Turn those speakers up full blast, Play it all night long
Deer Tick and Friends after show Day 2 Recap
So we made pretty good time once again getting out of the lot, but the show was starting much earlier Sunday night, so we didn’t get there until quite a bit after the first performer, which was Robert Ellis, was scheduled to start. There was a line to go in when we got there and quite a few people were already inside. They must have left the fest early. So as we were in line we saw most of the Dawes guys walk by us. We also saw the two Daves from Trampled by Turtles hanging out outside and I think one of the guys from The Apache Relay. We could hear Robert inside still playing, so we hadn’t totally missed him. So we walk in the door and right there, like not even a foot from the door is John McCauley watching Robert play. It was like oh, hello John! Haha The floor was a bit packed, but we got an ok spot. And we lucked out because even though we missed most of Robert’s set of his own songs (which was ok since we just saw him Saturday) we got to hear him do 3 Paul Simon covers! I’m a huge Paul Simon fan, so I got super excited. Griffin joined him on drums and this harmonica player who I believe is from Joe Fletcher and the Wrong Reasons played too and he was awesome. So they did “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”, “ Still Crazy After All These Years”, and “Graceland.” When Robert started “Still Crazy” I turned to Kelly and was like John should get up there!- because Deer Tick has an amazing cover of that song. Well what do you know a few seconds later up comes John to sing on it with him. I was like omg I made that happen. lol
John and Robert singing "Still Crazy After All These Years"
Harmonica guy
"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"
So then we were waiting for Jackson Browne to come on next and trying to contend with all the annoying drunk people around us. Like one girl who kept telling her tall dude friend to come stand with her and he goes I don’t want to block their view and points at us. She then goes what, you care more about them than me. It was awkward. Like dude, don’t bring us into your drama. So as we’re standing there “dancing” to the 50sish music to keep moving because our feet and backs were killing us and standing still was more painful suddenly this guy comes through in front of us and brushes past us. Like his jacket touched my arm. And I suddenly realize- oh it’s Taylor! He was taking this girl over to John McCauley and then he rushed back by. He didn’t see us though because Taylor sometimes has tunnel vision or something. Haha He wasn’t ignoring us he just wasn’t really looking around at anyone. So after a way too long wait (which seemed to be a theme with Jackson ha) Jackson finally comes up and he has Sara and Sean Watkins with him and his guitarist and the bassist who’d been with him and Sara at the fest. So they did “Redneck Friend” and Warren Zevon’s “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” They also at some point did a cover of Zevon’s “Carmelita”, which was funny because Deer Tick had just done that at the Saturday night show. So then he calls up Dawes and Jonathan Wilson and they do another Zevon song, “Play it All Night Long” (which I’d heard Dawes sound checking in Cleveland earlier that week). John McCauley also came up and sang on it and shared a mic with Taylor. Jackson sang the first verse, and then John sang one during which Jackson was grinning at him, and then Jonathan sang a verse. And everyone sang on the choruses of course. So they might have done like one more song after that- I forget and then Jackson went off stage. Everyone was cheering and so he came back to do one more song on piano. We couldn’t see him at this point because he was sitting down, but we could see on the screens they have set up, so that was cool. Well so he was sound checking for a few minutes and since he’d been on guitar before the piano wasn’t up that high. So Taylor comes up to the mic and goes Jackson’s gonna be on the piano, so turn that shit uuuuuppppp. Kelly and I were like, oh goodness. Everyone cheered after that, so Taylor, clearly pleased with himself, then repeats it. Kelly then turns to me and is like someone’s a little tipsy. He wasn’t like fall over drunk and I think it was partially excitement and having fun, but yeah it was a sort of different side of Taylor than we’d seen. He then goes and we’ve got Griffin fucking Goldsmith on drums. Oh Taylor. So finally they’re ready and then Jackson did “The Pretender” and dedicated it to everyone who had to go back to work the next day.
Jackson
John and Taylor singing on "Play it All Night Long"
"Play It All Night Long"
After this it was supposed to be Deer Tick, but then Jonathan Wilson did a couple of his songs, including this rad one called “Trials of Jonathan” and that was neat since I ended up not seeing him at the festival earlier in the day.
