Nov 6:  New York to Seattle

The day started very early, hours before daybreak, since my flight for Seattle took off at 7:15.   I had been watching the weather channel on the seatback TV while not catnapping, and was dreading the weather.  All week the weather channel had been predicting rain, and it looked like it would be raining all the time I was out there.  I was worried about the landing, too but when the time came, I was pleased to see benign puffy clouds and on the ground it was partly sunny.  I was SO Pleased!  The flight being uneventfaul, John and Joy Lund, a lovely couple of Moodies fans from Lost Chords, picked me up at the airport.

First stop was lunch at Pike Market downtown.  Such a lovely bunch of eclectic stores.  Everybody was out; it was a party atmosphere since there had been 10 days straight rain. A fellow was out busking using a rolled up heavy paper as a horn, miraculously making it sound something like a trumpet.  He was stationed right opposite the fish stand famous for where they throw fish from one end of the counter to the other. As John is also a guitarist we talked about Moodyfest in NY the day before. 

After I bid the Lunds farewell, I hopped a city bus and headed up the steep hill to the north of town to take pix at Kerry park, on Highland Ave, in the Queen Anne neighborhood. 

The professional photographers were up there taking shots of the city from the overlook. The hill down to the Puget Sound from all the neighborhoods is quite steep, similar to San Francisco.  One got its name because they skidded logs down the hill to market (Skid Row).

Upon returning to the City center, I grabbed a steaming hot chocolate and  hopped another bus out to and Alki Park in West Seattle, and took some pix along the park looking back towards Seattle at twilight.

Nov 7:  Seattle to Port Townsend and back

This night was to be my first concert of this series.  But I figured to drive up to Port Townsend isince I'd always intended to go up there, but never managed. I got the economy car at Hertz without incident and headed down the 5.   Never the one to take the direct route unless necessary, I drove down to Olympia and then up 101 along the Hood fjord up to Port Townsend .  The first glimpse of the Olympic mountains was spectacular.

On the way up the Hood fjord, there were a couple of opportunities to go into the Olympic peninsula, and watching my time carefully, I dashed in as far as the Cushman reservoir.  This area afforded a very nice view of the Olympics just under the cloud layer reflecting the mountains, evergreens and autumn leaves in a lake.

I had about an hour and a half in Port Townsend, a lovely little old seaport with lots of galleries and eclectic shops.  Most of the town is along the waterfront and right beneath a forty-foot sandy cliff.  It was chilly and there wasn't much time and it was quite nippy, so a bowl of soup at the pub hit the spot. 

To get all this in, and get back to Seattle in time for the concert, I was racing all day.  I asked a few people how long to allow to get down to the Bainbridge ferry, and I got all sorts of opinions.  Ah, but the faces...!  I left at 4 for the 5:30 ferry, and after a little traffic getting out of PT, and in the little towns on the way, it was smooth sailing.  They didn't close the Hood bridge, which looked to be a pontoon bridge.   I had been expecting a high bridge, but I think it's a pontoon that can swing. 

Sitting in the lines of cars with my hot chocolate, it was amazing to see all the cyclists come off the ferry from Seattle, many in shorts, even though it was in the 40s.  Very intrepid!  The ferry ride was amazing.  I was fiddling around in my car and didn't even know we had left.  It's a far cry from earlier ferry rides where you know very well that the ferry's started moving.  That's how gentle these new ferries are.  The view of Seattle at night reminded me of approaching Manhattan on the Staten Island ferry. 

The Concert (Go to www.moodyland.org for 4 pages of pix)

A good friend had offered me a much better seat than I had been able to get when they went onsale -- which had been at the same moment as the Portland show, and I gratefully bought it, and without any trouble was able to sell my other ticket for face value outside the sold out venue.  Inside I met up with long lost fan friends, Jackie and Su from Vancouver, Wendy from Victoria, Steve and Reyna, Vickey, and John and Joy from Washington, and Nancy and Jean from the east coast.  The theater is quite ornate and Justin made a comment to that effect.  The highlight of the evening for me was hearing One more time to live LIVE for the first time.  I was listening acutely to hear who was singing what.  Sue, sitting next to me, was amazed that they had changed the start of the chorus to be more like the other song - the beginning of that album, the name of which escapes me at the moment, where they sing Desolation together and without accompaniment.  Graeme follows rght after with three huge drumbeats, and then they go into the 4/4 time.  John was singing the response line all by himself while Justin, Norda and Bernie were singing the "ations" together.  But what surprised me the most was during the verses.  There was heavy voice sampling.  At times you could hear John's voice, and at one point, I think the last line (But I have riches more than these), only John was singing, but at least two lower sampled voices were heard.  It sounded great, and very much like the original.  Maybe that's why they hadn't done it before now...  They had to figure out how to replicate all the voices without havinhg all of them onstage.  Justin's fingerpick part was a little different from the original on this song  but very lovely on the Olson acoustic. 

