JEB (and me!) in NYC!!! (so here's part 2!)

[Bjørn Ciggaar <ciggaar@warande.net>]

Hi,

Leaving from Vermont was hectic, I almost missed my flight. Seeing the 
mountains from the sky was amazing, and of course Manhattan is also very 
impressive from up above.

The Who-fans reunited, the Starcke-brothers ("I got lost in the back 
streets"), Derick ("easy going guy") & Magik ("long live rock").
We made it to BB Kings and we made it up front! Actually for all 4 shows we 
where sitting at the table right in front of Godfrey Townsend, and right in 
front of the sub woofer. That table is now to be called the party table 
(throughout the show we made sure that we had plenty of those $6 beers).
Overall, BB King's is a nice place. Very nice. And that's what you pay for.

The shows at BB King's where different to the others. Quality-wise they 
where very good, but I missed the pogo-ing wild audience of Vermont (even 
though at times the party table was pogo-ing, probably because of the sub 
woofer or of us guys hopping around on our chairs).
The sets where short as well, since they where doing 2 shows a night. For 
me it just seemed like one big show. I cannot really remember any details 
of what happened when (but hey, the whole thing got taped on video, so I'll 
see it back). So here's the list of stuff I remembered from during the shows:

* HAD ENOUGH: Saying that this song started out with "ba-da-bing" was a 
routine, so I yelled out "ba-da-bing!" when they introduced it. Steve said 
that he liked my Norwegian accent saying "baaah-daaah-bynnng". John looked 
at me and said "He's Dutch!". So that's where I got introduced to the 
audience as Bjorn "Ba-da-bing" Ciggaar. :-)
* HEAVEN AND HELL: John introduced this as a song about where you go after 
you die. I shouted out "THE NETHERLANDS!". John said something like: "The 
Netherlands? That's just a small and flat country full of stoned people!". 
:-) Godfrey asked if he could stay at my place when he'd visit Holland, I 
said 'sure'. Now this song really rocked all of the times I heard it.
* TRICK OF THE LIGHT: John turning to some kids in the audience and saying: 
"Now this is a song about a lady of the night, do you know what that is? 
Mark (or was it Mike?) at the party table shouted out: "Yeah! That's where 
my babies came from!". :-) Godfrey laughed and said he asked to be reminded 
never to take his mother to one of these shows.
* SHAKING ALL OVER: During the solo John grabbed a fly out of the sky. And 
just kept on solo-ing. At the last show, John even WALKED UP TO THE CENTER 
OF THE STAGE! He moved! He moved! He moved!!!
* LOVE IS A HEART ATTACK: This song, on the last night, really rocked. The 
pounding sound of the bass nearly gave *me* a heart attack and the 
screaming and crying guitar just went right through me. It was amazing! (my 
favourite song)
They didn't intend to play this song on the last night, but got together on 
stage and they DID do it!

And basically, the whole show rocked. And I'm telling you, there was a lot 
of energy at that party table. When anyone of the JEB replied to our 
bantering, we gave high fives, we praised the band and jumped up after 
every song!

And after the concerts. In John's graciousness, he invited ALL the people 
that where waiting for him at the backstage entry to come to his dressing 
room, because he did not wanted to go out of it. :-) So everybody queued up 
and came in and John signed autographs, let them take pictures, etc. He 
even signed the table cloth (I GOT IT!!!).

Damn, I should've nicked the party table too! :-)

And after all was over we all went to Magik's house and had a big party and 
set fire to the house (WE REALLY DID!!!!!!!!!!!).

I guess I must've forgotten some things... It was wild, it was crazy. 
Beside the first Christmas concert at SBE, last night at BB King's (last 
show) was my absolute favourite gig I ever been to...

Long live rock,

Bjørn Ciggaar
http://www.warande.net/~ciggaar

"You're all fucking stupid!"
- Pete Townshend (MSG, 7th of October)