TOUR JOURNAL

higher. If he was really on fire he’d drift into another dimension out of synch, yet totally in tune with the band, a cosmic echo of sound as the note was fed back and forth from the amp to the strings to the wah creating a surreal peak which caused heads to explode (in a good way).

While the highlight of the night was probably the Saxophone-space, I’m just not into rock-saxophone as a rule. It takes over songs and changes the sound so much that everything sounds like Bruce Springstein. After a few songs I just wanted to stick a fork in my head.

How’s the new guy? A fine guitarist. He did some space-stuff that really ruled, but he solos were rather plain sounding even when they kicked ass. It was a little hard to tell, as he was, as Mikey has been the last few years, way too far down in the mix. Maybe he’ll work into his own, but I don’t know. The highlight of shows for me was always the long songs with the improvisational Mikey long, extended guitar solos. They played three of them last night: Fishwater, Greta, and Diner. They all fell flat. They didn’t even try to play them Mikey-style, Fishwater even had a cool, new sound. But y’know how Mikey’s guitar just hang’s in the air behind JB’s vokes in that song? Wasn’t there. Y’know those multiple lead breaks in Diner? Wasn’t there. Y’know that great long solo at the end of Greta? Wasn’t there. Those were what made WSP shows multi-orgasmic for me. There were no orgasms in Mudville last night.

After those three songs I was emotional mush, it wasn’t the same, it wasn’t even the band. I know all the recovery stuff about change being the only sure thing. I asked a guy at the table how he felt about it. He didn’t answer my question but gave me this long speech about how change is inevitable, about how we have to adapt, about what being open to new things. I said, “That’s very philosophical of you, but how do you feel?!!!”. “It really hurts.” Finally, som....(cont. next page)