Thursday, October 25, 2007

Wed Recap: Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter, Slender Means

After three days of 'fire blogging', I was in desperate need of getting out of my house. I suppose I should say that I live in a very central part of San Diego and was never in any major threat of fires. I know people who evacuated and in the past I'd volunteered for post-Katrina help at the Red Cross, but when I realized that every major government site was overloaded, I decided the best way I could contribute to the disaster of the firestorm was to post as much information as I could as fast as I could. I realized not everyone had the luxury of sitting in front of a tv while also accessing the internet.

Anyway, in no way do I feel like I should be rewarded or get the pat on the back, I'm just saying that blogging and web searching and posting information is something that I'm good at and if I'm gonna sit here with six browser tabs open, I might as well repost information to people who might be looking for it. So that's what I did.

Starting Monday morning and following my friend Cat Dirt's lead, I began to post. And then I became obsessed. And the more hits I got, the more I felt a responsibility to post info as I got it. And that's what I did with a couple naps, a few hours sleep, and a couple breaks in between.

Suddenly I realized I'd not left my house since Saturday. It was nice of Kevin to call this morning and we had a coffee break for a while this morning. And when I found out that the Rocky Votolato show was still on at the Casbah tonight, I was itching to get out of the house.

And so I did.

I arrived shortly after Slender Means took the stage. I didn't take any pics of the band, but they were really great. Rocky's brother is in the 5 piece band and listening to their mix, I knew it had to be Jake on sound because they sounded perfect. I especially loved when the 3 guys up front joined in melodies and harmonies. I watched the band from right up front as well as from the patio because there was some catching up to do with Cullen.

Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter were great as well. I was here for diversion from all the shit happening to San Diego at the moment, but when Jesse commented, "I'm sure some of you are affected, or have friends and family that are affected by these fires, and truly, my heart goes out to all of you" and then played "The Air Is Thin", it hit me a little harder than I expected. As she repeated "oh, the air is thin" in her Grace Slick voice, it just hit kinda heavy. In a way, I wish she'd not mentioned the fires at all, because this was my escape, but in another deeper way, I was so glad she did. If you've not heard her magical voice, check it out here.

I have to say, despite this blog being a one way conversation, I have felt close to everyone who has taken the time to click here. But even more, getting out and being with friends and seeing my all time favorite musician made me feel something that is beyond words. So with that, Rocky Votolato gets a separate post...

1 comment:

Wendy said...

Hi Rosemary -
This is Wendy from the American Red Cross. I've been reading your site over the past few days and would love to chat with you at some point about volunteering to blog for us in the future.
If you're interested, get in touch with me at HarmanW@usa.redcross.org