1st 420 Campout

The 420 campout was planned as a gathering of a thousand people or so, but once again we were screwed by technology, scientists and the people's lack of faith in mother nature, who always takes care of her children. The weather men called for thunder storms all weekend long, what we got a light sprinkle a couple of times, but for the Saturday show, it was 75 degrees, and bright and sunny all day long. To the north, east, west and south in any direction it rained most of the day. For those of us celebrating Earth Day mother came through. Hence the most intimate performance of JGB ever as a 120 of us had our best earth day ever!!!

On Friday 4/20/2001 the people gathered in Connellsville for the first gathering of the new year. They pitched tents and started small controlled fires. We communed with each other, the earth and the spirits of springtime. Everybody had fat baggies and bottles of various spirits. I drank a lot more than usual, and it's seems to me that we just plain smoked constantly for 10 hours or so. All in all the party was truly unbelievable, but about 4:21am most of the dozens assembled took a short break.

Saturday For some strange reason everybody seemed to sleep in and by the time we rolled out of our tents the stage was set and ready to go.
First the Voodoo Babies took the stage and absolutely rocked the house out with seventies covers, ranging from Zepplen and Heart to Janis and others. Next up Daddy Jones Kingdom, who jammed out to an amazed crowd, none of which had ever seen this Slippery Rock based band. At 5pm the Waxy Monks took the stage for a 40 minute set, leaving the crowd asking for more. At this point we were running about a half hour behind schedule, so the crowd was somewhat disappointed when Future Chicken Farmers set got cut down to 4 songs but everybody going to see alot of them cause I've booked them for almost every show I have going this summer. JGB started setting up around 7:30, I took the stage, and talked about earth day and all that we have to thank her for. I explained my theory that music is the thanks that mother earth is looking for... I then talked about my next three shows and River's Edge's next show. Afterwards we started a bonfire to pass the time and create a gathering point. After some broken equipment, and sound problems, we finally had JGB ready to go at 10pm. Knowing that we had a "sound curfew" at 11, everybody was wondering how much JGB they were going to get.
Melvin and the band took the stage and the crowd erupted. Melvin started out by saying "I thought we only had a hundred people out there, you sound like a big crowd. Are you ready to Rock cause I feel like playing all night long." Melvin touched is keyboard and the stage went dark... Power failure people running around with flash lights checking boxes, I suffered a minor heart failure and the crowd moaned. The drummer started playing in the dark, the crowd cheered, there was no stopping this party. The lights came back up and after another quick sound check and JGB jammed for two hours straight. After their set JGB did something they rarely do. They came out into the crowd, and down to the campsites and partied down for hours with the rest of us. Next I knew someone was asking"What's that thing over there?" It's the sun it must be Sunday...

4/22 We all took a nap to again wake to the fresh spring air. We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. We will talk about our culture and the earth. We eventually had to move only to anxiously await the next gathering, and see old friends and new ones as well. So that we can be once again be one with the people, the music and the earth.

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