Dr. Bill and Cracker

Cracker played two shows in the area last weekend, one at the Cubby Bear across the street from Wrigley Field on Friday night, then again Saturday night at the Palatine Street Fest, or as my old friend Dr. Bill calls it, the Palpatine Street Fest.

Now when I say Dr. Bill is an old friend, I’ve seriously known this guy forever. I’ve known him longer than I haven’t, since we were both 10 years old or so. We haven’t seen much of each other for about the last 15 years. We were both busy raising families, geographically separated by between 500 and 1500 miles, and one of us spent about 12 years preoccupied with medical school, which I guess is kinda grueling or something. Dr. Bill is a smart motherfucker though. He knew he wanted to be a doctor since he was a kid, and he made it happen. I’m a pretty smart motherfucker too, but I lack the drive Bill always had. Anyway, from the sounds of it, the kid’s become a pretty damn good doctor.

So anyway, I hadn’t seen the guy for at least a decade, but we’d always kept in touch over the intertron. He was always prone to singing the praises of this little band Cracker, who I’d known of but not really known the music of, except for their one big hit, Low back in the early 90’s. But Bill is a Crackerhead extraordinaire, a fan since back when they had no hits, and in fact since they were Camper Van Beethoven. Well, some of them still are Camper Van Beethoven, but that’s another story (and technically another band, even if the lineups are often remarkably similar).

So though he lives in Iowa, when Cracker’s playing two nights in a row in the Chicago area, Bill’s fucking gonna be there. And since I’m his main dude in Chicagoland, I get to tag along. When he got here, it was as if no time had passed since we’d last hung out.

So a few weeks back, I figure if I’m going to see this band I know very little of, I’d better familiarize myself with the music, at least so I don’t seem like a total fuckwad at the shows. I get copies of most of their albums (yes, I still call them albums, and fuck you), and you know what? It’s some pretty good shit. Especially the first two albums. That little fucker Dr. Bill was right. I even found myself downloading bootlegs of recent shows. Some of their music reminds me a lot of the Stones, or at least the really good Stones tracks that don’t get played on the radio. Good old rock and roll with the occasional country track done better than any country artist could.

Well, Friday night rolls around, and I’ve been listening to a lot of Cracker, so I’m psyched. After some confusion over when the doors actually opened (that is, we were lied to) we eventually get in, and get right up front, literally leaning on the stage. The opening act was a local bunch called Burn Rome Burn, and were pretty good. Their drummer was actually fucking incredible, and I found myself drooling over his 7-piece Yamaha rig decked out with about 8 high-end Zildjians. Either he’s got a good day job or opening for Cracker pays really fucking well, because he was sitting behind probably about 10 grand worth of drum shit. The other cool thing was that they gave away CD’s. Didn’t try to sell them, just said “here, take some and pass ‘em out”. Pretty smart move actually.

Eventually Cracker made it to the stage. The place was packed shoulder to shoulder by this point, and the band seriously brought their shit. They played most of my favorites and just beat the fuck out of them. Some of the die-hard fans that were there (pretty much everyone but me) said it was one of the best shows ever, and though I have no basis for comparison, it’s hard to imagine them doing better.

It was very hot in there though. Even the band had sweat literally dripping off of them, and well, they’re not an enormous fat guy squished in a room with at least 300 other sweaty fucks. I’d been drinking beer all day, and there was no way I could worm my way out to get some kind of refreshment, so I just sweat it out. I worried a little about heat stroke or something, but it’s reassuring to know the guy standing next to you could save your life if he needed to. Shit, Dr. Bill could probably remove my appendix with nothing but a pocket knife, a quart of gin, and a rubber band.

At the end of the show, they played an extended version of a song called “I Ride My Bike”. It was so extended that it had the Pink Floyd classic “Interstellar Overdrive” in the middle. Now, I’m a huge (yes, really huge) fan of Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd, so I was going apeshit. Well, when I realized that was really what they were playing anyway. It was the last thing I expected, and they kind’ve eased into it, so at first I was saying “hmmm, this sounds kinda like Interstellar Overdrive…” Soon it was unmistakable, and they even nailed all the freaky harmonic feedbacky stuff in the middle.

The next day we made the long drive up to Palpatine, drank even more beer, and saw Cracker perform another awesome set. The band hung around after the show signing autographs and chatting. I mostly hung back and let the real fans have at ‘em, but I did shake David Lowery’s hand and told him he ruled and how much I dug Interstellar Overdrive the night before. He gave me a half-hearted “Thanks, man”. I probably should’ve told him how much I liked one of his songs, not one of Syd’s. Oh well. Bill got his ticket stub from the night before signed by the entire band and bought a copy of Gentleman’s Blues on vinyl, and got that signed too.

Also, I met some really cool people at both shows. Cracker fans are some really friendly folks, it seems. So hat’s off to all of you. I’ll probably run into you all again the next time Cracker comes through Chitown.

As we wandered back to the car, still somewhat drunk, Bill said to me, “You know, it’s good to engage in adolescent behavior with someone you were an adolescent with.” True words of wisdom.