I’m still working my notes for the last few shows of my spring road-trip, but I just wanted to drop in a quick thought.

I was waiting outside The Varsity before a show, standing right next to a big poster with times posted and a sign on the door saying that doors opened at 7PM. Besides me, there were several others milling about, obviously waiting. In the space of 15 minutes, at least a dozen people pulled on the door then asked if it was open yet, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

I really wanted to say “Nah, we’re all ducks in disguise and we like standing out in the rain.” I don’t know that I could have held back had someone been there with me.

Thank goodness for internal monologues.

P.S. I should have all of my RCPM pictures and road trip stuff posted this weekend. Other than replacing some storm-damaged screens, I don’t have any other plans.

9am came awfully early for having been awake until three the previous night. I ran out to get a quick bite to eat and pack things up to head for Brookings. I ended up getting started nearly an hour later than I really wanted, but it wasn’t a big deal. I would be meeting up with Todd in Brookings and by all accounts it wasn’t like a regular club where you need to get there early for a popular act.

I got to Skinner’s around 4:30pm and since Todd wasn’t there yet I decided to check out Downtown Brookings. In my wandering, I ran across a few grain cars and a DME (Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern) locomotive parked near the local grain elevator. Downtown is maybe 1 square mile, at most, so you can truly walk wherever you want to go. Being a bit of a train nut I stopped to take a few pictures. Like any of my snapshots, it’ll take me a while to get them on-line since I’m so far behind, but I got a couple great ones of the loco, including my favorite head-on shot.

Todd called when he got to the hotel and we met back at Skinner’s around 5:00 or so. We caught about half of the RCPM sound check and it went much like the previous night but without the applause. At one point Steve started doing the guitar part and vocals for “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode. It sounded good, but for some reason it struck me as funny. Different, but better than the original. More twang, less synth-pop — imagine Johnny Cash doing the song and you’ve about got it. Pretty cool if you ask me.

The guys from Shurman were late getting in due to a misguided oil-change on their van. Once they arrived, the whipped through set-up and did their sound-check as well.

Skinner’s itself is really a bar that happens to do live music. As you come in the door, the only bar is along the right side with the stage toward the far-left corner. The green-room is behind the stage and there’s a small game-room upstairs which overlooks the stage from behind.

They also don’t serve food, but rather refer you to one of the other fine establishments Downtown. Menus are available at the bar, so we chose the pizza place across the street because we wanted onion rings in addition to the pizza. The pizza place (George’s, I think) was willing to deliver right inside the bar without a second thought. Todd and I chowed down while others started to arrive, including a few folks I had seen in Des Moines and others I had met in Minneapolis.

Come show time several of us took our places right up front. Most of the fairly thin crowd stood a ways back during Shurman’s set, almost like they were afraid to get too close. There were only about 6 or 8 of us until it was time for Roger to come out, then people started moving forward.

The Peacemakers set was great and I met a lovely young woman named Lana with whom I shared a dance or two along the way.

As usual I got a picture of the set-list, which read: Andale, Wanted, Noisy Head, Americano, Maybe We Should Fall In Love, Tell Yer Momma, Winter In Your Heart, Mexico, Plenty, Banditos, God Gave Me A Gun, World Ain’t Gone Crazy, Counterclockwise, Bottom of the Bay, Your Name on a Grain of Rice, Wake Up Call, Who Let the Goon Squad In, Junebug In July, Mekong, and Hello New Day. The encore was Hourglass, Down Together, and Lemons.

Yes, “my song” was on the set-list! How cool is that? It just one of the many reasons that Roger Clyne is a great guy and another example of how he values his fans. That one thing made my night, as if the whole show didn’t kick ass.

After the show I talked to all the guys in the band for a few minutes and hung out with Steve for a while too. It’s fun hearing him tell fishing stories; and he’s got some good ones too.

Finally I headed back to the hotel and crashed at 3am — again. Sleeping until noon helps, but I’m not sure how long I can actually last this way. If this is how I go, at least I’ll die happy.

