Donerail's Official Website — Portland Band

A couple things happened on our trip to Klamath Falls  that I thought were pretty cool. 1) I realized that yes, I miss snow. Call me crazy, but snow is awesome! If it had been treacherous going through the Willamette Pass, I may be singing a different tune, but it wasn’t so I’m not… yay snow! 2) I got to learn something interesting about the venue that we played Saturday night. As it turns out, Waldo’s dates back to the early 1900′s and used to be the Waldorf hotel. Supposedly, During the prohibition era The Waldorf flipped the government the ol’ middle finger and ran a speakeasy in a secret room about where the stage currently sits. Now, I don’t really know if any of that is true, but they had the original bar, liquor cabinets, and really old vending machines for candy and cigarettes so I’m inclined to believe them, especially since it made the trip that much more interesting.

Duncan and I hit town pretty early. Anticipating nasty weather through the pass, we loaded up and headed out of Portland pretty early. We ended up at Waldo’s about4 hours before we needed to load in and 6 before we were scheduled to go on. You can accused Donerail of being a lot of things, but not being punctual is not one of them. Ridiculous. I wish I could say that this was the worst thing to happen, but it was about to get a little worse before it got better. Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending to the story and at least everyone, and all the gear made it to the show.

Despite our sound board not being compatible with out the adapter that we forgot at home and then only having one vocal speaker, we finally got the show on the road and things went pretty well.  I’ll admit that we all started to get a wee bit nervous after people kept walking in and then out after a couple minutes, but we realized that part of it was that you could hear us fine in the main bar and it was enough to get people to interrupt their dinner to quench their curiosity.  It’s a good thing that we saved our best for the 2nd set. The rest of the went about as flawless as we could have hoped and the crowd’s energy was contagious. By the end of the night, I kinda sounded like Cookie Monster, and I was an exhausted and sweaty mess, but definitely satisfied and glad I made the trip.

Another thing that I learned is that people in Klamath Falls (at least the people that were at Waldo’s Saturday night) sure are a friendly lot. Definitely made 11 hours (round trip) of driving worth it. Thanks to Travis and crew at Waldo’s, and especially Darcy and Trish for putting us up for the night.

Highlights:

• Duncan’s Retort To A Request for Freebird: Concert goer: “PLAAAYYY FREEEEEEEBIIIRD!” – Duncan: “I got free bird for ya right here.”
  Note to concert goers: Please stop requesting Freebird. It really is played out. And no you can not play our instruments so please stop asking.
• Mother – If Jake was 5’0, looked like he ate 5 pounds of steroids and tried to bench press everything in sight, I’d be convinced that he really was Glen Danzig. Especially after hearing him sing Mother. He doesn’t so I know he’s not, but he does a damn good imitation. This is another instant crowd pleaser. It’s kinda like a magic spell…it turns pool cues into guitars just like that!
• The Weight – We ended up inadvertently turn this classic by The Band into a sing along. Anytime a good portion of the crowd sings along, it’s a good sign you’re doing something right.

Next Stop: 11/22/09 Langano Lounge – Portland OR