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When I got a new job...after California Unemployment finally cut me off and I had no real choice...one of the biggest issues on my mind was how to still be able to take two days off to go to Musikfest in August. One day for driving up there the weekend Red Elvises were playing, one day for driving home, a long weekend. The new workplace has a policy of No Time Off for the First 90 Days. So naturally, me being me, at the interview I mentioned needing August 4th and 7th off, and, even before I got the job, I’m happy to report that my upfront honesty worked! Well, I didn’t explain exactly why I needed those two days off....I believe I said I had a “prearranged out-of-town trip,” which was the truth in that I had “arranged” (with myself) to go and told Igor and Oleg that I’d be there to help out with the merchandise and so on. I didn’t feel the need to mention at a job interview how much FUN the trip would be or how much I was looking forward to seeing Red Elvises again and partying and, well, you get the idea. Long story short, I did get the job (yay! And I actually like it!) and also got my two days off less than two months after I started, without pay of course (but totally worth it!). |
Once again, the Peppers of West Virginia, fabulous and loyal fans Oleg had introduced me to last year at Musikfest, were kind enough to invite me to come up on Friday, August 4th, and spend that night at their house. The plan was for us all to drive up there convoy style on the Saturday morning and that worked out well, the Peppers and family in their van with me following in my trusty and well-traveled car.
Knowing that our rooms would have mini refrigerators, I was traveling with a 12-pack of Corona longnecks in the very back of my car, a small bag of limes, a bottle opener and a rather scary pocketknife for cutting the limes. I was prepared! We stopped along the way at a leather and sheepskin place, where to our chagrin we saw a sign reading “no public restrooms.” Ack! Now what? Guess why we stopped? Well, we all trooped in anyway and while waiting for everyone to finish using the non-public restrooms, I naturally shopped around and found a great red leather cropped jacket with long pretty fringe! It was so cool and a really nice fit, not to mention on sale, so I couldn’t resist...so we all figured that pretty much paid for all our restroom privileges at that store for several Musikfest trips to come! I can hardly wait to wear it when I go to L.A. this Fall.
We got to the hotel in Bethlehem around 12:30pm, I think, and as we pulled into the parking lot we saw Adam about to head off to the festival. He came over to our vehicles to say hello. The band had arrived the previous night but so far there was no sign of anyone else. Since only one of our reserved rooms (I had one, the Peppers had three) was clean that early, Cathy Pepper graciously offered to trade reservations with me (the clean room’s king bed wouldn’t work for their family but was great for me) so I could go ahead and check in and we could all hang out in that room till theirs were ready. That’s how I ended up with one of the whirlpool rooms, which really rocked... bathtub with water jets that was big enough to have a party in as well as a king sized bed... and a sofa too... pretty nice. Later, when Oleg came in to see it, he went into the bathroom, stepped into the tub in there and then got out of the tub on the sofa side of the room through the sliding shower doors...it was accessible from either the bathroom side or the living room/bedroom side. You could theoretically sit in the whirlpool tub and have someone sitting on the sofa hand you a beer; although that didn’t happen to me it would have been cool as hell.
Anyway, so the Pepper family and I hung out in my room for a while and then were able to check into their room. Their friends were on their way to claim the other rooms reserved for them. Most of us were on the same floor as the band....they were lined up down the other side of the hall from my room... Igor, Oleg, Adam, Elena Shemankova, all in a row. Yes, the girl keyboard player extraordinaire who played with them in Russia and in the American Northwest joined them at Musikfest too and let me tell you, she’s an awesome musician with some great stage outfits that even the women in the audience loved!
But I’m getting ahead of my story....
