The boys in Hot Tuna made their annual trek to the "Cabooze" in Minneapolis on Monday, December 8th. It seems like every time "Tuna" comes to town it snows. In November of 1996 not only did it snow, it was near blizzard conditions. But a Tuna show is usually well worth the weather aggravation.
Minneapolis and St. Paul have had a number of nicknames over the years. Some good, some bad, some cute, some nasty. But back in 1991, the twin cities, particularly Minneapolis was known as "the city of champions". The twins won the world series, the Superbowl was in town (Buffalo lost another one), the NCAA Basketball Final 4 was in town and the NCAA Hockey Final 4 was in St. Paul.
At one point a national sports announcer said "If it's a championship game we must be in Minneapolis."
So with Hot Tuna visiting Minneapolis, I view the snow and the band as a phenomena that must happen once a year. Thus, "If it's snowing, Hot Tuna must be in town." Well it may have been snowing outside, but it was warm and comfy inside. However, a storm of a different nature was about to brew on Cedar Avenue this night.
The Cabooze is a small club near the west bank of the University of Minnesota that is used primarily for live shows. It probably could hold upwards to 700 but 500 or so is a packed house. For this
show we arrived at about 7:30 even if the doors didn't open until 8:00.
Yes, we did get cold and wet but it is worth it to get prime seats.
Usually a friend, on the 2400 Fulton Email List, and I make the trek through the snow and cold for the show. This year the little woman told me she wanted to go too. This is unusual because she usually views my musical tastes as retro and eccentric.
Once inside we realized the only folks there were... us, the band and a variety of tapers setting up their equipment. But then again the music wasn't to start until 9:30. We milled around, had a couple bumps and checked out the tuna merchandise for sale. At the merchandise area I found Harvey Colman (Tuna's Road Manager). We chatted a bit and then I probably spent too much money on Tuna stuff. But hey, what the hell, it's Christmas time and I need to buy presents anyway. I did want to ask him how much he wanted for his tour jacket but thought the better of it. Then Mike and Harvey S strolled into the club and chatted with the ever increasing crowd. By now it was about 9:30 and the crowd was getting anxious.
The boys came on stage about 9:45, Harvey Colman made one of his now famous introductions and voila the music and the magic started. The guys opened up with "Fools Blues" and the crowd went nuts. The crowd at this time had pretty much packed the place and of course everyone wanted to be up front, stage center. Given our party has joined the "greying of america" bunch we picked seats stage left because we knew our aging feet could not stand all night, not to mention fight the crowd. These seats were just below Pete and Jack, which my friends was a great decision.
From "Fools Blues" the band went into "Walkin' Blues" and "Hesitation
Blues". While Jorma's guitar playing was, as usual, exemplary, Jack's
bass solo's stole the hearts from the crowd. The guys were ON tonight. While the whole band cooked, Jack owned the 1st set. He gave the eye brow smile, and wandered back and forth on stage, gave us extended bass solo's and just took over on "Good Shepherd" and "99 Year Blues".
The 1st set ended with "Hit Single #1" which warned us of things to come.
Jorma had changed to the red guitar, turned up the volume and drove the crowd into a frenzy. During the break the little woman says to me "That Casady guy is good." That Casady guy? Good? I told her some people refer to Jack as God and good is a classic understatement, taking care not to sound to pretentious. After all she is a tuna novice. She was amazed by how Jorma handled the electric guitar. She had seen Jorma perform acoustically during the Guitar Summit but had never seen tuna perform before. Also she has at times wondered aloud why in my first marriage I named my son Jorma lo 22 years ago. She now understands.
The 2nd set opened kind of laid back with "Death Don't Have No Mercy" and
"Do Not Go Gentle". But the boys were just teasing us. Things were going to heat up shortly. "Been So Long" was the kindling and this set everyone was taking extended solo's. Pete on Keyboards, Mike on a few vocals, Jorma on guitar, Jack and even Harvey had a drum solo.
While the 1st set basically belonged to Jack, the 2nd set belonged to Jorma and Pete. The band did some great jams and Pete, Jack and Jorma played some great solo's. I'd swear I saw smoke coming out of Pete's keyboard during "Ode To Billy Dean" and "Dark Train". Of course it could have been my cigarette but I choose to believe Pete had the keyboard smokin'. The set ended with "Funky #7" and Jack taking it on home. The crowd was pumped at this point and disappointed it had all come to an end. The guys didn't frustrate the crowd long though. They came back and played their version of "Friend Of The Devil" as the encore with Mike on vocals, which was a fitting end to the evening.
The show lasted about 2 1/2 hours and topped last years show which I
thought was excellent. So I guess this was excellent plus? We all went
home overwhelmed by the music and the little woman is now a Tuna fan. She even had the audacity to meddle with my tape collection and pull out some of my tuna tapes. She wanted to hear more of Jorma's electric guitar playing and "that Casady guy". Just when you think you know someone. O.K. here is the set list.
SET 1
Fools Blues
Walkin' Blues
Hesitation Blues
I See the Light
Embryonic Journey
Good Shepherd
99 Year Blues
Ice Age
Home of the Blues
Gypsy Fire
Hit Single #1
SET 2
Death Don't Have No Mercy
Do No Go Gentle
How Long Blues
Been So Long
Uncle Sam's Blues
I am The Light
Parchment Farm
San Francisco Bay Blues
Water Song
It's Just My Way
Ode To Billy Dean
Dark Train
Funky #7
ENCORE
Friend of the Devil
The Band
Jorma Kaukonen ~ Lead Guitar
Jack Casady ~ Bass Guitar
Michael Falzarano ~ Rhythm Guitar
Pete Sears ~ Keyboards
Harvey Sorgen ~ Drums
JW ANDERSON
ST. PAUL, MN
