It turns out it was Sunny Ortiz, percussionist for the band Widespread Panic. “I thought I recognized you but I just couldn’t place where I knew you from,” I told him. “You know,” I continued, “I worked for you guys for a day,” and proceeded to tell him that I was a volunteer at their free launch party/show in downtown Athens in 1998.
“Yeah, he’s always talking about that,” my wife chimed in. I instinctively cringed at the comment. It was my intention not to make him feel like he was being cornered by a fan (which I’m not but appreciate their musicianship), and I was concerned that the comment would be misinterpreted. Plus, it was a topic that I rarely talked about. But at that particular moment, however, I was more interested in talking to him about the school his child went to and his opinion of it, as my wife and I were looking into which school to send our daughter to the following fall. Talking to Sunny I discovered that a friend of mine who used to work for Panic lived just around the corner from me—the person responsible for me spending a day working for the band.
The road that eventually found me in my neighbor’s kitchen talking to a member of Widespread Panic began on an overcast, non-descript February day in 1998. I had just returned to school the month before, my eyes set on the prize of a baccalaureate degree from a four year university. My classes ended before noon that quarter, so on this particular day I walked over to see if some friends and former bandmates were in their practice space with the intention of just hanging around with them for a while before going to find some lunch. They were there that morning, as was my friend Pete, who at the time worked for Panic. I have previously written about my experiences playing in a band, and Pete played drums with the band that were our fellow basement dwellers and for whom my band opened for one night. I also played with Pete on a one-off gig for my friend Jon’s wedding in 1996, and is perhaps the best drummer/timekeeper I’ve ever played with.
In the middle of our conversations that day in the practice space that used to be a nightclub called Buckhead Beach, Pete turns to me and says, “I was going to call you soon. Do you want to help out with the Panic show in April?” I thought about it for about three seconds. By no means was I a fan of the band and their Grateful Dead style of music, having cut my teeth on punk during the 1980s. But I also recognized that it would be a very cool experience that likely would only happen once in my lifetime, as well as an opportunity to work in a music environment again. With no reservations and a minimum of hesitation I was onboard to work the show.
The morning of Saturday, April 18, 1998, finally broke over the town. In the interim between being asked to work the show and the day of, there was a great deal of uncertainty whether the concert would go on in Athens or be moved to Macon—which, with my schedule at the time, would’ve knocked me out of the ranks of the volunteers. The Athens city council began to hedge and waiver on the expenses of providing law enforcement for the show, in addition to a few other concerns they had. In the end, though, they did the right thing by coming through with everything necessary for the show to go on.
I parked my car that morning in the same campus lot I normally parked in when heading to class. It’s roughly several blocks from where the stage was to be set up at the intersection of East Washington and Pulaski Streets, right in front of the 40 Watt Club. During my walk I passed cars and tents containing sleeping “Spreadheads.” Once I got to the stage, my friend Pete tells me there’s a parking lot for volunteers only a block away. So back to my car I walked. The walk back took longer as the same morning was the annual run/walk benefiting a number of Athens charities, and my path took me directly into the path of a few thousand people just as they were starting the course.
Cut to my return to the stage. A small army of volunteers, as well as a handful of experienced roadies, were unloading road cases from small, rented moving vans. Light rigging was being assembled, amplifiers set up, cables run. The stage itself was pretty interesting. Hauled by a semi, the stage was portable and about the size of a tractor trailer. It opened up to offer more stage floor space and the top was hydraulically controlled to rise up once the lighting was rigged. This stage, in particular, had to come from Canada and there was some concern that border customs might delay it long enough to be a problem. Fortunately that didn’t happen.
My friend Jon and I got the job of wrapping cables in thick layers of plastic. On either side of Washington Street speaker towers were set up, a pair for at least the first couple of intersections heading up the street from the stage. The cables ran from the stage board up the south side of the street, with connecting cables running across from those south towers to the accompanying one on the north side. Our job was to wrap these cables in the street with many layers of plastic sheeting in order to protect them from what was certain to be thousands of fans and their footsteps.
