Yayhoos weekend

I watched as the boys rolled past Joey Ward’s house on Mullen Road but I knew they’d be back. Sure enough, 2 minutes later a cloud of dust is headed down the driveway and gets closer to probably the nicest, certainly the most unique house in Bunn. Hugs all around when they get out as we are all so busy we hardly ever talk, everyone is excited and ready to get down to the business of rockin’. It’s about 4pm and it's about this time the pig smells like its startin’ to be close to done, having been cooked since 10am at 225 degrees. Joey’s brother, Jerry is very picky about his cooker and keeps a close eye on the process. Joey's son, Patrick helps..
Meanwhile, the guys start bringing in gear. Not much, as Joey is equipped with appropriate backline, including the favored Dr. Z amps, rockin’ bass rig and classic Ludwig kit that fifth grader Bryson beats the hell out of on a regular basis. The PA is provided by David Gresham and The Swinging Johnsons. Earlier in the day Joey and I plugged it up and eventually figgered out how it worked. The Yayhoos found their sounds and jumped into a few tunes, running through what could be trouble songs without much trouble. We were having so much fun we had to make ourselves stop before we wore some of the edge off.

taken by Roscoe
Dinner was served and it was all great. The 80 pound pig was a hit with the band and the small crowd of invitees who had shown up early enough to hear the ringing of the bell. On another grill, I had salmon fillets cooking. They had been marinating since 11am. There was no rush as showtime was a couple of hours away. We relaxed and ate and caught up on things until 8pm sort of snuck up on us a bit. What better way to start things off than “Where’s Your Boyfriend at?”?
pic by joey
For the next two hours we reacquainted ourselves with each other’s groove and fell right in, a bit surprising, as we hadn’t played since our weekend in Europe in July of ’07. One of the highlights, and there were many, was our tip o’ the hat to the new President, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”. Tailor –made for The Yayhoos, it sounded like we’d been playing it forever. Keith played his ASS off all night! In fact, Joey called me the next day and said he found it as they were cleaning up!

pic from Willa Stein
The next day we got Keith back in the studio to re-sing some stuff for his record. After a brutal wait for their lunch, Dan and Keith spent all afternoon with me at Jack’s. Keith was singing and drinking, Dan sleeping, me encouraging, Jack hosting and providing more encouragement and Jonathan taking care of technical concerns. We did a quick soundcheck at Slim’s around 6pm and had dinner next door. The guys head back to the room to rest and get ready and I kill an hour or so by shopping. Bobby Keys’ sax solo on “Rock off” is blaring as I walk back in the club. The crowd is small but I’m still being pulled from side to side by long lost fans and friends needing my ear. Slowly the numbers grow although never reaching the limit as I had expected. By the time we kick off the festivities there’s a respectable bunch there dancing or looking for enough room to.
from Gigi Thigpen
Again we work up a good sweat running through the 20 plus song set. There was a failed attempt at the Prince song we (used to) know, but that’s part of the Yayhoos charm. When it works, it work REAL good, if it sucks we bail on it. And nobody gets hurt. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does we usually have enough love built up with our audience that we can get away with it. That’s what is so much fun about The Yayhoos. from Gigi
That was what was so much fun about the whole weekend. Not much was expected, but SO DAMN MUCH was delivered.
Signed, sealed, delivered.