The horror. The horror

Ok so I’m being a little overly melodramatic. It’s warm, the birdies are singing. It’s a beautiful day in Swillits, California, home of the Emerald Triangle, and deep in the heart of wine country. Home to hippies, dopers, and other misfits, red necks, and all sorts of riff raff. I fit right in. Looking back at 1997 and 1998, I still can’t believe my safety wire had slipped that far off my nuts, as it were. But I guess it did.

It’s about 12 hours from Willits to Portland, and having close family in both towns, this is an easy jaunt, one in which whomever is "going that way" often is loaded down with trinkets and things for those at the other end. And it’s a nice drive, so long as you have the money for the gas and a good car. But it gets a little lonely, so this time I took along about 5 talking books from the local library. One of them was Heart of Darkness, which (those of us up on our literature) we know is where Apocalypse Now came from. As I drove through Cascadia forests, I listened to the dark words and metaphors, the swamps and spooks, casting shadows on my mind….. I felt like I was indeed going up the river, to an unknown fate.

I’d never done the Rose Quarter before (yes a lot of folks call it the Rose Garden) more properly the Rose Quarter is an entire designed area with shops, fountains and such, where they drag in the tourists before basketball games and such. It may have even been the first time the Moody Blues played this theatre. It was brand new, and the pride of the Port of Portland, which my brother was working for at the time. I was rather excited.

I know this was an orchestral night, and the reason I remember was that it sounded horrible for the most part. Ok so I was a bit spoiled by other better performances and bootlegs, but apparently the Portland Symphony had something else to do that night, and the "festival" orchestra was made up of mostly High School students who had been scraped off the bottom of the orchestral barrel. Larry tried, he really did.

But it was all worth it in the long run. They may have bobbled more than a bit on some of the songs, but they nailed one of them perfectly. They debuted "Strange Times" this show, and it was the first time since before the 70’s break up that they had done a song prior to it being released as an album. What a shock! I sat there listening to a very cool bull fiddle sliding down those scales in the song, and thought "my God I’m listening to the world premier of a Moody Blue song! Pinch me am I really here????" Wow. And it was one of those nights I had gotten fed up with the tape recorder again and left it home!!!!!

The reaction after the song was very very strange. The audience literally sat there silent after the last chords (gulp) like "what the hell was that??" Then hesitant applause. Justin looked a little frozen, and then dived out of his guitar strap. The applause swelled, and I was up clapping pretty wildly by now, as were the other regular fans in the front rows, and scattered all over the house. I couldn’t recall all the words of course, but I remember thinking "this ties right into the Heart of Darkness, and going up the River, ‘The House at the Waterside‘" (the Rosegarden happens to sit right next to a huge River, the Willamette). Jesus what a trip!

Lynn had come prepared, and had a tape of it which was really miserable, but we all got together after the show, and she played it through for us. We tried to jot down the words, but it was just too fragmented. She promised to try and work on it, and I did too, as I was going to the Gorge tomorrow night. (or oops was it the night after that? Did they do Vancouver in between these shows?)

Now of course, we know I was just a little bit off with the words (we all were) but this was all to come out later. That’s what happens with spacey lyrics, when they are released without the printed words. Lynn and I and I don’t know whom else (forgotten!) hung around the Heathman, but the Moodies were wise to us (or tired) and didn’t show up at all. Lynn dubbed the tour "The Anaconda Tour" again due to some phallic connotation (something about tight pants on our favorite Moody, which I had missed totally). The movie Anaconda has just come out, so it all tied together. Something was loose in the jungle, no doubt about it.

May 24: The Gorge. Roll on Columbia! Off out the Gorge again to see ‘em one more time. This was the day that I pulled into the campsite, and was literally in the car right behind my good friend Nida Dubel, who had driven out from Kitsap County. WOW talk about karma, arriving right together like that! We pulled into slots next to each other and danced around a bit, hardly believe we had done something that miraculous. They pitched their tent, I was happily tidying my camper shell in the back (it’s so nice to have that camper, no tent needed). Nida and her paramour greeted the news of the new Moody song with delight. This was going to be one helluva show!

It was. Justin was so happy about the new song, he did his rarely seen snake dance to it. IT WAS PERFECT. Justin had the vibe about that anaconda down just perfectly. This show must have been with the Spokane symphony orchestra, and it was much better than the night before, Justin had reason to dance! I don’t know how they do it, as the moisture and rain is so common out there, and the strings and drum membranes don’t stay in tune at all with those conditions. Graeme even came out and tuned his drum about a half hour before the show, with Allen Terry his roadie.

That night after the show, we all huddled over the tape recorder, and got a few more words to the song. (It was a terrible boot too, not at all saleable, you won’t find it on Ebay). To us (and to my mind, stuck back in the jungle of course) it sounded like "temples of green" and Justin had written "temples of greed"! Anyway we listened over and over again to it and got most of it. It was late, we had this blue glowing lantern lit, and we were sitting inside a blue tent. The wind came up and blew our hair around. We danced to it just a bit. Wow it was very mystical……… Nida’s paramour was part Native American and so was I, so we had some very strange vibes going that night. (I think they had out some weed too, I was just drunk). It was a really really neat, awesome night indeed. I think that’s the last time the Moodies did the Gorge, which is a shame because it’s a beautiful venue for Nature lovers. When it doesn’t rain. And it did that night. I lay there awake in my camper shell, listening to the drops hit the metal, all cozy in my sleeping bag, and feeling sorry for Nida and her friend in that little pup tent. And hoping the Moody semi’s and tour busses had made it out to the next stop on their tour, whatever that might be. Not a night to be flying, at all.

I don’t know where I went next (crazy I think) but Nida posted the words to "Strange Times" on line the next day, and thus it went out to the Internet as soon as possible. Everyone can blame me for the muddled words I guess. But it all came out ok in the end, didn’t it?

The horror. The horror.