It was roughly noon by this time, and downtown was beginning to fill with an army of tye-dyed fans and small time vendors selling t-shirts. Patchouli was ever present in the air; bras, as Jon pointed out, were not to be found downtown on that day (not a bad thing). Several hours before the show started there was already a palpable feeling of anticipation and electricity in the air that would only come to a head once the band took the stage. By early afternoon the stage was set, so I took off for a few hours, wanting to be there when the show started.
I returned downtown late in the afternoon, and the crowd, which had been gathering since around midday, had grown quite a bit. My camera was with me, so I began taking a few shots. Maybe you’ve noticed them with this entry?Nine years later I can’t recall what time the show started. It was around dusk, which in April comes around 7:30-8:00 in these parts. I do recall that I made it a point to be there at the front in the space between the stage and the barriers holding the fans back. Did I feel like the guano flashing my laminant which allowed me access backstage. Showtime finally arrived and the band hit the stage, much to the delight of the gathered mass of fans. Things started off
well at first, but quickly took a scary and potentially dangerous turn. Once the band started playing, as will happen with festival type gatherings, the crowd of an estimated 75,000-100,000 people took a collective step forward, trying to get closer to the stage. Immediately the people at the very front of the crowd were pushed up against the barrier fences. I saw what was happening and sought out one of the regular Panic stage crew to tell them what was going on. In short order people were being pulled out from behind the barrier, one or two required medical attention if I recall correctly. The show stopped a couple of times during the first few songs as the band asked the crowd to take a step back and give the concertgoers up front some breathing space.The next few hours while the band played was “hurry and wait” time. My experience of the show is different from someone who was there to see the band. Much of my time during the concert was spent hanging around backstage, my services not being needed until the show was over. I took the opportunity to walk back to my car to put my camera away, and then head over to the Grit for some tea as the sugar and caffeine would be needed before too long once the load out started.
The volunteers who hung around until the end of the show gathered together backstage as the last song began. “This is the final song,” we were told. “Once it’s over, we’ll wait 15 minutes then go onstage and begin the breakdown.” No pun intended, but this set the stage that for me at least was the most memorable moment of the whole experience. The band finished off their last song, marched off stage, and we marched on at the predetermined time. I rounded the drum riser to find myself looking up Washington Street at the sea of fans, thousands of them, hoping for another encore. Of all the times not to have my camera. I called to Jon and pointed out the sight, and we both stopped for a moment to take in this incredible sight that’s forever etched in my memory.
The load out took longer than the set up as many of the volunteers had left by the end of the show. Admittedly I enjoyed myself as I helped take apart sections of the light rigging, including the circular display over the stage where the varilights were mounted. For the record, varilights weigh about what you’d expect, about 45 pounds each. It was my job to offload the varilights from the stage to someone in one of the awaiting trucks so the lights could be returned to their road cases. Given how expensive these things are, the only thought in my head as I handed them off was “don’t fuck up…don’t fuck up.” I knew the band had a show a few days later and the last thing I wanted was for them to be one varilight short when they got there.
Trash and broken glass. My God, the street in front of the stage was covered with trash and broken glass. Literally, you could walk across the street and never touch asphalt at all. And we had to walk across this scene of devastation moving road cases from the stage to the waiting trucks. The forklift that moved the larger items made nearly constant crunching noises as it ran over glass in the street. The shoes I wore that day were ruined, the bottoms so badly cut up from broken glass that they were thrown in the trash the next day.
Around 6:00 in the morning on Sunday we finally had everything broken down and moved into the trucks. I guess I had done a good job as a few people asked me to go out on the road with them. Had I not just started back to school I probably would have.
The stage was closed up and made ready to be moved to locations unknown. The city street cleaners were about clearing up the residue of thousands of people attending a free outdoor concert. Our work was done, and I headed back to my car. My day, which had started on Saturday, ended Sunday morning the same way it had begun—walking past cars and tents filled with sleeping Spreadheads. As I pulled into my driveway about 6:30 Sunday morning, the newspaper was already waiting. I opened it only to be greeted with photos from the concert I had just left. I was exhausted, but glad I had volunteered to work the show. And I’d do it again in a f*cking minute.
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