Having survived the various mishaps of the first night of my quest, I got up bright and early Saturday morning to pack for the Arizona leg of the trip. Since I was going to be spending Sunday night camping, it took a bit to dig out the gear I’d need (including my military sleeping bag, since it was supposed to get down to the upper 20s overnight in Flagstaff).

After a stop for gas, I was on the road again, west-bound and down, so to speak.

The drive to Phoenix was fairly uneventful, but long. I’d forgotten what it was like to take the southern route, down US 191 and US 60 through St. Johns, Show Low, and Globe. Mostly a winding two-lane highway, with the occasional passing lane. It’s a nice drive, but I wouldn’t attempt in in winter. Thanks to the Road Runner cartoons, most people who have never been to Arizona probably visualize a lot of sand and cactus, but the eastern part of the state is anything but. It’s mountainous and heavily-forested, and gets quite a bit of snow in the winter. It’s also pretty high up, elevation-wise. Where I live, it’s about 6,500 feet above sea level. About 40 miles into the trip, I crossed the Continental Divide, at an elevation of 7,228 feet.

From there, it’s all downhill (literally). Phoenix, about 300 miles away, is at about 2,000 feet.

I finally made it down to Sheriff Joe’s old stomping grounds in Maricopa County around 4:00, and figured I’d be at my motel in a few minutes. What I’d forgotten to take into account, though, was the fact that Maricopa County is vast, bigger than some states. It took me nearly an hour to get to where I was planning to stay (and several more minutes to figure out how to get to it from the freeway after I got there). Fortunately, I had plenty of time, since the show didn’t start until 7:30.

Saturday’s show was to take place at the Musical Instrument Museum, which not only consists of a nearly 200,000 square foot collection of more than 15,000 instruments and artifacts from around the world, but also includes a world-class concert hall.

Quite an upgrade from the night before! It really is a beautiful facility, and I plan to return when I have time to visit the museum itself.

I got there about 20 minutes prior to the scheduled start time, and spent some time wandering around the lobby. The contrast between MIM and the NHCC Plaza couldn’t have been more profound. This was definitely an upscale crowd (which I’d already figured out from the number of Mercedes in the parking lot). I was glad that I’d decided to change before the show.

I had been really lucky when purchasing my ticket. I was able to find a single seat in the 8th row near the center. Had I needed two or more seats, I would have been way in the back (although, in fairness, it wasn’t that far back, since the theater only holds 300 seats). Apparently, most of those in attendance were MIM members, who not only get discounts, but get to buy tickets before they go on sale to the public. This made for an interesting dynamic in the audience, which skewed much older than I’d expected. It looked as though the audience was mostly family groups, consisting of older MIM members and their children (or grandchildren), who convinced them to go.

When the appointed hour arrived, the house lights dimmed, and Samantha and the band walked out on stage to polite applause. Once again, the audience had no idea what they were in for!

The set was pretty much perfect, with none of the technical glitches that happened at the smaller venues, and the sound quality was incredible. The larger-than-usual stage gave Samantha room to roam, so she was constantly in motion. Between that and the lighting, unfortunately, it was pretty difficult to get decent pictures.

It didn’t take long for the audience to warm to her, though. During a couple of her numerous guitar changes, I heard people around me commenting on how good she was. The equipment changes finally became the subject of a joke from Sam, who quipped that they’d only seen half of the guitars she’d brought, and that they mostly carried them around for fun, “especially dragging them through airport security.”

This was a much longer set than the night before, as I expected. About an hour and 45 minutes, total. Along with the Chills & Fever material, she played a number of older songs, including the acoustic favorite “Go Home,” from her 2015 album Wild Heart

This time, the band actually did the standard leave-the-stage-and come-back routine, following a several-minute-long standing ovation. Finally, it was time for the final encore, and they tore it up with a great performance of “Black Wind Howlin’,” the title track off her 2013 album.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4U0bCAr3OE[/embedyt]

As I made my way out of the theater, I decided that I would stop by the merchandise table in the lobby where Sam usually hangs out after the show. I made the mistake of stopping at the men’s room first, though. When I got to the lobby, there was a line of about 100 people waiting to meet her! I was amazed, since it was only a 300 seat venue in the first place, and at least half the audience went in not even knowing who she was. Once again, Samantha’s voodoo was working!

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zn_Rr4o_t8[/embedyt]

Having spent most of the day driving, I decided not to wait in line that night. I knew I’d have another chance on Sunday in Flagstaff.

To be continued…

Alternate title: Three Cities, Two Time Zones, 1000 Miles, and 10,000 Feet in Altitude

I was looking for something different to do while taking a week of vacation time when I came across the tour schedule for an artist I’d recently discovered by the name of Samantha Fish. “Maybe she’s playing somewhere nearby,” I thought. As it turned out, she was scheduled to play three different dates back-to-back within a day’s drive. And so, an idea was born (Which may have involved significant quantities of alcohol. I’m really not sure. Which probably means yes).