On Never comes the day, Norda was great on harmonica.  I loved Norda's long hair.  Bernie was coughing quite a bit after Higher & Higher... I hoped she's ok.  John's voice was huge on Lean on Me, and Justin's voice was behind and cominng from the back of the theater for Are you sitting.  A very ethereal effect. 

Towards the end of the show the floor up next to the stage seemed fluid.  I was wondering if it might give way at some point.   At the end Graeme gave his sticks to a child with Downs. It was a great first concert to this series.

Many of us waited outside afterwards in the cold wind.  Norda waved from inside the bus as did Gordy.  Justin spent quite some time talking with a certain family before getting into his black sedan.  I was still feeling the effects of the bronchitis I'd suffered the week before so left before I could get sick again. 

Nov 8:  Seattle to Medford, OR

This day was to be a long driving one down to the party in Medford.  I had planned a very early start, beginning with getting the car out of the lot at 7am.  I'd left the car in a lot overnight for only $5, much cheaper than a garage.  The Seattle parking system is very interesting.  You park your car and then shove a five dollar bill into a little slot barely big enough for it folded up.  I did my morning TM in the car sitting in the lot, and just as I got back to the hotel to load up, my internet provider finally called me back to walk me through 45 minutes of configurations to get my little IPAQ PDA onto the internet via Wifi in the hotels and coffeeshops on this tour.  That threw me way behind schedule, but I was glad because I was planning to have to go buy a replacement laptop for the 10-year ailing one that I left at home.  So here I type on my handheld with the similar-sized foldup  keyboard and wifi card.  Nifty!

My cough seemed a little better to start, and after the first hour's drive through a light rain, it brightened up.  That was great news, but the rain had served a useful purpose of cleansing the air.  Below the big cities the air was filled with smoke.  My eyes were feeling like the corneas were scratched again as they had driving the day before, and the lungs regressed a bit.  South of Portland, the air was even worse, particularly in the narrow mountain roads.  I just can't get the contradiction.  I always think of "Cascadia" what geographers refer to the western parts of BC, WA, OR and northern CA as quite environmental.  In the cities you see everybody on bikes all year round, recycling is very big, you get the picture.  But then the air quality outside the cities is worse than anything I've ever encounterd on the east coast, or anywhere, save the southern central valley of California last winter.  I was trying to figure what  caused it.  I finally saw the big piles of wood being burned out in the open, and wondered why nobody thought of composting them.  Sure, it takes a little longer than food or leaves, but it is natural and sure does preserve air quality and provides a very useful soil conditioner to boot. Go figure. 

The drive was pretty.  The evergreen trees served as a nice backdrop to the golds and reds of the trees.  The waterfront along the Willamette river in Portland was gorgeous with red trees and green grass.  I will want to go back and walk that in a couple of days.  Got into Medford just before 6. 

The party at Rostels in Central Point, was lovely.  There were lots of hors d'oerves and it was well attended.  There was a birthday cake and singalong for pbaub, as well as a card chock full of nice sigs.  Randy from Moody Bluegrass was there and read a poem for pbaub, took pictures with lots of folks.  Very lovely.

I got advice to forget Crater Lake for tomorrow, since it's likely to be snowed in or foggy, and going to the coast road would take too long, so it's an unhurried visit to the lovely town of Ashland, OR for tomorrow. 

Nov 9: Medford and Ashland, OR

Woke up late, since I went to bed at 3am, in part due to writing up some of these notes.  The $5 breakfast at the Red Lion was so big that I was able to make lunch and dinner with it.  It's good I wasn't going to rush anywhere, since I had left lights on in the car all night, so had to get Hertz to come jumpstart the car.

Once underway to Ashland, I had been planning to follow advice to go to Emigrant lake outside of town and then to a pretty park along a river downtown.  In looking for the lake and giving up a little too soon, not seeing a sign,  I got off on a road (Walker Creek) that took me up to the top of the mountain ridge 13 miles away, up up up east in the conifers and snow, with a view of the pointy, snow-capped Mt. McLaughlin volcano.  I was up at the level of the ski slopes looking across the valley to the west side of the Rogue river valley.  Now I know I was probably just shy of the Howard Prairie Lake (not in the prairie..).  Had there been even one sign.. ah, well.   I took some snaps and came down for a nice picnic lunch in the park downtown.   Ashland lived up to its reputation as a quaint, nice little town with lovely little stores and galleries everywhere. Lithia park, a National Historic site, was indeed nice, and I took a bunch more snaps of the autumn leaves bouncing off watercourses, and lots of ducks. The chamber of commerce was very helpful there and it served almost as a base of operations giving lots of good advice.