I rested and tried to calm down some...I hadn't seen the band in four months and anyone who knows me also knows how spoiled I am, so for me that's a long stretch. I managed to doze off for a few minutes off and on before Charlie Pepper knocked on my door. He and Cathy said they had seen Igor down in the parking lot...so I got all excited again and went downstairs to greet the guys. Things started to happen much faster after that...Oleg brought their rental SUV around and I pulled my car over by it so we could transfer the merchandise I’d brought from my car to theirs. Then, when it was all in, there wasn’t room for all of us to ride over to the festival site so Igor said he and I would walk over there. Up to that point I’d never walked to the festival from the hotel before and didn’t exactly know the way, so it was good that my first trip over there on foot – not a bad walk at all, by the way – was with someone who did know how to get over there. Oleg was driving over to the site with Elena and the merchandise, instruments and stage clothes as Igor and I set out walking uphill toward the bridge. It seemed like that whole afternoon was spent walking uphill, except for the time spent walking down steps and back down some hills from the Liederplatz stage, that is. It was great exercise...could’ve been a little cooler temperature-wise but it wasn’t so hot out as to be unbearable. We got to the Volksplatz stage where they were to play later but Oleg wasn’t there yet, so Igor and I walked over to the Liederplatz stage where there were lots of trees and rows of chairs. He got us peach flavored green tea drinks and we sat and watched a few minutes of some accappella group I can’t remember the name of... Ball in the... something(??). They had a huge touring van that was larger than Red Elvises’ van, it looked like a small bus almost, about the size of a postal delivery truck only probably longer. One of the singers said it cost $200 to fill it up with gas! I just kept wondering what kind of gas mileage it got...probably not very much. It wasn’t long before Igor got a call from Oleg, so we headed back over to the Volksplatz stage where we found Oleg and longtime band friend Lori. Now last year Lori was quite charmingly pregnant at Musikfest. This year she had a really cute little addition to the festivities with her, her 8-month-old baby, Leland! He was sporting a little green baby pseudo-mohawk, a rocking t-shirt, a little red plaid kilt and black and red soft shoes in keeping with the occasion. (The shoes didn't stay on too long in that weather...). I took quite a few pictures of the baby that you can see in the Photo Galleries, some of them are with Oleg holding him and some are when he was onstage.
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The four of us and Baby Leland went to get something to eat...mmm mmm good – big ears of nicely seasoned corn and shiskabob with big chunks of tasty beef. The food at Musikfest was especially good this year! After eating, we walked back up to the Liederplatz stage, still uphill, to see The Arrogant Worms, a comedy music band from Canada that Igor and Oleg knew from years ago. They seemed like very nice guys too. After the guys greeted their old friends and Lori and I met them we hung out and watched them play their first few songs, which were really funny. One song was about national symbols and went sort of like “America is the eagle, Russia is the bear.... India is the tiger...” (and some other countries I can’t remember now) and then what is Canada? “We are the BEAVERS! We are the beavers!” Oh, the fierce and mighty beavers of Canada, we could just imagine them with their little (big?) teeth chewing bits of wood! It was hysterical. The other one that I remember enough of to tell you about concerned the scenic aspects of our neighbors to the North... “We have...rocks and trees and trees and rocks and rocks and trees and trees and rocks (etc.)... and water!" That one was made complete by the addition of some audience-participatory arm and hand movements. “What does a rock do? It sits there...” (elbow up, arm bent towards your face). “What does a tree do? It stands there...” (arms up like tree branches). Half the audience was designated to be rocks and the other half trees, and one guy in the middle got to be “water” and wave his hands around wildly.. “Go crazy!” was the instruction on that. Not quite as much fun as “Sex in Paradise” but very funny, nonetheless. Guess you had to be there! But anyway, if you ever get the chance to see The Arrogant Worms do a show, I highly recommend them, they are fun guys (see photo above, with Oleg and Igor and the Worms)!
So we couldn’t really stay very long over at Liederplatz (about three songs, maybe) because we had to go back to the Volksplatz stage area to get ready for Red Elvises’ show. Igor and I looked around and didn’t see where Oleg, Lori and the baby had gone, but we all found our way back over to Volksplatz. This year Musikfest staff were doing the selling of the merchandise so all I had to do was help count it and then later I helped a little with the selling, answered some questions from people about the band or about which song was on what CD (something, surprisingly, I’m not really that good at... I confess that about half the time I have to guess while perusing the backs of a couple of CDs, so don’t feel bad if you can’t remember exactly which CDs contain which songs either!). I also had the chance to run around drinking beer and taking pictures from every angle I could manage.
The pre-show excitement was building...the guys (including Elena in that generic term “guys”) got onstage to soundcheck the levels, then went into the changing tent to get dressed in their stage outfits. The crowd gathered in front of the stage and there was barely room in between each person for a breath of air! People started buying t-shirts and CDs as the first beautiful notes of rokenrol music were played in the hot Bethlehem air.
