Julie's Birthday Bash Part Two-The Return Of The Egads

Setlist:

Cinnamon Girl
Fever
Come Together
Knocking On Heaven's Door
Comfortably Numb
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
My Girl
Summertime Blues
Behind Blue Eyes
Ole 55
Outlaw Man
What I Like About You/ROCK In the USA
Good Loving
What's Up (reggae)
For What It's Worth

Belinda James-Vocals
Rich Bryan-Guest Guitar Player
Chuck-Keyboards
Dylan Groharing-Congas (he damned near knocked them off the stand)
Julie Gordon: Birthday Girl
Ryan Paul: Host

(Miss B-Tami Soukup Photo Credit)

Observations:

(Ryan, Mikey, myself)

It was a surprise party for Julie, tho she pressed me on the details but I told her I had the Waubeek Jam to do.  But not tonight.


Saturday, Ryan threw a surprise party for Julie and it was surreal.  Julie and I didn't associate much, just like Wednesday at Checkers, and since she had friends to party and drink with, I let her do her own thing.   Belinda managed to come to the party and for the first time in a long time, our collective band, The Egads came back into play, with the songs we knew best.  Plus, the first time we did the Bob Marley influenced reggae version of What's Up, to which Larry Axelman played for fun at a practice we did a couple years ago.  That got the party started up quite nicely.  And if it wasn't for Belinda being there, I too, would have left early to Waubeek and take part of the jam up there.

We had special guests playing piano and congas, and Rich Bryan became an honorary Egads member, as we messed around first time run through's of Comfortably Numb and Every Rose Has Its Thorn.  Belinda has had a hard time staying healthy too, but next to Julie remains a great vocalist.  I miss jamming with her.  Fever goes back to the time that I played drums to her debut at Rumors and it continued when I switched to guitar and let her sing away.  I think that song will always associate me with Belinda, just as Gold Dust Woman is associated with Julie.

I had fun despite my IBS and hacking and coughing.  To combat that, I took a couple shots of Captain Morgan Rum and later Black Velvet to soothe the coughing, which did work somewhat.  By Midnight I was done with partying.   I left Julie with her friends as they were inhaling helium from the balloons and trying to talk funny.  We hugged goodbye but I don't believe she remembered me leaving, as well as Ryan.  The party continued till the sun came out Sunday Morning.   Brenda and Greg Mein did venture up to Waubeek and it was mentioned it was a full house there.  Even Ron and Dakota got to play a few songs after completing their Ramsey's gig.

In the meantime, I wound up with a splitting headache from the Black Velvet shots.   I never learn either.

Below:  Jeff Allen took this beautiful shot of Julie playing the Sanctuary Open Mic on my birthday night. I found a few others of that night which I may share in the future.