The Road to Madison Leads to Jane

File Under: Madison-a-Go-Go

Flashback, 2001. Vahona calls me at work one day and said "Hey, the Go-Go's are doing a show next week in St. Louis. We could work until 1, hit the road, be there by 6, show starts at 7, we'll be on the road by 9, home by 2, a few hours sleep and we can go to work in the morning. Sounds fun, huh? I know it's crazy. What do you think?

My reply was..."Wow, that's really nuts. OK, LET'S DO IT!"

We did it. Left at 12:45 instead of 1, got there at about 5:30 (my Jetta was speedy!), met up with a bunch of our friends, had a bite to eat then the doors to the venue opened and we got right up front.

Uh-oh...OPENING BAND. SHIT!

Go-G0's didn't go on until 9, we didn't get out of the venue until 10:30, on the road by 10:50 after gassing up the buggy and finding the expressway.

We played great road games to stay awake. Faith (another friend) slept in the back seat in preparation of being the relief driver, just in case.

We hit storms and overnight road work. Long story short, I didn't drop Vahona off until about 5:10, I got home at 5:15. My alarm went off at 7:30, I made it to work by 8:45. I had to be there because I still had to process a payroll. I got my tasks done and managed to stay the whole day.

I did laundry that evening, I left all of my socks behind.

It was worth it. We had a blast.

SO...last week, I emailed Vahona and said "Jane (Wiedlin, rhythm guitarist for The Go-Go's) is playing a street festival in Madison with the band she's producing. Want to do a day trip? It's not quite as crazy as St. Louis but still fun."

She replied "I'm there!"

Our friend Anthony joined us, and we hit the road by 1:15. Madison is about 2.5 hours from my house. We made got time, got there by 3:45 (we hit a bit of traffic and my Civic isn't quite as speedy as my Jetta but it got us there on 1/4 tank of gas!). Jane and her band weren't going on until 5 so we had time to walk around a bit, see the sights and have a bite to eat and grab a drink. Here are some of those sights.

We quickly learned that Madison is an unusual little town, or at least the neighborhood we were visiting was a bit odd. Not bad odd, just odd. It felt like we were back in the 60's. Lots of patchoulli in the air, and armpit hair. Togas, tye-tye and dreadlocks. Then there were piercings and tattoos...not so 60's I guess.

Eventually we got our lemonade shake-ups and with a little help, turned them into delicious vodka beverages. We grabbed some tacos to complete the food and drink requirement. We scoped out the stage and figured that there wasn't a bad seat in the house. :)

We found Jane and you would have thought she had seen her long lost friends. She hugged and kissed each of us and could not get over the fact that we came all the way from Chicago to see her. We talked, Vahona spilled vodka lemonade on Jane's shoe but she didn't care. Others came up to talk to her, she introduced us to them as her dear friends from Chicago who also happened to be "Go-Go's fans from WAY WAY WAY back!" Eventually she excused herself because she was helping set up the stage.

The first band was called "Whore du Jour," a band that Jane has been working with since she moved to Madison. They're fun and loud and so much like Jane. It helps that she's dating the lead guitarist. :)

They drew an interesting group of fans and interested parties.

An intermission was announced while the band reconfigured the stage a bit, and then changed into their outfits as the backing band for "Lady Robotica," Jane's latest creation which allows her to indulge in her love of electronic sounding music and incorporate her obsession with sci-fi and aliens. Hence the silver.

Jane performed the songs she described as crowd pleasers "Vacation," "Head Over Heels," and "Our Lips Are Sealed." She also performed some new songs which were really good.

Such a little rock star, she was up there striking cute poses and being really funny. Especially when she talked about alien abduction and getting anal probes.

After her set, she came back and chatted with Anthony, Vahona and I. She invited us to join her and her band afterwards to hang out and watch football. It seemed as though they were going to someone's house so we declined, not wanting to impose. Before we left, someone took our picture. Jane promised that he would take a great picture of us. You be the judge.