Jonathan Wilson
So then it was time for the main event- Deer Tick doing War Elephant in its entirety! It ended up being super cool and we got to hear some songs that we’ve never heard live/that they rarely play. Some highlights were “Ashamed” of course because singing along to that live is the best thing ever, “These Old Shoes”, which is also super fun to sing along to and John did the thing where during the line about “a priest and a clown” he points at Chris for the priest and Ian for the clown and then he also plays a bit of the “Superstitious” riff at the end, “Dirty Dishes”, which was done partially a capella (Kelly had been hoping to hear it that way, so she was super psyched), “Art Isn’t Real (City of Sin)”, which is one of my favorite DT songs, “Diamond Rings 2007”, which John did solo and which he seemed to give a lot of emotional weight too- like it just sounded great, and “Spend the Night” during which John made eyes at people in the front rows. Oh also by this time we’d moved over closer to the door and more to the very side of the stage and there were a lot of short people over there, so we had an even better view than before. “Christ Jesus” was also awesome and that’s one of my most fave DT songs as well. Before one of the songs (I forget which) John was like we haven’t played this one in awhile and Ian and I need to practice the guitar parts one more time and they proceeded to do so. The last song on the album is a cover of Sammy Davis Jr’s song “What Kind of Fool Am I” (we actually didn’t know this until Kelly’s mom told us when we got back. But I had commented when we were listening to the album in the car on the drive there that it sounded like John doing Frank Sinatra) and John put his guitar away and just sang while Rob played piano. John called it Deer Tick karaoke hour. Haha But it sounded super rad btw- John has such a great and interesting voice.
So we’d thought the sound curfew was midnight and we didn’t think they’d have much time to do anything else after doing War Elephant, but turns out it was still 1 am even on Sunday, so John goes, “Now that that’s over, let’s do some more stuff!” So they then did stuff like “The Bump”, “Let’s All Go to the Bar”, “Clownin” (Noooo...), two of Ian’s songs (Walkin’ out the Door and Now It’s Your Turn I believe), and more. Before one of Ian’s songs John started playing the guitar riffs from the Bad Finger song “Without You” and then they broke into a hilarious overdramatic rendition of the chorus. So then at one point a few of the DT guys left the stage and Ian sat down on an amp next to Dennis who chilled at his drum set and John goes, “Is Taylor Goldsmith here?” Kelly and I were like OMG (As I think you’ve gotten by now is our usual reaction to Taylor appearing. Haha) So he comes up and they start doing one of John’s Middle Brother contributions, “Daydreaming.” I couldn’t believe it- I think Kelly and I had at one point that weekend said that we hoped he would do that song. It’s such a gorgeous song and Taylor and John were grinning at each other at different points and John was like “Thanks for coming up here buddy” to Taylor and then he also went “Take it buddy” before one Taylor’s guitar solos- so precious! Another song they did with a guest was a Titus Andronicus song with Julian from the band. Ian used to be in Titus Andronicus and Julian’s one of his best friends. I’m not familiar with TA’s catalog, but I really liked the song he did- it was kind of bluesy rock. So then they did a couple other Deer Tick songs I think and then John was like so let’s end this with our tradition we started last year and he calls up anybody who’s still there and so Robert Ellis comes up and then here comes Taylor again! He comes on stage and is like dancing around, which again is so un-Taylor and Kelly and I were like, oh boy. So John is explaining how Robert’s gonna take the first guitar solo and then he’ll pass his guitar off to Taylor for the second solo. After this is agreed upon John goes do you need anything Taylor- a tambourine? Well Taylor goes Yeah, I need a fuckin’ tambourine! Oh man. And he then proceeds to shake it in the air and stuff and then during the song he was just dancing around with it so much and like shaking it near John’s guitar while he was playing, and singing on John and Ian’s microphones- it was all super cute. And when I watched the video of it you can almost hear John laughing as he’s singing at first because he’s so amused by Taylor. And at one point Taylor turns and is “dancing” in front of Dennis’ drum set and Dennis is all serious drum face, but then he notices Taylor and smiles at him. So then Robert solos, but they don’t really do it how John planned because then Ian comes and gives Taylor his guitar. And then Taylor just rips into this blistering, incredible guitar solo. Like just a minute ago he was dancing around with a tambourine and being ridiculous and now he’s back to being Taylor the guitar god. And while he was playing Ian from TA runs up and he and Ian were like “worshipping” Taylor. It was so silly. And Jay Sweet, the proudcer of Newport Folk, ended up on stage too at some point- insane! And then the song seemed to be done, but Taylor like kept it going a bit instrumentally. He was so caught up in it. Then once they were finally done he and Ian hugged and he gave him his guitar back. And then it was over and John was like see you guys next year! And Kelly and I were like yep, you most certainly will. And then we were flailing all over about what we had just witnessed. We again tried to stick around to see if we could meet anybody, but no such luck. Robert Ellis walked past us, but that was about it. So then they were slowly kind of kicking everyone out, but I just had to use the rest room really quickly, so I left Kelly with my purse and hurried in there. There was a super drunk lady inside at the mirror and she was like I’m trying to fix myself up and I was like ok, but really I was like lady I think that’s a lost cause at this point. Haha
Dennis falling asleep at his drum set? lol
"What Kind of Fool Am I"
Julian from Titus Andronicus doing a song
"Daydreaming"
So cute!
