We were opening for a major act tonight.  On the way to the second show, my path was diverted by the scene of a nasty accident.  I saw them pull someone from the vehicle and lay them on the pavement in a group.  It didn't look good.

"Don't talk like that," Mick said, looking at the ground.

Still, we played, and played to a packed house, who listened intently.  I drifted into a solo, and they applauded.  No one spoke while we played.  It was a treat.  I felt a rapport with the crowd.  When I stood up at the end of the show, they gave me an extra bit of applause that felt like it was just for me.  I loved it.

Mick was nervous.  High strung as usual.  He starts to take off his clothes when he sings and plays.  Mick has struggled with a cocaine habit that has saw him put on tons of weight since we've started to hang out.

He buys vintage suits, brown, somber colors.  Sharp looking, except for his bulbous gut. 

So, he sweats a lot when he performs.  Like Shaquille O'Neal in the fourth quarter, its a veritable rain event.

He ends up taking the majority of his clothes off.  They manage to disappear throughout the night, until, by two a.m., when we have done two shows, usually, covering six hours, he's down to sox, underwear, pants, and a loosely unbuttoned button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up.  Unbuttoned enough to see his chest hair, yet still cover up his stomach.

Clothes will vanish, almost magically. 

Except this time, in the second show, he started doing it with the second song.  Struggling with the jacket, tearing at the tie, he couldn't get out of his shit fast enough.

"Uh-oh, here comes the strip-show."  I said.

The crowd laughed.  We could do no wrong.

Another song ended.

"Strip-show?"  a woman in the front row asked.

"Wait here long enough and he gets naked."  I said.

She laughed hard.

It was funny, we always knew when the headliner was in the building.  And, seemingly, EVERYONE knew his opinions.

Oh, LARRY likes this, and LARRY likes that.  Oh LARRY wouldn't do that, or LARRY wants this.  I never saw the motherfucker twitch a muscle, but his shit was apparently all out there.

The night of the second show, I hung out in back with Larry.  He was actually pretty cool, down to earth.  I picked his brain like a motherfucker.  About music, about the business, just things in general.  And he was so flat out honest, it rocked.

I asked him about musical things, moving from piece.  We talked about music in general, and agreed that there's a lot of bullshit out there.  A lot of non-talented fuckers who simply look good, but have no skill.  He admitted he still wished he'd penned that ONE hit, that one song that puts you through to the level of a Ray Charles, or Stevie Wonder.  And we agreed that timing was everything.

I asked him if he still had the fire, the desire.  He said he did.  He said it was something more like a thing he HAD to do, which I could feel.  I asked him if he still gets nervous.

"Yeah."  he said, "Not all the time, but for a show like this, when I'm going out acoustically, after being with a band and being electric all these years, yeah, I get a little nervous."

I don't get nervous anymore. 

"I want to steal all your licks, Larry."  I said.

"Sure, sure."  he was all cool about it, "You gotta' remember, I've been doing this for thirty years."

People would come in, and seemingly lose their shit.  I don't know, its like they encountered a major talent, a local legend, and they just shit themselves, go into some sort of too honest re-evaluation of themselves, or clam up and stand there, trying not to stare.  I leaned against a table and kinda' held my own, running the conversation in the room.  It was an enlightening time.  We talked about a ton of shit.  It was pretty damn cool.

Later on, I dropped his name at the other bar.  Because larry had said he'd stop by and hang out.  They were offering free drinks for him and his entourage all night.  They want him to play at a big bbq/festival thing they want to do in the summer.  Having him on the bill would guaruntee a sell-out.  I wanted to jam.  Whatever.

When we showed up, there were no tables or chairs on the main floor in front of the stage.

I asked a local barback or whatever the fuck the ghetto white trash bouncer type guy was slouching against the bar for a chair.  They didn't even have any on stage.

"There's a tournament going on.  You can grab one out there, but that's as good as you're gonna get."

Smart-ass.

I saw the building manager walk by.

"Larry said he might stop by."  Which he had said, twice, that he would.

"Larry who?"  she asked.

"Larry XXXXXX".

Her eyes got wide and her jaw dropped a little.

"Okay, I'll get my bouncers to grab tables and chairs as they become available."

And that started a procession of very large, ogre-looking men bringing  table after table and chair after chair into my bar and lining them up.  Lasted awhile.  They ran out of room, and started piling them up by one of the doors.

They ended up shutting us down at 1230, because of the storm.  No one was out, everyone wanted to go home. 

So I don't know if Larry ended up showing up or not.  But it was a groovy night.