On Saturday night they played at 9:00pm, starting with “I’m Not That Kind of Guy.” By the second song I was helping the Musikfest Staff girl sell merchandise and totally spaced on writing down what song they were playing; I had to ask Oleg later and he told me it was “200 Flying Girls.” I saw a girl there, who turned out to be Andrea Brodeur, this month’s Fan of the Month, wearing a cool t-shirt that said “Flying Girl” across the back, so I’m sure she, and a lot of other people, was happy to hear that song! I tried to get into the audience a little ways to take some pictures from the front but it was packed down there and if it hadn’t been for Charlie Pepper standing at the edge on Oleg’s side of the stage I wouldn’t have even been able to wedge myself in far enough to get any kind of view. I edged along next to the huge speakers until my right ear was literally hurting and held my camera up...deciding after that to just take what shots I could from beside the stage and the steps over there, basically. It’s so terrific that so many people come to see and enjoy Red Elvises at Musikfest!
The third song of that first set was “Telephone Call from Istanbul,” followed by “Gypsy Heart” and then “Love Rocket,” which almost immediately sent people swarming over to the merchandise table asking for the CD that song was on, which is where I came in handy I guess, because no one ever knows the title of it upon first-time hearing. Next was “Ticket to Japan,” which I’ve found I can name in one note...Igor plays that first note and Pavlov’s-dog-like, I write down “Ticket to Japan” on my notepad! They then played the ever popular sad (yeah, right) song, “Strip Joint is Closed,” followed by “Sad Cowboy Song” which got people forming a conga line and gave us the traditional four-piece drum solo, and then the last song of the first set, “I Wanna See You Belly Dance.” At Musikfest the band is on a really big stage surrounded by a fence, and normally people aren’t allowed inside the fenced area, but Oleg didn’t let that stop him as he ran down from the stage and out into the side of the audience to recruit some girls to dance onstage! A row of girls of all sizes and shapes (kids too!) bravely ran inside and up onto the stage and started dancing as security staff kinda freaked out and gathered watchfully on and around the steps that led up to the stage on that side. I guess if someone had fallen off the stage or broken something it could’ve been a big problem but fortunately nothing like that happened and everybody had a lot of fun. I have to admit that I couldn’t resist, I got up there too, in the back, to take some pictures and dance a little. It was an awesome experience!
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They took a little break and mingled around, saying hi to some fans by the fence and refreshing themselves for the second set. I think I was helping sell merchandise then but I got a couple of pictures too.
The second set began with “My Darling Lorraine,” which I hadn’t heard in a long while. Very cool! They continued with “It’s a Wonderful Night (to Fall in Love),” “Winter Reggae,” “Hungarian Dance #13” (I think...) and three encores(!!!), “Closet Disco Dancer,” “Rocketman” and “Sex in Paradise,” complete with the audience participation that goes with that song.
After changing clothes they came out to sign some autographs and chat with fans as they usually do. Soon it was time to pack up the remaining merchandise and call it a night. I rode back over to the hotel with Oleg, Igor and Elena, who told me it was her first trip to the United States and she likes it very much. "It's very different from Russia," she said with a smile. She is, by the way, from Moscow. At the hotel some of us hung out for a while in Bill's room - he's a friend of the Peppers - and drank a few beers to wind down which was, of course, a lot of fun.
The next day, Sunday, I think I slept a little late but can’t really remember. I know I missed the free breakfast at the hotel though, as the Peppers told me about it later. Other than heading over to Perkins Restaurant by myself for a very late breakfast (which was excellent, by the way!) I didn’t do much, just lazed around, tried out the fabulous whirlpool tub and got ready to go over to the festival. I think the guys were sleeping, except for Adam, who, when I happened to see him in the hallway said he had gone over to the festival early-ish was going to take a nap for a while. As the afternoon wore on we all found our way back over to the Volksplatz stage...everybody was pretty much on their own that day. On the bridge walking over there I saw that the temperature reading on the big tower said, at first, 97 degrees, then it went up to 98. So much for weather.com predicting a high of 88 degrees each day of that weekend! This time I found the steps that Igor and I had somehow walked right past the day before and took them down to the ground. Going that way I was able to stop in the souvenir tent and buy myself a Musikfest 2006 t-shirt...and a little further on there was, to my great joy and delight, a beer tent, so I ducked in there for a minute to refill my Musikfest mug. Those 22 ounce mugs, by the way, are a bargain at $7.00 because when you refill them you get about twice as much beer for the same amount of food/drink tickets, plus you can re-use them each year. Armed with my t-shirt and beer I soon arrived at the Volksplatz stage where I saw the band, Lori and a bunch of other people, including our very own former Fan of the Month Unsteady Freddie! I didn’t actually meet him until a little later, during the show, but I thought “that guy looks familiar!” I am, of course, notoriously face-recognition-challenged, so I hope nobody takes it too personally if I seem like I can’t remember them right away...but I knew I’d seen him somewhere before.