"Dirty Dishes"
"Diamond Rings 2007"
"What Kind of Fool Am I?"
"Daydreaming"
"La Bamba"
Taylor in this whole video...I cannot.
Found a photo of me in the crowd- handy arrow again. Kelly's to the left of me just out of frame. We got up closer than this later as I said.
So then I went and re-joined Kelly and we headed out into the night, not quite believing that that whole wonderful weekend had really just happened. We were also dead tired and could barely stand, and a few times we dramatically stopped and joked go on without me, leave me here to die. haha But we made it to the car and since we’d had no time for dinner beforehand and had really only eaten snacks during the day we stopped at Taco Bell for some sustenance, and even though it was just crappy old Taco Bell it tasted like the best meal ever. We got back to the hotel and I uploaded pics and we looked at and fangirled over some of them and then crashed. We slept in until the last possible minute the next morning and then checked out of our hotel. We hit up our regular spot, Panera and then on the drive back to NY stopped at Newbury Comics in Connecticut. I got a Jonathan Wilson record store day exclusive 12”, Bright Eyes I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning on vinyl, and a Dexter sticker. We met up with Kelly’s parents at a diner for dinner once we made it back to NY and I had some tasty spanakopita and a delicious slice of chocolate crunch cake. And we regaled them with our stories from the weekend and they were very nice about listening to our rambles. Back at the house we showed Kelly’s mom some of the photos and then we sat around and looked at pics and recaps that were popping up from the weekend online and even had a few minutes of dying laughing at some “sad Skrillex” meme I found. Then we crashed.
The plan had been to go to NYC the next day before my flight, but there really wasn’t going to be that much time, so we had abandoned that. And so we basically just slept in, then got bagels (which I ended up eating un-toasted like a real New Yorker, simply because I assumed they just automatically did that when they didn’t ask me haha), and hit the road to LaGuardia, since it’s about two hours from her house. We did drive past Jones Beach, so that was cool. And then we said out good byes and I was on my way home. There was some weirdness with my boarding pass I printed off not scanning right and then I had to take my suitcase over to the like hand checking place, but finally I was on my way. My flight was just to Philly and so it was a very small plane and we walked onto the runway and up the stairs to the plane. And then proceeded to have to sit on the runway some because of traffic backups or something. At the Philly airport I had to take a shuttle over to my terminal and then I got some Mexican food for dinner and texted with Kelly and got online for a few minutes. Also it was funny because this cute guy I’d seen on the shuttle came over to the same waiting area as me after awhile and sat two seats down from me even though there were lots of seats around. Then when I was boarding I gave the lady my pass to scan and started walking and she called me back suddenly and was like miss, what’s your last name? I told her and then she didn’t really say anything else and I was like, um can I go? There were some like ground control guys standing there and they told me to go on. But that was strange. Who knows? Well then we get on the plane and because of weather elsewhere in PA we have to sit there on the runway again. At this point it’s like I know the weekend was awesome and I don’t really want to go home, but I want to go home! So I used the time to scribble down more notes for this recap. And then finally I made it back to Indy exhausted, but extremely happy. So yeah that’s the story of the best weekend ever to happen to me. I wish I could just re-live it over and over because it was so perfect.
