firstly, i apologize to everyone who came to the show and was turned away. or called ahead and found it was cancelled and didn’t show. i would like to preface all of this by saying we never cancelled the show. the club was calling it a cancellation before we knew anything.

last night we were schedule to perform at the hard rock cafe in downtown cleveland ohio. about an hour outside cleveland, T received a call from a friend who had just arrived at the club. the show has been cancelled–president george w. bush was in town, was preparing to give a speech, and was staying downtown. the roads had been closed, show’s off. we called the club to confirm. they said simply “there is no way there’s going to be a show tonight.” we had been bushwhacked. ambushed. “that does it. i’m going to vote.” said T. i said “it’s really amazing how quickly politics starts to effect you on a personal level as you get older”.

at this point, most bands would have turned around. tossed up their hands. threw in the towel. chucked up the sponge. resigned.

(i mean no disrespect to Embassy, the other band scheduled to appear. when i say most bands, i am speaking in a general sense, and i mean honestly that most bands are more rational than we are.)

not this band.

we had driven three and a half hours through rain and traffic, and dammit we were not about to turn around without playing some music. at times like these, it is the spirit of Clark Griswold who guides me and gives me strength. “Clark, i beseech you. fill me with your unwavering desire and ability to make fun out of tragedy, laughter out of sadness, hope out of dark, and most of all family togetherness out of confusion and impending disaster.”

We rolled in around 8:00pm and found a parking spot on the flats. that was really as close as we could get a van and trailer to downtown. we walked through the rainy blue streets to Huron St., where the hard rock overlooks the water. here we were met by barricades, police and secret service officers. the police were wonderfully laid-back, and told us we could load-in the trailer if the secret service was cool with it. “what do they look like?” asked T. “have you seen Men in Black?” said the cop. they pointed to cruiser.

here is T talking with two female secret service officers sitting in a police car. they told him we could walk on up the road.

we walked about a half-a-block and realized we were the only civilians on the whole street.

there was a secret service guy standing every 100 feet or so, all up the street, under awnings. the first one we came to was very concerned about our presence, and asked lots of questions. he had an ear-piece and a wrist microphone, naturally. and probably a gun. he was very high strung. at this point i stopped taking photographs. he told us we actually could load-in, as long as we brought the van and trailer around to the other side of the street, and took the gear out while we were still outside of their “safe zone”. we would have to roll the gear into the club from there. “how long will it take you?” he asked. “about fourty five minutes”. his eyes flickered, “that’s too long. after 9:30 this street is ours.” It was all moot anyway–the hard rock had called off the show hours before hand, i am guessing without much discussion with the secret service.

we arrived at the club to find no sound system and no sound guy. just some caution tape, a bunch of confused friends and fans, and a sign on the door that read “Due to uncontrollable circumstances, tonights appearance of JFK…” and so on. the hard rock was open, however, and the employees were all super nice and even apologetic.

while we were coming up with a contingency plan, Dan snapped this photo:

and just in case you missed it at the top of the page, this is the Bush Cheney bus passing by the Hard Rock sign. i don’t know how dan timed this, but it is priceless. kind of sums up the evening.

the hard rock is in tower city, the same building as the ritz carlton where bush was sleeping. hence all the fuss. here is the hotel, then if you turn your head slightly, here is trav and i standing outside the hr. the rest of the mall and the block was closed down.

this is getting long. the important thing, is that the hard rock let us play acoustic at the downstairs level. fortunately, Lili, AJ, and Mikey were all on their way to the show, and happened to have acoustic guitars with them. Dan and Drew walked to the van to get the djembe drum.

we played a totally unplugged, free, hour-long show for a full room. it was nice, intimate, laid-back, and cool.

we all had a good time. Clark would have been proud.
the moral of the story, of course, is that
not even the president of the united states can shut down a JFK show.

see you tonight at the madison!

rock and roll
joe