So we gave our tickets, got tagged, and saw the stage. I was the 2^nd person back from the front where camera 3 was. In other words between the Jakob and Rami area. My brother stayed off to the side so the wait for the stage setup seemed even more agonizing. Had to keep myself entertained so I had Wallflower songs running through my head.

Chris Whitley took the stage. I have no idea who he was. The guitar playing was pretty good, but it didn’t really interest me that much. He did one of his older songs, a cover song, and more including one he had done with Dave Matthews (who also took part in the groundwork projects).

More waiting, but at least they brought a screen down to show images of the land and the people who we would be helping out with our contributions that night. Made me think of the "Sleepwalker" video a bit if you know what I’m talking about. I often wondered what the web cast viewers must be sitting through. A chair would seem so lovely right then. There were stage hands running all over the place and one of them who tested out the drums brought some joy to me, but he’s definitely no Mario.

FINALLY…the guys came out. Jakob with his buzz hair and black attire, Rami and Greg in the denim (Rami came out with a drink of course), and Mario was in black as well. Ben (the band’s multi-instrumentalist) I couldn’t see as much since he seemed so far away from the rest of the band. The show started out with it’s usual Breach tour opener "Sleepwalker." Jakob worded some of the lyrics differently and the mic screeched near the beginning, but who cared really? Personally I don’t know if it was the area I was in or what, but they seemed so unenthusiastic about it all. This crowd looked dead compared to the show at the pier a few months earlier. Of course they were the headlining act then and I figured most of the crowd was there for Joe Strummer. A long set change can also kill enthusiasm as well. It seemed odd that cameras were set up everywhere. Which is the one reason why I decided not to bring mine. 

Back to the show, they went on to "6th Avenue Heartache" the guys seemed pretty quiet. Well, there wasn’t much going on in the back up vocals department. This was where I really missed Mike, but Ben did a terrific job. He brought out a fresh new sound to the song. Hmmm. They should really give a microphone over to Greg and Mario. I saw them and they could do it. "Hand Me Down" was next followed by "I’ve Been Delivered" which I couldn’t help looking over at Rami. It was nice to see him smiling back to the crowd. He makes playing those pianos look like a thing he could do in his sleep. Then "3 Marlenas" was terrific. I kept watching Mario on that one. Then oh one of my favorite songs they decided to perform that night. It wasn’t one that they usually did during the Breach tour, "I Wish I felt Nothing." During the middle of the song he talked about how they hadn’t played the song in a while. The interaction with the audience that night wasn’t too plentiful. But what could you do when there’s no frisbee being tossed around? He asked how we were doing and such. "One Headlight", "Babybird" came with some complications. Jakob seemed to have forgotten the words and had to start over again a couple of times. He mentioned to the audience that they were working on some new songs, so they were starting to forget the old ones. Jakob eventually got help from a woman in the front row (I believe she was the first one in line outside) after asking the audience if they knew the words. Then next was a cover song made famous by Elvis Costello (Nick Lowe) "Peace, Love and understanding" which Mario was awesome on the drums. That song was so full of energy. Oh that set was too short. Heard it was roughly about 50 minutes long.

Then the stagehands tore apart the area and was setting up for a last minute addition to the show. He was Artis the Spoonman. They set up for how long to give this guy 7 minutes? He wasn’t well received at first with his speech and song, but when the spoons came out things got better. For the setup of the Strummer set they took forever and even the appearance of the mini humidifier was a relief that we were one step closer to the next set.

Then there was another wait. What the hell is going on? Everyone was getting tired and there was some negativity. When they brought out Joe’s guitar there were cheers, but that quickly died. More waiting and chanting and did I mention more waiting Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros appeared. I only recognized a few songs and most of them were at the very end of the long set. I swear their encore was longer than Whitley, The Wallflowers, and the Spoon guy combined. According to other reviews there were about 22 songs done. He was a great performer and interacted with the audience quite a bit. He walked on stage saying they had bus lag, commented on artwork and photos fans brought in, and even added Mr. Paul Allen into one of their songs that night. Strummer, although mainly staying in the area in front of me, went all over the stage dropping the microphone stand and swinging around a water bottle that was threatening to spill on the audience. Didn’t help I was in the spit range, but I was watching the drummer and the fiddle player a lot. They finally silenced the night and brought ringing into our ears at around 1am.