Chapter 26 - KONOCTI HARBOR
Dan was
booked into Caesar's Palace for two nights and we had a couple
of really great performances. The second day was a real pleasure.
I could sleep in late; spend a leisurely afternoon outdoors
and when it was time to go to sound check, I could just take
an elevator instead of a tour bus to get there. With no traveling
to do, it was a perfect combination of a day off and a concert
night. It was also a chance to get some rest in preparation
for what was coming next.
Our next
gig was at a resort named Konocti Harbor. Konocti! It sounds
like a Jewish American Indian with a name like Myron Two-Feathers
may have named it. Maybe it means 'place of many tourists'
or 'lake of many jet skis', who knows. Anyway, the resort
is located at the edge of Clear Lake, in northern California,
which was only 223 miles away from Caesar's. It seemed simple
enough, right? But what we didn't know was that it was going
to take us all day to get there.
Of course,
we knew we had to come out of Lake Tahoe on the same agonizingly
slow serpentine route that brought us in. But we didn't realize
until we had completed our trek over the Sierras and down
into the Sacramento valley, that we would soon be doing the
whole thing all over again in reverse, except now we would
be driving on a winding two-lane black asphalt snake through
the Coastal mountain range to reach Clear Lake. So once again,
Jeff had to drive the land yacht at a snail's pace as we climbed
the Coastal range in search of the world famous Konocti Harbor
resort. I guess I should have taken seasick pills but the
only thing handy at the time was Gin & Tonic. You know
what they say, any port in a storm.
We arrived
in the late afternoon... the very late afternoon. We were
already pretty beat up from the long day's ride and we still
had a show to do that night. Like a few other times on the
tour, we walked straight out of the bus and on to the stage
for a sound check while Bernie checked us in. Fortunately,
there was enough time between the end of our sound check and
the beginning of dinner for a short nap. We were only going
to be in these rooms for a few hours because we would be leaving
right after the show and driving all the way to San Diego
for our next gig at Humphrey's. It was a drive of 589 miles
and it would put us in San Diego at about the same time we
had arrived in Konocti Harbor. This was going to be a tough
twenty-four hours. Of course the light at the end of this
tunnel was that once we got to Humphrey's we would have a
whole day off.
The last
time I'd played Konocti Harbor was when I was on tour with
my old group, 'Bread.' We were doing a twenty-fifth anniversary
world tour and Konocti was one of six dates we did in the
states. That was a few years back and I'd forgotten all about
the humongous drive required to get there but I did remember
the show room. It was more like a giant cabaret or dinner
theatre than a concert hall and it had two huge video screens
on either side of the stage. So in addition to a live concert
with great sound, the audience was treated to a live camera
feed on both screens during the performance. The audience
was loving it, especially the Dan fans, because the cameras
were providing amazing close ups of the show in real time.
Although it was a rather crowded stage and we were a little
fatigued, the band was tight and we had a great audience and
it turned out to be one of our best shows. I don't know where
the extra energy came from but we were burnin' that night.
And all too soon, we were back on the bus careening through
the mountains in the middle of the night like true road dogs.
As Zoot would say," it's martini time."