Day One: Albuquerque

This one was a no-brainer. Albuquerque is the nearest city of any size to the current Casa de Lobo, about 75 miles away. Samantha was one of a gazillion acts scheduled to play during an annual event called Globalquerque!, which is a world culture festival put on by the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Having been to quite a few foreign countries and seen what passes for culture in many of them, I planned to forego most of the evening’s entertainment and get to the venue shortly before Samantha’s set was scheduled. I noticed on the schedule that there were three different venues for the entertainment, the largest being the Plaza, which was where she was slotted to play in the headlining spot. Cool. I’ve lived in and around the area for nearly 40 years, off and on. I know how to get to the Plaza in my sleep.

Imagine my surprise when I pull into the parking garage under the Plaza and see only a handful of cars. Then I went up the stairs to the Plaza stage area, only to be met by some random homeless people, one of whom was camped out on the stage, right about where Sam’s horn section should be.

“Huh.”

About that time, I recalled having seen some fine print on my print-at-home ticket page. Maybe it held a clue.

Apparently, there’s a Plaza at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Who knew? I mean, aside from the event promoters. And the rest of the audience. Back to the car.

I knew roughly where the NHCC was located, about 2 miles south of downtown, although I’d never been there. I figured it couldn’t be that hard to find, so I pulled out onto the street, intending to head south at the next intersection. Which was blocked off by cops in riot gear. Not really what I expected to see. Turns out that Albuquerque’s black community (all 12 of them) had picked that night to hold a “Black Lives Matter” rally. Definitely not what I expected. I navigated around the roadblocks and finally made my way south. No problem. I still had at least an hour.

One of the other fine print lines on my ticket noted that there was free parking on the NHCC campus. What it failed to note, however, was the fact that there were maybe 200 spaces, and another 200 in an overflow lot, for an event that was expected to draw several thousand people. Oops.

Another thing it failed to mention is that the NHCC is located in what’s known as the Barelas Neighborhood. Often shortened to simply “the ‘hood” (or “the barrio,” since we were being all multicultural). If you’ve ever watched episodes of Cops that takes place in Albuquerque, you’ve probably seen it. Not really the part of town where I want to park my nice Mercury SUV on the street, if you know what I mean.

After nearly an hour of driving around, I finally decided to park in a lot across from a coffee shop, and hope for the best.

The NHCC campus itself is actually pretty nice, as it turns out. As expected, most of the audience was not actually Hispanic, but white liberal yuppies. Made me feel better about having obeyed the signs declaring it a gun-free zone (unlike the street I’d just crossed). I quickly located the elusive Plaza, where said white liberals were enthusiastically dancing to the music of an Estonian trio, featuring a woman playing some sort of cross between bagpipes and an alpaca.  Seriously:

Once the alpaca people were done, the stage crew began setting up for what I knew would be Samantha’s performance. I took the opportunity to walk around the area a bit, and overheard a number of conversations along the lines of “Who is this fish person, anyway?” After the alpaca incident, I suppose I couldn’t blame them for being confused. I used that confusion to my advantage, however.

There were probably 200 or so chairs set up in rows facing the stage, with a large open area in front of them (this being the location of the earlier alpaca dancing). Since nobody but me and a handful of others appeared to know what was coming next, we all used the opportunity to stake out spots near the stage. In my case, directly in front of the keyboard player. I was able to set my overpriced yuppie beer on the edge of the stage. Things were looking up.

After a few minutes of people futzing with the audio gear, and an impromptu sound check, they were finally ready. Since it was a concrete stage with an open back, I was waiting to see how Samantha would make her entrance. As it turned out, she just walked across the stage, smiling and waving to folks in a very un-diva like fashion. This pretty much set the tone for the entire weekend.

Once she was all plugged in, the band immediately launched into what’s become their standard opening number on this tour, “He Did It.”

For those not familiar with her current album, “Chills & Fever” is a compilation of (mostly obscure) covers of songs by the likes of Nina Simone, Betty Harris, and Ronnie Love. It’s quite a departure from her earlier work, which has mostly been guitar-heavy blues and “roots rock.” She’s currently touring with a six-piece band, including horns and a keyboard for the first time. Many people (myself included) were skeptical, but damned if she didn’t pull it off. Those of us who are slightly older than Samantha may remember the title track as a minor hit for Tom Jones in 1964. I may be biased, but I still like Sam’s version better.

Another mostly forgotten minor hit from the ’60s is “Nearer to You,” which was originally recorded by Betty Harris, also in 1964. The video below was shot by someone in the audience Friday night, about ten feet to my left:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr3nMRtGeX4[/embedyt]

Which version is better? I’ll leave that choice up to you. All I know is, after a few more songs, I looked behind me, and the entire area between the stage and seats was full. The alpaca dancing yuppies were hooked!

Those of us who were hoping for some of Sam’s trademark guitar fireworks weren’t disappointed, either. She played several songs from her earlier albums, including “Highway’s Holding Me Now” and “Black Wind Howlin’.”

The biggest treat of all was probably the finale, a blistering version of “Crow Jane,” a classic Piedmont Blues song dating back to at least the 1920s. Samantha brought out one of her signature “cigar box” guitars at last, and brought down the house.  Err…plaza.

When it became clear that there wasn’t going to be an encore (the fact that the road crew started tearing down the drum set being a hint), it was time to make my escape. I was relieved to find my vehicle right where I’d left it, with all four wheels in place, so I headed for home, to pack for Day Two: Phoenix.

To be continued…