So we made pretty good time once again getting out of the lot, but the show was starting much earlier Sunday night, so we didn’t get there until quite a bit after the first performer, which was Robert Ellis, was scheduled to start. There was a line to go in when we got there and quite a few people were already inside. They must have left the fest early. So as we were in line we saw most of the Dawes guys walk by us. We also saw the two Daves from Trampled by Turtles hanging out outside and I think one of the guys from The Apache Relay. We could hear Robert inside still playing, so we hadn’t totally missed him. So we walk in the door and right there, like not even a foot from the door is John McCauley watching Robert play. It was like oh, hello John! Haha The floor was a bit packed, but we got an ok spot. And we lucked out because even though we missed most of Robert’s set of his own songs (which was ok since we just saw him Saturday) we got to hear him do 3 Paul Simon covers! I’m a huge Paul Simon fan, so I got super excited. Griffin joined him on drums and this harmonica player who I believe is from Joe Fletcher and the Wrong Reasons played too and he was awesome. So they did “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”, “ Still Crazy After All These Years”, and “Graceland.” When Robert started “Still Crazy” I turned to Kelly and was like John should get up there!- because Deer Tick has an amazing cover of that song. Well what do you know a few seconds later up comes John to sing on it with him. I was like omg I made that happen. lol
John and Robert singing "Still Crazy After All These Years"
Harmonica guy
Click to view"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"
So then we were waiting for Jackson Browne to come on next and trying to contend with all the annoying drunk people around us. Like one girl who kept telling her tall dude friend to come stand with her and he goes I don’t want to block their view and points at us. She then goes what, you care more about them than me. It was awkward. Like dude, don’t bring us into your drama. So as we’re standing there “dancing” to the 50sish music to keep moving because our feet and backs were killing us and standing still was more painful suddenly this guy comes through in front of us and brushes past us. Like his jacket touched my arm. And I suddenly realize- oh it’s Taylor! He was taking this girl over to John McCauley and then he rushed back by. He didn’t see us though because Taylor sometimes has tunnel vision or something. Haha He wasn’t ignoring us he just wasn’t really looking around at anyone. So after a way too long wait (which seemed to be a theme with Jackson ha) Jackson finally comes up and he has Sara and Sean Watkins with him and his guitarist and the bassist who’d been with him and Sara at the fest. So they did “Redneck Friend” and Warren Zevon’s “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” They also at some point did a cover of Zevon’s “Carmelita”, which was funny because Deer Tick had just done that at the Saturday night show. So then he calls up Dawes and Jonathan Wilson and they do another Zevon song, “Play it All Night Long” (which I’d heard Dawes sound checking in Cleveland earlier that week). John McCauley also came up and sang on it and shared a mic with Taylor. Jackson sang the first verse, and then John sang one during which Jackson was grinning at him, and then Jonathan sang a verse. And everyone sang on the choruses of course. So they might have done like one more song after that- I forget and then Jackson went off stage. Everyone was cheering and so he came back to do one more song on piano. We couldn’t see him at this point because he was sitting down, but we could see on the screens they have set up, so that was cool. Well so he was sound checking for a few minutes and since he’d been on guitar before the piano wasn’t up that high. So Taylor comes up to the mic and goes Jackson’s gonna be on the piano, so turn that shit uuuuuppppp. Kelly and I were like, oh goodness. Everyone cheered after that, so Taylor, clearly pleased with himself, then repeats it. Kelly then turns to me and is like someone’s a little tipsy. He wasn’t like fall over drunk and I think it was partially excitement and having fun, but yeah it was a sort of different side of Taylor than we’d seen. He then goes and we’ve got Griffin fucking Goldsmith on drums. Oh Taylor. So finally they’re ready and then Jackson did “The Pretender” and dedicated it to everyone who had to go back to work the next day.
Jackson
John and Taylor singing on "Play it All Night Long"
"Play It All Night Long"
After this it was supposed to be Deer Tick, but then Jonathan Wilson did a couple of his songs, including this rad one called “Trials of Jonathan” and that was neat since I ended up not seeing him at the festival earlier in the day.
