Jack and Donavon and G. Love, Oh My!!

Weekend update with Captain Cooper. This week, it was the Jack Johnson, Donavon Frankenreiter & G. Love and Special Sauce concert in Bend. Surfrider got to set up a booth, so I headed down there to help Daiz set up, talk to the concertgoers and then hang out and watch the artists. We got there in time for the soundcheck, so we set up, wandered around in the sun, sent Daiz to get passes and I played with Dex’s daughter, who’s adorable. She’s 5, so she’s extremely high-energy, but cute nevertheless. After that, we waited for the doors to open and made friends with the guys running the pizza booth next to us. That guaranteed food for us throughout the night, which rocked.

The doors opened at 4, and we were right by food and the bathrooms, so we actually managed to talk to a lot of people and the reception was great. We filled an entire page and a half with signatures, email addresses and requests for information. That kicked ass. Daiz kept giving me grief about asking people where they were from, since if they were from Portland I would tell them about that chapter rather than Bend’s chapter. Oh well. We collected a bunch of money in donations as well, so that didn't suck.

The concert itself was really chill and fun. I missed all of Donavon’s set, which sounded good from where we were. Unfortunately, when you can’t see the stage it doesn’t really feel like a concert. I saw Sassy, her climbing buddy and another friend shortly before the show started. After Donavon’s set, I went to the bathroom and ran into Marshall and another friend.

G. Love’s set seemed like it went really fast. We had this amazing parade of volunteers helping us out, so we could swap out and watch parts of the show. I kept taking off to race up to the top of the knoll and watch certain songs.

When Jack took the stage, I had negotiated with Dex to take the first half-hour watching the show so that Daiz, Starry and I could watch the end. We hadn’t actually left the tent for any substantial period of time, so I figured it was fair.

Jack’s such a great performer, and the set was great. I don’t actually own one of his CDs, but I recognized a grip of the songs. He performed some new ones, some hilarious covers, brought Donavon and G. Love onstage with him as well as doing a totally acoustic encore, which was awesome.

The best part was waiting for us, though. We got back to the tent after Jack’s set, took everything down and packed the cars. After everyone parked, the six of us (me, Dex, Daiz, Starry, J-Doc and Mate) all headed over to the aftershow party to take full advantage of the passes Daiz had managed to acquire for us. We walked through the gate up to the house and the first thing we saw was Donavon sitting on the steps watching a little kid (OK, he was 13, but he was tiny) play Jack’s song “Taylor” on the guitar. Kid rocked, too. We stood there around the kid and listened while Donavon cajoled and encouraged him to keep playing and singing. As we’re standing there, Jack rolls over to watch and listen as well. The kid finished the song as Donavon’s looking at Jack and said, “I think we might be out of a job.” Jack laughed and signed the kid’s guitar while chatting with him for a while. Daiz introduced the whole Surfrider crew to Jack and Donavon, who is incredibly nice. G. Love was hammered and provided endless entertainment as he wheeled around the party with a beer in hand and his trucker hat pulled low over rather red eyes. Apparently, when Daiz was trying to round up the guys for a group picture G Love tried to get her to take him home with us to go in the hot tub. Hee! Jack is super-patient and a really nice guy as well.

There are pictures, so there’s evidence!! I’ll post those as soon as I get copies from Dex. There’s a group pic with all of Jack, G. Love and us as well as a single pic of Donavon and me. So exciting.

I also ran into an acquaintance from college who had befriended Starry, so we caught up and chatted for a while. After the party started breaking up, Daiz and I decided that we weren’t tired, so we went to the Grove, a club in downtown Bend, where we danced our asses off until we closed the place. J-Doc showed up for a little while, and Mate stayed the whole time, much to our surprise. We determined that we were not sober enough to drive, so we walked around, determined that we still weren’t sober enough to drive and pressed our new friends into service as one of them hadn’t been drinking. We went back to the house to hot-tub and sleep. Needless to say, waking up wasn’t high on the list of priorities.

I got back to PDX late on Saturday night and helped Speedy move back to Eugene all morning Sunday with our dad. I think I covered half the damned state this weekend and I’m still tired.

I’m also obsessed with the Garden State soundtrack that I purchased on Saturday. I love the Shins right now. Not healthy!!!

Quote of the Day: “It's a luscious mix of words and tricks/That let us bet when you know we should fold/On rocks i dreamt of where we'd stepped/And the whole mess of roads we're now on.” Caring is Creepy, The Shins.