Updated: Fixed the entry title. Somehow I updated the date, but not the location.

After hanging around after the show Saturday night, I didn’t really leave town until almost 11am. Des Moines is roughly a 4-hour drive from home, so that gave me plenty of time to get there, check into my hotel, grab something to eat, and head over to the show. It’s a straight drive down I-35 and went by uneventfully.

Todd wasn’t along with for this leg because he decided that seeing Megadeath and Black Sabbath (with Dio on vocals) was more important. I’m not sure I agree with him, especially after hearing his assessment of the Sabbath portion, but to each their own.

Keyster’s is actually in Urbandale, a Des Moines suburb. It’s set in a strip-mall that is off the beaten track with nothing around it worth mentioning. I understand they’re normally not even open on Sundays and that they make an exception when Roger comes to town.

The main bar runs the whole left side of the joint starting just inside the door. Other than that, it’s got a little space for a dance-floor near the stage and a bunch of tables throughout the rest. All-told I’d guess the place is about 60-feet wide by 120-feet deep, including a decent sized stage.

I should also mention that drinks and beer were cheap. They didn’t have any really good tequila, but Guinness pints were only $4 with a 2-for-1 happy hour until 7pm. A guy could get really drunk if he didn’t have to drive back to the hotel after the show.

But really, how fun it is to be completely hammered if you’re over 25?

I was actually there early enough to catch sound-check. As you’d expect, it’s a bunch of “check check” and goofing around while the sound-man sets house levels and everyone gets the stage monitors set the way they like. Then they do a couple songs just to make sure things are ready to go. A few people applauded after one of the songs and Roger, with a great big grin on his face, “Hey! It’s sound check! There’s no applauding for sound check!”

I met a whole ton of people there. Basically it was a group of friends that come out for the RCPM shows and mostly live in the Des Moines area. There was a Doug, Mary, Stephanie, Diane, and at least two guys named Dave. I hope I’ll be able to put the right names with all the faces next time I see them. I also saw John and Beth from St. Louis whom I met at the Minneapolis show. They were truly a great bunch of folks and the perfect example of the generally friendly people you find at most Roger shows.

Shurman put on a great opening set and I’m getting to know some of the guys in the band. I made sure I picked up one of their CDs. They actually ran out of the regular studio produced discs and had resorted to burning a double-album thing with a couple laptop before they took the stage and while Roger played.

As always, Roger, Steve, Nick, and P.H. put on a great show. It ended up being a 22 song set, including 3 songs in the encore. Although I didn’t manage to get an actual set-list, I did get a picture of one after the show. As written, it went as follows: Contraband, Maybe We Should Fall In Love, Down Together, Counterclockwise, Noisy Head, Wake Up Call, Leaky Little Boat, Sin Nombre, Mexico, Who Let the Goon Squad In, Bottom of the Bay, Plenty, Hourglass, Junebug In July, Hello New Day, Americano, Mekong, and Andale, with Jack vs. Jose, Yahoos and Triangles (King of the Hill Theme), and Lemons for the encore.

I’ve finally been to enough of the shows that I get recognized from stage during the show. I always get a nod from Nick early on and Roger typically notices as well. It doesn’t make me any cooler or more “in” than anyone else, but it is a pretty good feeling just the same.

They actually left the stage at about 11pm due to local noise ordinances, but everyone hung around the bar for quite a while after the show. All four guys came out for a while, Nick and Steve pretty much stayed in the bar while Roger and P.H. stuck close to the bus. The guys from Shurman also hung out and I got to talk to them for a while too.

When I was talking with Roger he asked me again if there was something I wanted to hear at one of the upcoming shows. When I mentioned “God Gave Me A Gun” again, he did an “Oh Yeah!” and made a note for himself. Like I said before: it’s not a promise, although it looks promising.

I finally got back to the hotel at around 2:30am and I was completely beat. I did a bit of writing, and I think that’s when I actually posted the Fine Line review. By 3:15 I was out and only woke up once during the rest of the night.