“I can’t stand Widespread Panic”

(This entire video hits too close too home.)

Lawyers Gun and Money>Action Man - Widespread Panic

Send lawyers, guns and money…the shit has hit the fan!

If you know me well at all, you know I’m obsessed with the band Widespread Panic. It started my senior year of high school, when my boss/tennis coach slipped a Panic track (One Arm Steve) onto a mix-CD he’d burned for me. He made it using his fancy new manual CD-burner, manual meaning not attached to any computer, since computers didn’t do music back then and I’m old.

That one track grew into an obsession, and today I can look back at Widespread Panic’s music as the soundtrack to my life for almost the last decade. Starting this Friday, I’m using some long overdue vacation time to come as close to “following” the band on tour as a square like me will ever get. I’m seeing five shows in a row (maybe 6), starting in Boston and working my way down the East Coast to North Carolina over the course of a week, with stops in Brooklyn and Richmond in between. I’m seeing them in one of the oldest theaters in the country and against the Manhattan skyline and in a 1500 seat postage stamp of a theater smaller than the assembly spaces at some high schools, with old friends and new friends and no friends.

It’s going to be incredible.

As I looked forward to this adventure, I had to also look back on the shows I’d seen. I never thought to put them all down on paper like this, but I’m glad I did. Besides being introduced to great music, both by Widespread and the other artists they cover, seeing the band live has given me some of the most memorable experiences of my life, some great, some awful, but never boring.

So here they are, all 27 fucking shows to date. Looking forward to adding to the list starting tomorrow.

1. 04/20/02 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
2. 04/25/03 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
3. 04/26/03 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
4. 06/14/03 Bonnaroo Music Festival, Manchester, TN
5. 10/16/03 Cricket Arena, Charlotte, NC
6. 10/31/03 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
7. 11/01/03 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
8. 12/31/03 Philips Arena, Atlanta, GA
9. 04/20/05 Salem Civic Center, Salem, VA
10. 04/22/05 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
11. 04/23/05 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
12. 07/29/05 Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Charlotte, NC
13. 08/06/05 Harbor Center, Portsmouth, VA
14. 09/21/05 Holmes Center, Boone, NC
15. 04/21/06 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
16. 04/22/06 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
17. 08/06/06 Harbor Center, Portsmouth, VA
18. 09/14/06 Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
19. 09/15/06 Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
20. 09/16/06 Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
21. 07/20/07 Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
22. 04/04/08 United Palace Theater, New York, NY
23. 04/05/08 United Palace Theater, New York, NY
24. 10/11/09 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
25. 07/22/10 Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
26. 07/24/10 Bank of America Pavilion, Boston, MA
27. 04/06/11 Warner Theatre, Washington, DC

PLANNED:
28. 09/16/11 Orpheum Theater, Boston, MA
29. 09/17/11 Williamsburg Waterfront, Brooklyn, NY
30. 09/21/11 The National, Richmond, VA
31. 09/23/11 Raleigh Downtown Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC
32. 09/24/11 Raleigh Downtown Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC

I know a town where real life’s a game…

Widespread Panic - “Feelin’ Alright”

They played this the other week for the first time in more than 10 years. This band has some incredible studio albums, but they built their reputation on the live experience. For the lucky few who caught this old cover coming off the shelf (where it will likely stay for a long time to come), the energy had to be off the charts.

“For What It’s Worth” - Widespread Panic (covering Buffalo Springfield)

This is Panic’s 25th anniversary tour, and this cover, played in their hometown of Athens GA, is the first song they ever played together under the name Widespread Panic. Before last Thursday, they hadn’t played this song since 1988.

I love this band.

“Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” -  Widespread Panic (covering Traffic)

You either love JB’s voice, or you hate it. I happen to love it. He’s like Bob Seger and John Fogerty and Robert Plant all mixed together.

“Space Wrangler” - Widespread Panic on “Austin City Limits” from 2000

I wanted to post something with Michael Houser in full force before he got sick, something that showed him at his very peak as player, and you can’t do much better than this. If his solo at the end doesn’t get you moving and grooving, then you simply don’t like rock and roll and probably have utterly terrible taste in music and life.

“Lets Get Down to Business” - Widespread Panic, Red Rocks 2002

This is the opening song from the same show the “Coconuts” clip is from.

Panic always tells stories with their setlists at important shows or venues. The significance of “tackle this what shackles us, all of this pressing business” is pretty clear. For the next three hours they’ll put their troubles and fears and sorrow aside and just cherish playing together as a band for these final hours.

“Coconuts” - Widespread Panic, Red Rocks 2002

Panic’s original lead guitar player, Michael Houser (the one sitting down), died a few weeks after this show from pancreatic cancer. Diagnosed a few months earlier, he bravely pressed on and played through his illness right up to the very end. This is so hard to watch because he’s clearly very ill, and everyone up there knows this is the last time they’ll ever play this song together. At the same time Mikey is making every split second count, absolutely playing his ass off with an ear-to-ear shit eating grin on the entire time. He’s probably too weak to walk at this point, yet here he is ripping solo after solo, and Panic shows usually run over three hours long!

Musical ability aside, the sheer physical endurance required to play in his condition at the end was astounding. His family was with him on on the road for those final shows, and you just won’t hear someone’s soul being expressed through an instrument like you do listening to Michael Houser’s last performances.

You can see the entire band trying to channel the holy spirit or whatever you prefer to call it. Their eyes are on Mikey the entire time, part out of concern to make sure he’s okay, but also because even they realize how well he’s playing. Here’s the first release, the first song this band ever put out in front of the world, and now here they are playing it together for the last time. Mikey knew it too, and he didn’t want to stop, so you can see JB give him the signal at the end they need to wrap it up, which cracks Mikey up.

Talk about living in the moment and enjoying every second of it, even as the world is coming down around you.