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That night Musikfest had assigned two staff members to us to sell merchandise (I’m sorry, I don’t remember either of their names), the experienced girl from the previous night plus another very nice girl who told me later she had been adopted from Russia when she was five years old. How fitting and proper that she should pull Red Elvises merchandise-selling duty that night! There were some other Musikfest staff in the area too and at one point two of them were dancing wildly! Even the sound guy got into it on “Closet Disco Dancer” (I think that was the song he was waving his finger in the air to).
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The Sunday night show began at 6:30pm and “Lovepipe” was the first song, which got everybody into it very nicely. Next was “Gypsy Heart,” followed by “Love Rocket,” “Ticket to Japan,” “Memoirs of a Phuket Geisha,” “Sad Cowboy Song” and “Belly Dance” without dancing girls this time.
The second set started off with “200 Flying Girls” and then they played “I’m Not That Kind of Guy,” “Hungarian Dance #13,” “Winter Reggae,” “Closet Disco Dancer” and “Rocketman,” following up with three encores that night also: “My Love is Killing Me,” “Jerry’s Got a Squeeze Box” and “Sex in Paradise.”
I was all over the place again, helping a little with the merchandise, drinking beer, taking pictures, talking to various people. I looked over to the side at some point and saw two ladies with a little blonde girl who was dancing up a storm by the fence! Too bad I didn’t have video to catch that with, it’s a little hard to photograph dancing but they seemed very happy to be at the show, at any rate.
At a couple of different times during that night’s show I tried again to mush myself into the audience long enough to take some frontal pictures, but this time I went around to the other side where I had a slightly better chance of getting somewhere. Apologizing all the way, I used my best “Rusty’s technique” to get in someplace and get as near the front as I could, which wasn’t very near. I just held my camera up and squeezed off a few shots and got out before passing out from the intense heat of what felt like thousands (probably hundreds, I guess) of human bodies packed into an enjoying mass of humanity under a tent. I really don’t know how people stand that heat for an entire show, they must really love Red Elvises and rock ‘n roll! Here’s to all the people who braved that, salut to you all!!!
I went around to the other side of the stage and a Musikfest guard over there let me go up the equipment ramp to get on that side of the stage to take some pictures. He told me to get down low but I didn’t quite understand him, so when I was standing there he tugged on the tail of my Red Elvises work shirt and said “get down, get down!” Ohhh...okay...whatever... I sat down on the lower part of the railing and started taking pictures. Next thing I know Oleg is looking at me and motioning for me to go over to the back of the stage and take some pictures of the crowd from behind them...I knew that’s what he meant because he had suggested earlier that I should do that. But I didn’t want to make too much of a nuisance of myself running around on the stage so at first I just stayed where I was. Then, I almost fell over laughing when he waved his arm at me as if to say “oh forget it, you’re not going to do it...” He was grinning at me the whole time. This was during the part of "Jerry's Got a Squeeze Box" when Igor makes everyone get down low to the ground, so Oleg didn't need both his hands to play the bass right then. Finally I decided to go for it so I stood up and went over to the back part of the stage just to the right of Adam’s drum kit, and took some more pictures...it was such a big crowd it was hard to get them all in one shot so I had to take several. Well, that's my excuse for being there for a couple of minutes, anyway! Then I went off the stage on the other side, the side with the steps, opposite from the side with the equipment ramp, because it was a little easier and because I didn’t want that Musikfest guy to maybe yell at me for walking around so much on the stage (lol).
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Igor and Oleg were in amazing form as always, sounding fantastic, playing to the crowd and getting them screaming...as hot and packed as it was there wasn’t a lot of dancing except off to the sides, but they were a vocal crowd and quite willing to participate in arm and hand gestures on certain songs and yelling for more. It’s so great to see all those hands in the air during their show... There was a lot of Red Elvises love in the air!
| Elena, who I’d never seen perform before, was great on keyboards and accordion, wearing a killer red dress that night. In fact, a woman came over to me at the merchandise table later and said that if Red Elvises ever decided to sell copies of that dress she knew a lot of women who would buy it, and men too (presumably for their girlfriends and wives...maybe for their sisters too...)! Hmm, interesting idea...but I'm guessing that probably won’t happen. As a matter of fact, after the current batch of work shirts sells out there won't be any more of those. So get them while you can! But don't worry, there's an ample supply, for now. | 
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It was pretty hot onstage temperature-wise as well as in every other way, and at one point after a particularly intense drumming stint Adam, also in fine form, suddenly raced over to the large electric fan that was blowing on the far side of the stage, knelt beside it to try to cool off for a moment or two and then raced back to his drum kit in time for the beginning of the next song. I tried to get a picture of that but he was just too fast!
