Dr. Dog

From Fo’: “You had to be there”

May 5th, 2010

Dr. Dog has long employed a relaxed photo & video policy at shows, and as a result, it’s pretty easy to find video of the band on YouTube. The band loves the enthusiasm. All of us understand the thrill of sharing bootleg concert videos with friends.

Of course management sometimes thinks a little differently, and prefers that fans not film the shows because the video & audio quality is usually poor, and we want everyone at the show to enjoy the experience as it’s happening & not have their view blocked by a camera.

That’s why Portland was extra special. The day started out well with a smooth load-in & sound-check, with a couple venue dogs roaming the ballroom floor looking for someone to play fetch with.

Scott & Dimitri did their daily art-store run & set up their hat-making operation outside the venue with Frank & Slick while Toby worked on his NY Times crossword & Zach played acoustic guitar.

Doors opened, fans started filing in & the show commenced. As Pepi Ginsberg & Sean Bones played, the crowd swelled with anticipation & the tempature rose inside the venue. Everything was primed for a great show & when the band hit the stage, everything clicked and they knocked it out of the park.

I was so drawn into the show that I even switched my merch lights off to prevent light pollution from interfering with our new light show, which is a spectacle all by itself.

When the band came back for the encore, Toby announced that they needed Brucie on stage. Brucie is our guitar tech, so that usually means something is going wrong, but on this night the band needed another acoustic guitar to play a song they’ve been practicing at sound-check all tour, and they also needed someone to play it, so Brucie got the call.

Toby said, “Brucie has never played this song before, and neither have we, so we’ll see how this goes”

I recognized the melody from the merch-table in the back of the room, and I smiled and involuntarily whooped in happiness, along with 800 other fans. Earlier in the night, I peeked at the set-list and didn’t see “Heart it Races” so this was a surprise to me as well.

As I surveyed the crowd, I didn’t see any LCD displays lighting up to film the song, I just saw a crowd singing and dancing along. On this particular night, as Scott likes to say, “you had to be there.”

See ya on tour,

Forrest