Apr
30
2010

All Roads Lead Back To Tucson

Sidewinders 25th Anniversary

(Add / View Comments) (0)PhotosFriday, April 30, 2010 - 11:30:33 pm
(Posted Under: Music Music, Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Live Shows, Travel)
After a productive day of setting up bank accounts and grocery shopping, we hit the road at about 4, headed south to Tucson. Nice drive down, at least once we got out of the Phoenix traffic.

Photobox ImageNot long once we were out Tempe, a buzz of police cars whizzed by. Followed by K9 units and unmarked law enforcement SUV's, Which started to seem like a big deal, as the conveys periodically continued until we reached about Coolidge (and then there were a few more that were headed north, assumably from Tucson, once we'd gotten past there. We figured something had happened at the prison, but as it turned out, it was the deputy shooting out in the desert, which happened while we were on the road.

Aside from that excitement, we made good time to Tucson, getting there at about 6. Which was a little bit later than we'd initially planned, but still worked out okay. We headed through the city and just south to San Xavier Del Bac. Because of the time, we didn't go in as there was a mass in session.

Photobox ImageThe restoration work being done on it the last time I was down there is finished (you'd expect as much, it was 5 years ago), so it was pretty cool to see it without all the scaffolding on the left side. Obviously I got some great photos of it and the plaza across from it. As the sun was beginning to set we headed up the hill on the right, and watched the sun set behind the mission, which was pretty amazing. As luck would have it, my camera batteries died, so there was a scramble to get some more batteries from the car before the sun set.

After the sun went down, I had the brilliant idea of hitting up a Zia's location to kill some time before the show. And to eat at Fuddruckers. We didn't have much probably finding the Zia's on Speedyway. We want to say that we've been to every Zia's location, at least excluding Las Vegas. So we got there with no problem. It turned into such a great use of time, as we found a used copy of Charmers Green's Remedy For Everything. We've been looking for that everywhere, so it was an exciting find. Probably a success in Tucson where there is somewhat less interest in Phoenix bands. On the same token, we could hardly find any Sidewinders (or other Rich Hopkins projects) CD's, which isn't true in Phoenix. But we did find one, and the Samantha 7 record cheap.

So after our Zia's escapade, it was a mission to find Fuddurckers, in particular the one we ate out when I was out here before. So we drove aimlessly down Speedway in hopes of finding it. It wasn't looking good and I was starting to give up hope, and then miraculously we found it! So we had a nice dinner there (though my chicken was a little overcooked) before hitting the road back to where the show was.

As there was a trolley that Went down 6th Ave (who knew?), that part of Tucson seemed very reminiscent of Melbourne, at least at night. Driving down there, it was kinda like being in Prahran. Might not have been the case during the day, but certainly true at night.

Tucson seems to have a better, or at least a more organized music scene that Phoenix / Tempe. Which may big a call on just one night, but it seemed to be true. Plush was a very cool venue, and was a buzz, at least initially. When we showed up, Silverbell were already playing. We didn't bother trying to venture into the band room, opting for the seating up the back as there were so many people.

Next up was Van Christian, of most note was Joey Pena on drums. Who knew that Joey could play the drums?!? When we saw him earlier, we figured he was just there to catch the show. Jason Steed was pulling double duties on bass for both Silverbell and Van Christian. Good to know that Tucson bands are just as incestuousness as up here in Tempe. [smile]

Photobox ImageSand Rubies put on a great show. Close in set list to what they did up here in Tempe (from the video I've seen). Though a bit shorter, given they just did the one set, compared to two last week. The only disappointment is that they didn't do Sara's Not Sober, which I would have really enjoyed (it being among the group of songs I'm more familiar with. Maybe Sara needs to be in attendance for that to happen. But a really enjoyable set, just like in Tempe, going chronologically in reverse through their career. Which is set list engineering brilliance, keep your more known material until the again, with a good excuse as to why. With that said, the crowd had thinned out by the end of the night, save the group of obviously hardcore fans around the front of the stage. I'm not sure that I really understand why the crowd thinned out, but there you go. One particularly enjoyable aspect of the show was the duel drumming - both Bruce Halper and Winston Watson playing simultaneously the whole night. The only other time I've seen anything like that was when Louie Butler helped P.H out at Circus Mexicus when he busted up his shoulder. But it didn't seem like this occurrence was borne out of any injury. It's always a lot of fun to watch Winston play, and it looked like he was having a ball up there, which was really enjoyable to watch! A really energetic show, with Slutes and Hopkins flopping around a lot, and was musically great. I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish every band had kept the desert rock sound the way these guys have. But such is life I guess!

Great show, and well worth the trip down south, I'm glad we caught it. I also thought the sound set up was particularly good at Plush. We took off right after the show, and it was a pretty nice night for a drive back to Phoenix. It felt like we made great time, getting back by about 3AM.

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