Concert (Go to www.moodyland.org for 4 pages of pix)

Before this very special concert there was a wine tasting, chocolate tasting and cheeses, fruits and crackers.  I'm a teetotaler but very big on chocolate so enjoyed that part of it immensely.  All the Gold Circle attendees partook of the lovely comestibles before moving from the one cold gymnasium to the cold field house where the concert was held.  It wasn't nearly as cold as it had been in Elmira in 1999 when the seats were on top of ice in a hockey arena and we shivered in our parkas, but in this case the close-knit feeling of the benefit and all the festivities warmed the atmosphere.

The concert was very special. For one, it started out with about a half hour dance by the local tribe.  I have seen a number of such dances across the continent, and each one is rather unique.  In this one, the women sat around in a circle with drums and chanting while the men and a few women and girls in full regalia with feather head dresses, one with a staff with a ravens head, jangles on their clothes and shoes came dancing in from the center aisle.  One young man who had sheepskins (goatskins?) on his legs, was particularly athletic in his dance.  I expect that each dancer represented an animal, and that it was a dance about the hunt.   At different times in the concert, John and Justin made special mentions of the Indian dances and of the blessing and prayer that "grandmother" gave.

Little blue glowsticks had been given out, and somehow everybody knew to wave them during I know you're out there somewhere, the theme song of the Tommy Foundation... The place was absolutely filled with them dancing around.  Speaking of dancing, the center aisle was filled with about a dozen dancers.  This reminded me of the mosh pit dancing in Eugene back in 2003... This was no surprise since we are very near there. 

The more I talk to Oregonians the more I hear about the juxtaposition of the urban environmentalists and the rural hicks as some of them put it.  Anyway, the audience was far more enthusiastic than Seattle, not that Seattle was tame, but this group was bonkers.  The carrying on after "Nights" was almost unprecedented, and this was one of those nights where the rush to the front started early.  Security was brilliant.  They lay quite low until the end and then gave up eventually.  They never cared about photo takers or dancers.  Norda was wearing a suit jacket over her long flowing dress and spiked heels.  I don't think there was any heat except what we generated.  It was also rather foggy in there, and more was generated during TOSOL I think.  I was amazed that neither of the Jays wore a jacket and I was feeling for John with his chest laid open to the cold.  Graeme did have on a black vest over his shirt for the first half.  Graeme looked really awful after his stint on Higher and higher.  I do worry about him.  During One more time to live John continued to have a little bit of trouble syncing with the sampled voices from Paul's synth.  He was a bit early and short so it was easy to hear.  I'm more disconcerted when Justin and Norda don't sing but they have a few extra voices on the synth anyway.  It does sound good though.  As a matter of fact, the sound tonight was unusually good.  It wasn't too loud or reverberating as it often gets to be.  John's vocal was loud again sometimes, but it was ok.  Norda's harmonica is quite prominent in the mix, and I like it.  She got a lot of applause tonight.  Her Ray flutter was quite good and I and a few others gave some appreciation in the middle of the solo.  John smiled to  himself as he heard it.  He really likes everyone to get their due.  At the beginning of See Saw he was a bit late to the mic and didn't quite do the count in, but laughed it off as he always does when he makes a mistake. I am so pleased that john has kept the  wardrobe from the summer shows. Justin has this embroidered shirt that I've seen rarely before, but saw the same shirt on another rock and roller in a magazine recently.  Justin's taken to leaving out half a line in the slow middle part of Question so that he can hear the audience.  The audience was louder tonight than in Seattle.  I got 134 pix including several of the Indian dancers. 

November 10:  Medford to Portland

Concert (see photos at www.moodyland.org)

The audience clapped along with Slide Zone!  John was doing better snycing with the backing vocals in One more time to live, until the end.  Security shut me down and Wendy too.  I was way on the left.. But thanks to the pit seats going on sale the day before the show, some pretty good seats went empty.  You wonder what’s going on…  So we managed to move up for the second half along with a few others. It never ceases to amaze me how different and better I like the concert when you are in the second row center vs sixth row off to the side.  You wouldn’t think that just four rows and a few seats over would matter. 

Justin's voice is very rich this tour.  I wonder if they purchased better mics.  They were all smiles tonight.  I got almost a hundred shots in all, with many really lovely shots, Jays gesturing to one another smiling, Graeme with his drum solo after which he yelled “Rock And Roll!”, John and Justin smiling.  John and Norda are regularly exchanging very intimate looks when he comes over for his sing with them in Singer.  The drumstick toss was a disaster.  Graeme threw a spear at Gordon and that was the last one that he caught.  Everything else was bobbled.  Norda always asks how the toss goes and I think Graeme said terrible.  He looked better (more healthy) after higher and Higher than the night before.  He was getting great audience reaction from that song.   The Nights ovation went on long, as long as Medford.  The band isn’t used to it!  The crowd was more on their feet this night.  But there were no flowers tonight.

More to come!

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