alund
Well-known member
As the title states this past Saturday I had my worst show ever. It’s taken a bit of time to even put it into words but the show ended in a death of a friend. That’s is the unfortunate punchline.
As the story starts: weeks of prep, practice, venue, etc etc….
Saturday comes; folks arrive at my home to get all equipment from the studio, Discuss the evening since we are having a professional filming crew come in to the small venue. Everything is ready as we are setting up for sound check and power cuts out at 330 as a kid hit a electric line pole up the street. Shuts east side of town down.. no biggy. Can’t get mad at an uncontrollable event. Fast forward 630 pm. Folks loading into the dark building and drinking beer. No food as power still out. Parking lot is packed enough that folks parking down the road and across the street. Power on at 725 pm. Screams of joy. We have no sound check.. fuck it. Let’s go! All good. Just doing what we do. About 2/3 through first set 2 tables cleared outside quickly! Ahh. Fight! Seen loads of times, I just keep going. Things seem to be going ok but something was off in the crowd but no one said anything about anything. I finish first set, step off the the stage to go talk to folks. This is like a wedding (I know everyone here). The owner comes up to me with a distraught look and say, hey man the older gentleman sitting with your wife tried to cross the road outside and got hit and killed!
This lends itself to 1000 questions.. first, who is it? After going outside to assess.. it’s my long term friend, lawyer, business partner… the rest of the questions I have gone over 1 million times in my head…. They parked across the street, went to their car as they were a bit older and we assume they were going home early. Wife turned around as they were crossing the street and he was gone. The truck hit him at 55mph..50 yards he was thrown and dead instantly. Unrecognizable person on the ground for 2-1/2 hours while Tennessee HP did their thing. No one was arrested. Just bad luck associated with a bit of bad judgment. But how many times do we cross the road without thinking anything about it? At what age do we say, I’m too old to go out at night, too old to drive, too blind to cross a road? Idk guys. What a fucking bummer of a week. I don’t have many real friends to speak of like most; sure acquaintances, some more friendly than others but very few real friends. Now I have one less.
. The guilt from all parties involved; wife, owners of venue, me, the parking lot people across the street, the 22 year old in the truck and anyone else caught in this butterfly effect. This is hard to put in words. I won’t watch the Video anytime soon. Sorry for the downer guys.
As the story starts: weeks of prep, practice, venue, etc etc….
Saturday comes; folks arrive at my home to get all equipment from the studio, Discuss the evening since we are having a professional filming crew come in to the small venue. Everything is ready as we are setting up for sound check and power cuts out at 330 as a kid hit a electric line pole up the street. Shuts east side of town down.. no biggy. Can’t get mad at an uncontrollable event. Fast forward 630 pm. Folks loading into the dark building and drinking beer. No food as power still out. Parking lot is packed enough that folks parking down the road and across the street. Power on at 725 pm. Screams of joy. We have no sound check.. fuck it. Let’s go! All good. Just doing what we do. About 2/3 through first set 2 tables cleared outside quickly! Ahh. Fight! Seen loads of times, I just keep going. Things seem to be going ok but something was off in the crowd but no one said anything about anything. I finish first set, step off the the stage to go talk to folks. This is like a wedding (I know everyone here). The owner comes up to me with a distraught look and say, hey man the older gentleman sitting with your wife tried to cross the road outside and got hit and killed!
This lends itself to 1000 questions.. first, who is it? After going outside to assess.. it’s my long term friend, lawyer, business partner… the rest of the questions I have gone over 1 million times in my head…. They parked across the street, went to their car as they were a bit older and we assume they were going home early. Wife turned around as they were crossing the street and he was gone. The truck hit him at 55mph..50 yards he was thrown and dead instantly. Unrecognizable person on the ground for 2-1/2 hours while Tennessee HP did their thing. No one was arrested. Just bad luck associated with a bit of bad judgment. But how many times do we cross the road without thinking anything about it? At what age do we say, I’m too old to go out at night, too old to drive, too blind to cross a road? Idk guys. What a fucking bummer of a week. I don’t have many real friends to speak of like most; sure acquaintances, some more friendly than others but very few real friends. Now I have one less.
. The guilt from all parties involved; wife, owners of venue, me, the parking lot people across the street, the 22 year old in the truck and anyone else caught in this butterfly effect. This is hard to put in words. I won’t watch the Video anytime soon. Sorry for the downer guys.