Jonathan Wilson
So then it was time for the main event- Deer Tick doing War Elephant in its entirety! It ended up being super cool and we got to hear some songs that we’ve never heard live/that they rarely play. Some highlights were “Ashamed” of course because singing along to that live is the best thing ever, “These Old Shoes”, which is also super fun to sing along to and John did the thing where during the line about “a priest and a clown” he points at Chris for the priest and Ian for the clown and then he also plays a bit of the “Superstitious” riff at the end, “Dirty Dishes”, which was done partially a capella (Kelly had been hoping to hear it that way, so she was super psyched), “Art Isn’t Real (City of Sin)”, which is one of my favorite DT songs, “Diamond Rings 2007”, which John did solo and which he seemed to give a lot of emotional weight too- like it just sounded great, and “Spend the Night” during which John made eyes at people in the front rows. Oh also by this time we’d moved over closer to the door and more to the very side of the stage and there were a lot of short people over there, so we had an even better view than before. “Christ Jesus” was also awesome and that’s one of my most fave DT songs as well. Before one of the songs (I forget which) John was like we haven’t played this one in awhile and Ian and I need to practice the guitar parts one more time and they proceeded to do so. The last song on the album is a cover of Sammy Davis Jr’s song “What Kind of Fool Am I” (we actually didn’t know this until Kelly’s mom told us when we got back. But I had commented when we were listening to the album in the car on the drive there that it sounded like John doing Frank Sinatra) and John put his guitar away and just sang while Rob played piano. John called it Deer Tick karaoke hour. Haha But it sounded super rad btw- John has such a great and interesting voice.
So we’d thought the sound curfew was midnight and we didn’t think they’d have much time to do anything else after doing War Elephant, but turns out it was still 1 am even on Sunday, so John goes, “Now that that’s over, let’s do some more stuff!” So they then did stuff like “The Bump”, “Let’s All Go to the Bar”, “Clownin” (Noooo...), two of Ian’s songs (Walkin’ out the Door and Now It’s Your Turn I believe), and more. Before one of Ian’s songs John started playing the guitar riffs from the Bad Finger song “Without You” and then they broke into a hilarious overdramatic rendition of the chorus. So then at one point a few of the DT guys left the stage and Ian sat down on an amp next to Dennis who chilled at his drum set and John goes, “Is Taylor Goldsmith here?” Kelly and I were like OMG (As I think you’ve gotten by now is our usual reaction to Taylor appearing. Haha) So he comes up and they start doing one of John’s Middle Brother contributions, “Daydreaming.” I couldn’t believe it- I think Kelly and I had at one point that weekend said that we hoped he would do that song. It’s such a gorgeous song and Taylor and John were grinning at each other at different points and John was like “Thanks for coming up here buddy” to Taylor and then he also went “Take it buddy” before one Taylor’s guitar solos- so precious! Another song they did with a guest was a Titus Andronicus song with Julian from the band. Ian used to be in Titus Andronicus and Julian’s one of his best friends. I’m not familiar with TA’s catalog, but I really liked the song he did- it was kind of bluesy rock. So then they did a couple other Deer Tick songs I think and then John was like so let’s end this with our tradition we started last year and he calls up anybody who’s still there and so Robert Ellis comes up and then here comes Taylor again! He comes on stage and is like dancing around, which again is so un-Taylor and Kelly and I were like, oh boy. So John is explaining how Robert’s gonna take the first guitar solo and then he’ll pass his guitar off to Taylor for the second solo. After this is agreed upon John goes do you need anything Taylor- a tambourine? Well Taylor goes Yeah, I need a fuckin’ tambourine! Oh man. And he then proceeds to shake it in the air and stuff and then during the song he was just dancing around with it so much and like shaking it near John’s guitar while he was playing, and singing on John and Ian’s microphones- it was all super cute. And when I watched the video of it you can almost hear John laughing as he’s singing at first because he’s so amused by Taylor. And at one point Taylor turns and is “dancing” in front of Dennis’ drum set and Dennis is all serious drum face, but then he notices Taylor and smiles at him. So then Robert solos, but they don’t really do it how John planned because then Ian comes and gives Taylor his guitar. And then Taylor just rips into this blistering, incredible guitar solo. Like just a minute ago he was dancing around with a tambourine and being ridiculous and now he’s back to being Taylor the guitar god. And while he was playing Ian from TA runs up and he and Ian were like “worshipping” Taylor. It was so silly. And Jay Sweet, the proudcer of Newport Folk, ended up on stage too at some point- insane! And then the song seemed to be done, but Taylor like kept it going a bit instrumentally. He was so caught up in it. Then once they were finally done he and Ian hugged and he gave him his guitar back. And then it was over and John was like see you guys next year! And Kelly and I were like yep, you most certainly will. And then we were flailing all over about what we had just witnessed. We again tried to stick around to see if we could meet anybody, but no such luck. Robert Ellis walked past us, but that was about it. So then they were slowly kind of kicking everyone out, but I just had to use the rest room really quickly, so I left Kelly with my purse and hurried in there. There was a super drunk lady inside at the mirror and she was like I’m trying to fix myself up and I was like ok, but really I was like lady I think that’s a lost cause at this point. Haha
Dennis falling asleep at his drum set? lol
"What Kind of Fool Am I"
Julian from Titus Andronicus doing a song
"Daydreaming"
So cute!
