you know, just another saturday night

Saturday night, rhonda and i are getting ready to go to see chris bliss at the south point casino where he is doing a three day gig in the big room and we are almost ready to walk out the door when my phone rings and it is the video producer/editor of the ringo starr tour, brent carpenter, a long time friend from back in my l.a. days.

brent says that ringo has asked if i would like to come down to primm, nevada to see him and his all star band. now, rhonda has never met ringo but she, of course, has heard me speak of him and how i came to open for the band when they played at caesar's palace here back in the 90's. (i am ringo's favorite comic and they play my c.d.'s and dvd's on the tour bus) i tell rhonda that we are not going to see chris but how would she like to go see ringo starr. needless to say, she was all for it!

i call chris to tell him that we are not coming but are going to see ringo but he does not answer the phone so i leave a message telling him the news. while we are in the car, chris calls and rhonda answers the phone; chris says, as way of opening, "i have two words for you---------tough decision!" lol.

we get down to primm and go to the "will call" desk and there are not only seats for us but backstage passes. i call brent and he tells me to meet him at the stage and we can go in and hang out with the band. what a band it was! edgar winters, gary wright, billy squire, hamish stewart (average white band), colin hay (men at work), gregg bissonette on drums and, of course, ringo.

she gets her picture taken with ringo and later with edgar winters and she is in heaven. winters and i talked about several shows i had seen him do in houston; some with leon russell and some with his brother, johnny. i had probably seen e.w. at least ten times in texas. what probably blew rhonda away the most was how pleased all these people were to meet me. they all were familiar with my work from listening to my c.d.'s and hearing ringo and brent talk about me. soon it is show time, so we go to our fifth row center seats for an hour and half of rock and roll. ringo has an absolute blast performing with these all stars and a good time was had by each and every one of the sold out crowd. everyone was unbelievable. edgar winter was un-fucking-believable! exceptional, even among these artists; he played saxaphone, electric piano and some drums on "frankenstein." that old, skinny albino can just rule a stage. billy squire was strong as grandma's lye soap as well. like i said, they were all UN-fucking-believable.

The format was that ringo did the first several songs and then each band member was featured on one or more of their own individual hits.

at the beginning of the show, ringo pointed me out to the crowd and said some very nice things about me. how fucking cool is that? (the people around us were also duly impressed...)

a little side note: most of the crowd were older and fans from waaay back but there were some young people in attendance as well, including a really cute couple right in front of us, ryan and kelsi, who came in not really knowing what to expect but were just mesmerized and left giant ringo fans.

anyway, that is how i spent saturday night.



(if i haven't ever written about that caesar's palace gig here on the blog i will one of these days. it is a great story)