Cowboy Mouth headlines the Potawatomi Casino / OnMilwaukee.com stage on Summerfest's opening night. Guitarist John Thomas Griffith kept a diary of his trip to Milwaukee with the band last year. Enjoy this look at a day in the life of a Summerfest performer:
5 a.m.: I've just boarded the tour bus for Milwaukee. About an hour and a half drive from Oshkosh, where we played to an enthusiastic crowd at Waterfest the night before. What a fantastic venue they've built there; it's truly an "if you build it, they will come" type of facility. I've had about three hours sleep, but it was decent sleep. I tried lying down in the front lounge of the bus and catching some more Z's before getting on with the day, but to no avail. The road to Milwaukee turns out to be like the back streets of Morocco; bumpy and not conducive to sleeping. Oh well.
6:30 a.m.: We arrive at the DoubleTree Hotel on 6th and Wisconsin. I am praying for a place to lie down that doesn't move at 75 mph and swerve to and fro. I'm fairly nauseous at this point but try hard not to show it. Yes! Stewart, our tour manager, has scored rooms ... at 6 a.m. There is a God! I bolt to my room and waste no time peeling back the covers and sacking out.
10:30 a.m.: Wake up! Sound check is in an hour, so I grab a shower and hit the Starbucks across the street in the Hilton ... I am still cracked out and feeling unenthusiastic about doing sound check at 11:30 a.m. But wait; I just got a text from Stewart ... WHAT??! Sound check has been moved up to 11 a.m. ... For F*ck's sake! Oh well, kids, let me just say, being in a rock band is a little like being in the Marines ... my advice, just go with the flow.
12:30 p.m.: Sound check is over, gotta eat something and go back to sleep or shoot myself ... I'm now tired beyond recognition. I feel bad, as well, about it, because today is one of the most beautiful days I've ever seen in Milwaukee, and trust me; I've seen my fair share. We've been coming to Milwaukee for over a decade. Played The Rave and the Eagles Ballroom; have played Summerfest about 10 years straight now. We played for the MLB All-Star Game here in 2002. Those good ol' days at the Ambassador Hotel and Bar. Ate and drank at the International Safe House so many times, I've lost count. So I hate to miss a day in the sunshine like this, but my sanity is more important at this point.
5:30 p.m.: Well I'm not going to give up completely on the beautiful weather, I did get a couple more hours in dreamland, so I decide to get my act together, just as Vance (DeGeneres, former guitarist) calls and asks if I want to go down to the Summerfest grounds a bit early. I agree. I call Regina (Zernay, the band's bassist) and see if she's in, and we're on! I hop back over to the Starbucks at the Hilton and get juiced up.
6 p.m.: We grab a cab, and argue with the driver to let us off down by the museum entrance to the park. He claims he can only take us to the Main Entrance to Summerfest, down on the south end of the park by the Marcus Amphitheater. Once there, we run into big trouble. We can't get into the park although we have our backstage passes. We're told we can't get in without a ticket. Hmm?? Well, let's try another gate. We go to gate six, can't get in there as well. This is sort of embarrassing at this point. Jeez, all we wanted to do was come down and watch some of the other groups and eat some of the good Milwaukee food. Well, my mood worsens as we sit there waiting for someone to straighten it all out, and the tiredness creeps back in. Finally Stewart shows up at Gate 6 about 20 minutes later with an official and we are finally escorted in to the fest, sans ticket (meanwhile, I see a guy walk right passed the Nazi check point clearly without a pass nor ticket) ... go figure! Welcome to rock 'n' roll, kids. Where nothing makes sense. Hello, Cleveland! (LOL)
8-10:30 p.m.: We hang on the bus and meet old and new friends alike in the backstage area. One our favorite things to do at Summerfest is "people watch" ... The Goth kids seem to have a pretty good stronghold on the rocky area directly behind our stage. Good for them.
10:30 p.m.: The moment we've all be waiting for. Showtime! I don't know what it is, but clearly, Milwaukee is a rock 'n' roll town. And I'd go as far to say, even more so than Cleveland. Maybe Summerfest has put the 'town that beer made', or is that the 'town that makes beer' on the rock 'n' roll map, I don't know. But what I do know is that I had a blast playing in Milwaukee the other night and I don't even drink beer. I even forgot how tired I really was. Hell yeah!
12:00 a.m.: Show's over and I feel like a huge weight is off my shoulders and a brand new one is put on. Gotta hit the hay; try to get at least three hours sleep; gotta be in the lobby at 5:30 a.m. Time to catch the cab to the airport and fly back home to my brand new puppy I got the day I left town for this trip.
Anyway, don't want to miss the flight -- it's happened before -- so that's my new worry, but it's been a fantastic day in Milwaukee, no hearts were broken, no one got left behind, and no one got hurt. Looking forward to a couple weeks off in the California Sun.
See ya next time, enjoy. Peace, jtg.