"Dirty Dishes"
"Diamond Rings 2007"
"What Kind of Fool Am I?"
"Daydreaming"
"La Bamba"
Taylor in this whole video...I cannot.
Found a photo of me in the crowd- handy arrow again. Kelly's to the left of me just out of frame. We got up closer than this later as I said.
So then I went and re-joined Kelly and we headed out into the night, not quite believing that that whole wonderful weekend had really just happened. We were also dead tired and could barely stand, and a few times we dramatically stopped and joked go on without me, leave me here to die. haha But we made it to the car and since we’d had no time for dinner beforehand and had really only eaten snacks during the day we stopped at Taco Bell for some sustenance, and even though it was just crappy old Taco Bell it tasted like the best meal ever. We got back to the hotel and I uploaded pics and we looked at and fangirled over some of them and then crashed. We slept in until the last possible minute the next morning and then checked out of our hotel. We hit up our regular spot, Panera and then on the drive back to NY stopped at Newbury Comics in Connecticut. I got a Jonathan Wilson record store day exclusive 12”, Bright Eyes I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning on vinyl, and a Dexter sticker. We met up with Kelly’s parents at a diner for dinner once we made it back to NY and I had some tasty spanakopita and a delicious slice of chocolate crunch cake. And we regaled them with our stories from the weekend and they were very nice about listening to our rambles. Back at the house we showed Kelly’s mom some of the photos and then we sat around and looked at pics and recaps that were popping up from the weekend online and even had a few minutes of dying laughing at some “sad Skrillex” meme I found. Then we crashed.
The plan had been to go to NYC the next day before my flight, but there really wasn’t going to be that much time, so we had abandoned that. And so we basically just slept in, then got bagels (which I ended up eating un-toasted like a real New Yorker, simply because I assumed they just automatically did that when they didn’t ask me haha), and hit the road to LaGuardia, since it’s about two hours from her house. We did drive past Jones Beach, so that was cool. And then we said out good byes and I was on my way home. There was some weirdness with my boarding pass I printed off not scanning right and then I had to take my suitcase over to the like hand checking place, but finally I was on my way. My flight was just to Philly and so it was a very small plane and we walked onto the runway and up the stairs to the plane. And then proceeded to have to sit on the runway some because of traffic backups or something. At the Philly airport I had to take a shuttle over to my terminal and then I got some Mexican food for dinner and texted with Kelly and got online for a few minutes. Also it was funny because this cute guy I’d seen on the shuttle came over to the same waiting area as me after awhile and sat two seats down from me even though there were lots of seats around. Then when I was boarding I gave the lady my pass to scan and started walking and she called me back suddenly and was like miss, what’s your last name? I told her and then she didn’t really say anything else and I was like, um can I go? There were some like ground control guys standing there and they told me to go on. But that was strange. Who knows? Well then we get on the plane and because of weather elsewhere in PA we have to sit there on the runway again. At this point it’s like I know the weekend was awesome and I don’t really want to go home, but I want to go home! So I used the time to scribble down more notes for this recap. And then finally I made it back to Indy exhausted, but extremely happy. So yeah that’s the story of the best weekend ever to happen to me. I wish I could just re-live it over and over because it was so perfect.