God said “NO”
If you didn’t make it to yesterday evening’s summer kickoff extraveganza at the Rose Festival Waterfront, you turned out to be a very wise person.
Why?
God apparently said, “NO,” to the event as it ended up getting cancelled due to a thunder & lightening storm, which isn’t exactly a COMMON occurence in Portland, OR.
We were to perform on the main event stage at 5pm. We arrived about 45 to 30 minutes before that to a hot, muggy, & just slightly overcast day. I ended up having to park downtown at a 90 minute spot about 15 blocks away from the stage near the large Navy & Army displays.
Our original time slot was to be from 4 - 4:45pm, but we were pushed back to a “theoretically” better slot starting at 5. I arrived in time to catch the last bit of the guy before us who was from Portland Music doing a demonstration on the Roland V-Drums. The weather wasn’t showing any signs of violence, but we were warned that if thunder came rolling that the stage would be instantly shut down.
The very moment I pulled out my guitar from its case to set up on stage, the wind started KICKING like an angry mule with a steroid addiction. Making things even more interesting was that the drums, bass, guitar, & keyboard were all being set up directly underneath hanging stage lights connected to the tent that covered us.
As soon as the keys, guitars, & basses were set up and vulnerably out of their hardshell enclosures, we were told to get out of the tent because the wind made it an unsafe location.
Once out from underneath the tent, I put my sunglasses on… not to be cool or anything like that, but because the large quantity of hay that the festival puts on the ground to walk on was now shooting through the air attacking everyone like a swarm of honey bees set on revenge.
It was NOT a good situation for anyone with allergies (such as myself) or anyone with knappy hair (such as Elbert… at least he finally got the blond highlights he’s been talking about - have fun getting them all out).
The weather was also unkind to structures throughout the fair. The tent over the ATM collapsed (well deservered though as they charge a $3 fee for withdrawls), a large wooden structure fell over, the Rose Festival merchandise booth was decimated, a lady selling plastic flowers got covered by her product, and the giant inflatable bag of Lays potato chips whimpered to nuture’s fury.
All of that, howere, did not lead to a quick notice of cancellation. The organizers wanted to wait it out a little. I just wanted to pack up & go home. It wasn’t until it started to rain that the sound engineeres started packing up their gear and finally told us to grab our gear and go.
Thankfully, we had a tarp in the bed of the truck… water and speekers go together like milk and my stomach; they don’t play nice.
Once we got loaded up, I just had the long walk under the bridge & through a parking lot back to the car. Robin Gordon & Roy Shryne were riding with me, which was kind of fun because Robin wanted to run to the car & Roy was complaining that he couldn’t see. I laughed and said, “What, did you guys not grow up in the northwest?” To which they replied, “I grew up in Southern California… and I grew up in Florida.”
When we got back to the car, I still had 10 minutes on the meter. This was the first show I’ve ever had cancelled after arriving to the gig, but it all worked out. 
- Andy Bell; Vice President