After the show, amongst the fans lined up at the fence to get various items and body parts signed was an innovative girl in a tie-dyed t-shirt who was collecting autographs on her jeans. She asked each of the guys to sign them and her jeans looked like they had made the rounds, with quite a few different bands' autographs on there! What a neat idea!
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And what did Lori’s Baby Leland think about all this rock 'n roll music? Apparently he didn't think it was too loud, he seemed to love it! He kept eyeing Adam’s drumsticks so Adam said, “I think this kid is going to grow up to be a drummer!” Several times the baby was handed drumsticks, which he waved wildly in the air – I think Adam was right! At the end of the show his daddy, Patrick, and mommy Lori took him onstage and held him up on Adam’s seat with drumsticks in his little hands and he looked so adorable! Cameras went crazy on that and he looked like a natural up there...watch for Leland the Drummer to take a stage near you in about 15 or 20 years or maybe sooner!
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Another wildly successful show over all too soon, and everybody enjoyed it immensely. Afterwards I packed up all the merchandise as the next band played their first set and then went to get some food, having found everybody else at a long table behind the Volksplatz tent relaxing, eating and drinking beer. Oleg kept bringing us more beer and I was able to fill my mug a couple more times. There was so much beer on the table I had to take pictures of it, otherwise who would believe me? Oh, wait...this is Red Elvises we’re talking about, oh yeah.
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I had a delicious crabcake sandwich and a couple of shrimps-on-a-stick, six delicious shrimps on each skewer, which I shared with Igor (seemed the nice thing to do since he gave me a bunch of food/drink tickets in the first place and all...). Musikfest definitely gets an A+ on food this year, I have to say it again, they outdid themselves! The beer was great too, not to mention this year I managed to make it to the beer tent to fill up on the Saturday night before it closed so that worked out very well. When the Polish band of about ten guys who played after Red Elvises finished their sets they came and sat with us too, along with some other nice people. I seem to remember a good conversation with a cute Polish guy but I can’t recall what we talked about...too much beer, oh well...
Later we went back to the hotel and hung out for a while longer, drinking more beer (well, naturally!). And then Igor realized how early he’d have to wake up so they could get to the airport to catch their midmorning flight home, so he headed off for some sleep. I don’t remember what time I finally went to bed but am pretty sure it was quite late. I seem to have set my cell phone alarm for about 7:15am in hopes of getting up to see the guys off. I don’t really remember setting it but I guess I did because it went off at that time and I laid there, half awake, debating whether to actually get up or not. Soon I heard noises outside my door and then some talking, so I got up and quickly threw myself together, hoping I wasn’t too scary looking first thing in the morning after a late night... I poked my head outside my door and Igor was out there talking with Charlie and Cathy Pepper so we all said good morning and stuff. They all headed down to the lobby and I went back inside and put on some shoes, having decided to make the effort to go downstairs and say goodbye properly since I was already upright and all.
I stood there with the Peppers, still trying to wake up, watching Igor repack their rental SUV. Soon he was done and We all started hugging goodbye and had to hug Oleg when he came out the front doors of the hotel with a bagel in one hand and something else - (coffee??) - in the other. A few goodbyes and wishes for safe trips home later they drove off into the sunrise...or something to that effect, the sun having already risen probably about an hour and a half or so before then, but I reserve the right to “poetic license” here for dramatic effect.
I started to miss them immediately, of course.
Then I went inside and took advantage of the free hotel breakfast with the Peppers, or most of them, anyway. That was a lot of fun too, even though I was dead tired. Back up to my room for a couple hours more sleep and then I was up to say goodbye to the Peppers, who left a little while before I did, finish packing and check out to get on the road to go home.
So, to sum it all up, this year’s Musikfest was absolutely entirely awesome! I had such a great time and I sure hope they play there again next year because I know they made everyone lucky enough to see them - tons of people - very very very happy!
They’re doing a big cross-country tour this Fall and I’ll see them again in October... I can hardly wait! Keep an eye on that tour schedule so you can hopefully catch them near you – you’ll be very very very happy if you do!