Deadbeats w/Special Guest Vassar Clements - August 5, 1990
Great Northern Bluegrass Festival, Mole Lake Wisconsin 


Don't Let Go   			9:38
Sippin Blues-Cumberland Blues   14:40
Vassar Speaks   		1:41
Walked Out   			5:49
Vassar Speaks Again   		1:20
Charlie Graie   		6:37
Mr Charlie-The Groundhog(cut)   5:18

Deadbeats:

Pat Nevins - guitar
Scott Swartz - guitar
Jack Gallagher - keyboards
Mike Hazdra - bass
Gary Granberg - drums
Mark Corsolini - drums

Homegrown tunes from this show were:

Sippin Blues, Charlie Graie - Jack Gallagher and Ed Steffy
Walked Out - Jack Gallagher


This show capped a wild weekend of news, gigs and travel.
For a little historical context, let's remember that 
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2nd. As a bookend
to that, I was in Rainbow Bridge Studio with engineer (and
outstanding guitarist) J.B. Ritchie recording tracks for 
Deadbeats "In The Garden" on January 17, 1991 when the U.S.
initated a massive bombing of Iraq to begin Operation Desert
Storm.  Just a note to remember history, or you might find 
yourself doing the same damn things over again.

We played The Intersection in Grand Rapids Michigan on
the nights of August 3rd and 4th. After packing up the 
second night, we hightailed it about one hundred miles 
north-northwest to Ludington Michigan and piled all our
vans onto the car ferry S.S. Badger (badger-badger-badger 
to you) and took the first ride of the morning west to 
Manitowoc Wisconsin, catnapping in the deck chairs.

By the time we got to Manitowoc, we still had a 140 mile 
drive through mostly beautiful forested land to the festival
site, owned by the Sokaogon Chippewa Community, though the
fest was mostly run by a lot of arguably crazy bikers.

That year included The Band as headliners, but John Hartford
was always the star of that festival year to year.  Backstage
was kind of a chaos of people and band members, as things were
running late and you never knew who was with who or what was
going to happen next.

Before we took the stage we spent some priceless time hanging out 
with Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. From that fun we turned 
out making friends with Vassar Clements, who joined us on violin for 
our whole set.  That's why the set list didn't include anything too
out there, and in fact was pretty much wide open.

There was a huge mud pit maybe a couple hundred yards straight out
in front of the stage.  People who were drunk enough tried to get 
enough momentum going that they could drive all the way through the
pit of goo.  If any car didn't make it, bikers would run out and 
tear off the gas cap, stick a gas-soaked rag in it and run like hell.
Since it was dark out when we were playing, the two fireballs that
went up off in the distance during our set lent a nice Apocalypse Now
flavor to the extravaganza.

I won't even mention Dawn kicking the biker in the face. I think you
have to be pretty cute to get away with that, or maybe kick for keeps. 