#26 Driving the Shoulder (part 1) 94-08-13

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Subj: Driving the Shoulder#26 (part 1) Date: 94-08-13 00:22:22 EDT From: L7s

Crew View-Driving the Shoulder#26 (part 1) (Aug. 3-Providence, R.I.) By Double O Joe, we sat in a Los Angeles parking lot-style traffic jam on the Rhode Island highway, our speedy trip to the show now an impossible dream. The kids in the cars around us kept jumping out to piss in the bushes or change seats. Basically, it was a slow-moving tailgate party, which is fine if you don’t have a life, but we do. L7’s road crew is a precision machine,

It takes a special breed of social reject and months of rigorous training. Even then, few make it. But back to the traffic jam: After some waiting, our bus driver, Craig “Kick it in the Tail” Wall, pulled onto the shoulder and took up the slack. Craig is a first-class driver; he flew helicopters in Vietnam and raced on the monster truck circuit briefly before signing on. He’s highly respected among the other Lollapalooza drivers for his ability to shave hours off the drive times and his control at high speed. Craig maneuvered our custom motor coach as only a master could, having more than a few near misses with kids who didn’t look at where they were going. We didn’t stop until some “good citizen” blocked the shoulder because it was illegal. He wasn’t a cop, just some asshole who took it upon himself to uphold the law. (Remember kids, always pay attention on a highway, even if traffic is stopped, and never take the law into your own hands). We finally got him out of the way and made it almost to the exit ramp when traffic stopped dead again. The clock was ticking; we had gear to set up and a show to do. Lenny and I decided to jump on our skateboards via the shoulder of the road and try to get there ourselves. We skated past stopped cars for 2-3 miles, swerving to avoid people and potholes, resisting the urge to pummel the idiots who yelled “do a trick”. At one point, we were speeding down a hill, Lenny in front, when some guy ran out from behind a van. Lenny had a second to brace himself before slamming into the guy, leaving him in a pile on the ground. Always look before crossing the street, kiddies. As we got closer to the gig, we asked some security guards for directions. This led us down some back roads, requiring us to ask more directions, which sent us down more back roads. We asked for directions 3 or 4 more times, finally ending up on a golf course with the stage a couple of miles off in the distance.

There was a lake and a fence between us and the venue, and we could hear the Boredoms playing in the distance. There is another lesson here: Never ask a Rhode Islander for directions. We were f*cked, we should’ve stayed on the bus, with the air conditioning, the iced beverages, and as we found out later, young gals flashing the remaining crew members. Lenny and I found our way back to the road and were rescued by the Cannabis Action Network, who pulled up in a van and drove through every roadblock until we made it backstage. We had 15 minutes until show time, and thanks to Nick Cave’s crew, our gear was half set up. But that was not the end of our troubles. I’ll let Jennifer take over from here………..

Lollapalooza Diaries