Photography by Derek Ridgers (@derekridgers)
Subj: Come On Down the Road! #11 Date: 94-07-18 22:45:59 EDT From: L7s
Come On Down the Road! Milwaukee (July 14, 1994) #11 Raynard, Nick Cave’s tour manager, sat me down today to have a serious talk.
He wanted to express to me that he had heard rumors that we felt like we had over stayed our welcome in Nick’s dressing room and he wanted to make sure that we understood that was not true and we should come around as often as possible. I said that I had always felt welcome around Nick and the others. Raynard’s reaction was, “Well then, it must have been Donita and Dee that had confessed the imposition.” I immediately smelt something fishy. I knew we were hardly being distractions, and those two had to be up to something. I assured Raynard my not coming around was due to checking out other Lollypoplooser activities, and I promised I would watch from the stage if I wanted to (I had been watching from the audience the last two dates), and I would hang out backstage anytime I wanted, no need to feel like a pest. I went looking for the two of them right away.
Nick and the company were just about to hit the stage when I found my sisters in the dressing room. Well, it seems they were indeed pulling a prank that had been three days in the making. They had led the Bad Seeds to believe that Donita felt her “rowdy” behavior was an embarrassment (not), and that she was too humiliated to come around. All of this in preparation for TODAY, when Nick would be crooning the first verse of “Papa Wouldn’t Leave You Henry”.
As he began the song which goes “I went out walking the other day,(the something something) around my neck, My head had sung with screams and moans, the night I spent among her bones…..” I was making ready at the side of the stage with the video camera. By the time Nick had made it to the first chorus, which, by the way, goes something like this, “Come On Down the Rooaad, Come On Down the Road.” OUT COMES DONITA. A vision of loveliness, dressed in a brilliant red, Mariachi blouse, shorts and to “top” of the ensemble, a very large sombrero. And if that wasn’t enough she was ON ROLLER SKATES. She rolled across the stage, doing a cha cha on wheels avoiding guitars, cables, and pointy black boots. Spinning and Grooving. And when the song ended, Nick and she and the microphone cable fell into a pile (the proof is in the bruises!).