(photo courtesy of Anthony Meade)

We gave hugs and kisses and hit the road. The drive home was fun but uneventful and wasn't dreadfully long. I pulled up in front of my house at about 10:30. We said our goodbyes, and Vahona and Anthony went on their way.

Just another crazy Go-Go adventure.

The 25th Show

File Under: Music Obsessions

Another post about The Go-Go's. C'mon, you knew it was going to happen. My previous post was all about them, and about seeing them again. Last night was show # 25. I was not disappointed.

The evening began with my friends Anthony, John and of course Vahona meeting at the House of Blues. We sat down and had some dinner. We exposed John to full-on Go-Go lunacy. Thankfully he was not scared. We finished dinner and went to our places in the theatre. I had two reserved stools for the evening. We were on the main level, stage left, about 20 feet back from the stage. Vahona and Ant were down in the trenches, stage right, in front of Jane's spot.

Many of the regulars were in attendance, familiar faces from past shows. It was nice seeing them, and catching up with them on their lives, sharing a laugh, sharing our excitement for yet another show.

The opening act was a band from Madison, WI called "Whore du Jour." They're a band whose first album is being produced by Jane Wiedlin. Not 2 minutes after saying to John "I wonder if Jane will come out and introduce the band," Jane came out to introduce the band. As she looked over the crowd, she looked my way, did a double-take looked at me, smiled and waved. :) Whore du Jour was good, but they're not the reason we were there.

The Go-Go's came on at 10. They looked great. They sounded great. Their on-stage banter was funny and their interaction with one another was fun. They performed 19 songs, their setlist was an even retrospective of their career.

The real fun happened after the show. I secured after-show passes for us and apparently very few passes were handed out. Now, my last after-show experience at this venue was a 2 minute chat with Kathy and Jane in an upper balcony. I wasn't expecting anything more last night. Well, I was wrong. We were ushered to a freight elevator, taken upstairs and told to go through a doorway and turn right. In we walked and seated was Belinda. Looking stunning and relaxed after an energetic show. Charlotte was in the room, she and Bradford (the band's manager) were chatting. There was a moment of stunned silence, only broken when she said "Hi." There is a bit of blur surrounding all that took place but Bradford introduced himself to me, then learning just who I was (I had contacted him to obtain the passes), he asked me if I'd met the band and began introducing me to Belinda, telling her of my efforts with the Star Fund (I'm part of a committee working to secure a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for The Go-Go's). We chatted about that for a couple minutes and Belinda quipped "well, now that Johnny Grant is dead, maybe we'll have a chance." We all laughed. She thanked me for all we've done. Jane and Kathy came in and both of them came over to give me hugs.

We chatted with Jane the longest, about her move to Madison, about Whore do Jour, about her boyfriend who is in the band, and about how much fun can be had in Chicago. I suggested that she contact us to arrange a visit to Chicago an let us show her around. As quickly as I said that, she whipped out her iPhone and said "okay, give me your phone numbers!" So we did. We'll see if she calls. I'm guessing she'll drunk dial one of us. At 2 am, Vahona's phone will ring, and there will be this slurred pixie-like voice saying "hey baby, what are you wearing?" I'll probably get a call saying "Is your refrigerator running? Well you'd better go catch it! HA HA HA HA HA" *click*

We took one group picture, here it is:

(complements of Anthony)

Kathy Valentine, me, John, Jane, Vahona, Anthony.

As I've been known to do, I brought my Gnome. John brought his too. We giggled as we took them out of our pockets and set them on the table in the room. Belinda looked down and noticed them. She was definitely intrigued. She kept looking. I saw curiosity and amusement in her eyes and a slight smile on her face. Or it was "oh Jesus, get me away from these fucking losers." I think it was more the former than the latter.

Jane saw the Gnomes and decided they looked tasty. So here's the 2008 version of the "let's do something wacky and eat the Gnome picture."

And with that, our evening ended. We gathered our things and went home. I was awake until almost 2 am, giddy from the excitement of the evening.

I awoke at 5:45 this morning, got out of bed, got ready for work and was at my desk at 7:30 am. My ears are still ringing, my throat still hurts and the entire city is under a winter storm warning but I'm in a really good mood right now.