Gig Report: 44th Fossil Campout / A.B.A.T.E. biker rally 2021

[* velcro-fly *]

3 weeks ago some old friends hit me up to join their local cover band The Radio Riots, said they had a gig booked soon and handed me a list of 50 - 60 songs to learn. We did 4 rehearsals and played this show last Saturday night. It was freaking nuts, people were ready to let loose especially this crowd. Ran my Les Paul > Wizard MC25 with a 2x12 plugged straight in no pedals, both the Gold and Creamback in the cab were miced. All things considered the evening was awesome. The real ear opener for me is when I went to the other side of the stage and heard my rig through the other monitors....not changing a single thing. Feels great to be back in action. Some vids on wastebook under Radio Riots / Fossil campout

 

[Mr. Willy]

That’s awesome man. Good for you. That place is gorgeous. Where is that? Pacific Northwest?

 

[* velcro-fly *]

That’s awesome man. Good for you. That place is gorgeous. Where is that? Pacific Northwest?

Thanks it was a gas.....it's out in the middle of F'ing nowhere; Fossil, Oregon. It was a gorgeous place to play.

 

[lespaul6]

Looks like a blast.... lots of bikes there?

 

[* velcro-fly *]

Looks like a blast.... lots of bikes there?

Yeah, hundreds. These shots are from the stage into the open meadow where the party was, there is a campground in back of the stage where everybody was at avoiding the heat (day time shots). Hands down scariest most stress inducing moment was the next morning when I was leaving / driving out... couple hundred bikes lining both sides of a one lane access road that's the in / out access to the meadow....100 yards of this separated me from safety, clip one bike and its over... "You're in the band" goodwill only goes so far when you knock over 100 Harley's We got approached about doing 3 other events while we were there. We've got local bar stuff in Portland booked June / July / August, we'll throw these in for sure.

 

[Jason_86_951]

Nice! Hopefully I can make to your gig next Friday, should meet up either way.

 

[SpiderWars]

I'm looking at the setlist and trying to guess which song they liked the most. I love a good Folsom Prison Blues cover.

 

[Racerxrated]

Nice! It's funny how most of your setlist, I could plug and play right now haha. Us cover band guys kinda know hundreds of songs over the years. Ironically I've played 4 ABATE parties here in Wi..a buddy owns a bar/campground 30 miles from here, he's had the Wi ABATE there a few times. Usually a lot of fun. I remember though one ABATE, they were lighting fireworks and one dude right as he lit it aimed it at his friend..missed him and hit another guys brand new truck. Not pretty.

 

[BackCrack]

Steve, tell your bandmate I'll trade my Bray head for his black Standard.

 

[Mr. Willy]

Nice! It's funny how most of your setlist, I could plug and play right now haha. Us cover band guys kinda know hundreds of songs over the years.

Haha! Yep. Thought the same thing. That set list looks very familiar. ?

 

[* velcro-fly *]

Nice! It's funny how most of your setlist, I could plug and play right now haha. Us cover band guys kinda know hundreds of songs over the years. Ironically I've played 4 ABATE parties here in Wi..a buddy owns a bar/campground 30 miles from here, he's had the Wi ABATE there a few times. Usually a lot of fun. I remember though one ABATE, they were lighting fireworks and one dude right as he lit it aimed it at his friend..missed him and hit another guys brand new truck. Not pretty.

Cool you know exactly what I’m talking about. There were some crazy things we saw, we actually had to stop for a few minutes because one enormous dude wanted to get on the stage and wasn’t taking no for an answer. Overall really nice people we dealt with. We picked up a couple more gigs from that are supposed to play the slimmed down Run21 in July.

Re cover band deal, yeah that and teaching for many years put most of those on instant play. Funny I was just about to hit the other guitar player up to join my original music project and he beat me to it on his end. They were a 3 piece + singer, we instantly had a too much material and potential material problem. I’m having a shit ton of fun so far

 

[thenine]

That’s a HUGE 2x12!

 

[* velcro-fly *]

I'm looking at the setlist and trying to guess which song they liked the most. I love a good Folsom Prison Blues cover.

Haha we actually skipped Folsom right when dude was trying to get on stage ?

I learned with this crew you don’t know if it was good or bad until after the show hahah. Guys with crossed arms in full stare down. The ladies were loving it. I couldn’t figure it out. Minutes after being done the biggest guy walks up and says “ that fuckin rocked guys, plan on coming back next year...” Turned out he was an event organizer there, guess he liked it?!?! That repeated over and over.