!! I know there is prolly a lot because I was GOOD and lit at this time. One of my favorite parts of the night was him and Will playing Hurricane. And when On Fire started playing, I think I knocked over at least four people.. (Several $12 rumrunners later)I could keep going on and on but I'm tired of pecking. So bye for now
By the way I took some pretty good pics that I put on my myspace so add me if you are not my friend already and you want to check them out! www.myspace.com/kortniruth
well...I was going to leave a comment on BSR but I think Kortni handled it for the both of us! I am so glad I got to see Toots, I have loved them forever! Nervous Turkey has always had my heart and Hill Country Revue rocked my face off! Good friends, good times, won't forget it! I heart MOFRO! And hail to Willie Green! peace
Kortni, I can't quit laughing from reading your post. Of course being there to experience it in the flesh makes it all that much funnier. Ya'll tried to get my young trophy wife drunk, and by the end of the night ya'll had succeeded! She did keep up pretty well though huh?
That was a cool trash can, wasn't it? By far the nicest one there. I hope it's there next year too.
I can't add too much to what Kortni said, other than to reiterate that she and Stacie were over-served. And I'm pretty sure they're banned from the Taco Bell on A1A for life. Oh, and Kortni's right when she says that the band knows them by name...she's called "oh shit!" and Stacie is called "duck!" because that's what the guys yell to each other when they see either one of those girls coming.
BTW, Kortni talks like she writes. You don't hope that she takes xanax to slow down, you have to take one yourself so she doesn't wear you out.
Ho, I gotta million of 'em. I KID KORTNI!
BTW sweetie, I saw your message on the other thread. Not a problem at all. I hope it worked. ---------- MofroFan1
Man, it stinks I just now found this board cause I was over at BSR too! It was my first time going to Augustine's Amphitheater and the first time in the city since I was very young. Both were great and the show was phenomenal! Unfortunately I was on the drink, from the sound of it so was everyone else, and the second half of Mofro's set is pretty hazy in my mind. I can't wait for next years show and maybe meeting up with some of you folks!
