It takes only a few days on the road to make you a little loopy. Or at least that's the excuse I'm using for why I paid $10 at Kroger's for an animatronic chicken ghost that shakes it on down to "The Chicken Dance." Ah, screw it. Who needs excuses? The dancing chicken ghost is awesome.
The spooky bird was purchased on my second trip to the Columbus Kroger's, taken after a damn fine Chinese food lunch at the Linksey-approved Little Dragons. I was pleased to return to Kroger's because I love going to supermarkets in new towns. I'm just that cool. And my supermarket trips resulted in three winners: the aforementioned dancing fowl, a pack of Kroger's dinner rolls that made for good van and hotel food for a few days, and a sweet piece of red velvet cake from the Dave's in Akron. The Food Network oughta give me a show where I go to supermarkets across America. Someone make that happen. And make sure Rachel Ray isn't involved, because she creeps me out.
Alas, there was no time to hit a supermarket in Huntington, West Virginia. We only were able to duck into Arby's (the most efficient Arby's ever...seriously) and a convenience store, where I discovered that Huntington was the home of your Marshall University Thundering Herd. In fact, the club for the night, Marley's Doghouse, was located directly across the street from the Marshall football stadium. Both are situated along Third Avenue, cleverly nicknamed "Herd Avenue." Get it?
Marley's was an interesting place. After a brief period where Kerri and I were not allowed in, followed by a session deciding how long and in what order the five bands would play, we loaded in and discovered that the night the Falcons and Maybe Pete rolled into town was Art/25-Cent Mug Night. Yes, in addition to 25-cent beer for those who brought their own mugs, hammered college students were also given the opportunity to create artistic masterpieces with the Play-Doh, watercolor paints, markers, crayons, and pipe cleaners at each table in the front room. Art Night, according to the bar's owner, was "just something to get people talking." I guess it worked, because I've been talking about it ever since.
Unfortunately, the front room's deafeningly loud jukebox made talking that night a little more challenging. At one point, it played a hideously awful mix of "What A Wonderful World" that sent me outside to rethink the song's general sentiment. Unfortunately, once outside, there wasn't much to see. I found Bino and Johnny from Maybe Pete at the about-to-close Italian restaurant down the street, so I hung out with them for awhile before heading back to the painful jukebox, pipe cleaners, and unique bathroom at Marley's.
Prior to this tour, I thought that there would be nothing more distressing than to walk into a bathroom with a pissing trough. But things have changed. Yes, a pissing trough is a disturbing sight, but not as disturbing as Marley's pissing trough with rubber duckies swimming in it. Cutesy touches don't belong in a public restroom. Use that creativity to find away to keep me from getting hepatitis from the toilet seat.
Perhaps inspired by the stellar lavatories at Marley's (I can only assume the ladies' room was equally as classy), Maybe Pete put on their best set of the tour. They came out swinging with "Hideaway" and didn't let up, ripping through another quontagious cover of "Can't Hardly Wait" amid their own equally quontagious originals ("Between the City and the Stratosphere--go buy it, wouldya?). In between they even covered another Bruce song, "Two Hearts," for which Mark joined them on stage. By the time Bino popped his bass strings off, most of the skeptical, arms-folded-across-the-chest folks were converts. People even wandered in from Art Night to check them out. Success!
The Falcons went on around 2 a.m., which, unfortunately, meant that a lot of people packed up the Play-Doh and went home by the time they hit the stage. If I had any physical strength at all, perhaps I could've beaten them into staying. Alas, I am only capable of physically besting the infirmed and small animals, neither of which were in Huntington that night.
But the devoted few who did stick around got to witness one of the oddest things I've ever seen at a concert. I guess the folks at Marley's like to show off their moronic stage effects, which include a choking smoke machine and a just plain annoying bubble machine. Throughout the night, the smoke machine would start up in the middle of a song and soon leave my eyes watering as I looked for the way back to the relative safety of Art Night. But it was no match for the bubble machine.
Now, I suppose that there are some bands that play Marley's whose music is entirely bubble-appropriate. The Hudson Falcons are not one of those bands. Their music is many things, but it is decidedly not bubble-friendly. Apparently, this went right past the soundman. And at a ridiculously inappropriate moment. See, there's this part of the Falcons song "Scab" that breaks down into sort of a reggae beat. I'm guessing that the reggae beat was what signaled "Bubble Time" to the soundman. He probably should've listened to the words being sung at that point:
"Tire irons and baseball bats
You try to break the union, we'll break your head"
Does pounding on a scab conjure up visions of bubbles in your head? Yeah, me neither. I was so dumbfounded (and so aware at how pissed Mark was) that I didn't even take a picture. So you'll just have to imagine it. Or buy "For Those Whose Hearts and Souls Are True" and have a friend blow bubbles while you listen to Track 6. Let me know how that goes for you.
After some kind suggestions from Doyle and Mark, the rest of the set (and night) was bubble-free, though a friend of the band did remove his glass eye a few times, which was much more entertaining than the bubble show. Once the Falcons had wrapped things up and everybody's eyes were back in place, it was time to pack up the trailer again (ooh, my head) and pull out of Marley's a few hours ahead of the sun's arrival. But not before Drew and Frankie engaged in a little Dueling Silvio Dantes.
I miss being on tour.
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