Once we got over Wolf Creek we decided to pull over and sleep off the Robo. There were enough hours left before the show, and we could still make Pueblo by about 4. So no reason to struggle against the syrup, just hopin’ a deer didn’t jump out in front of us and damage the Cherry Popper. Or wedge itself into the windshield and kick us both to death. Ain’t no one wants to go out like Kev Patchek’s dad. We had us some Pixies playing loud as we could stand, but I could still feel myself fading out pretty hard. So we took a few hours respite in Westfork to get our heads straight.
Then it was just up the gunbarrel and east on 50 counting miles with cigarettes and some Spoon. We pulled into Pueblo and got us some decent chicken fried steak before finding the club and makin’ sure we got tickets. Then we just kicked it in the parking lot and got well into a few fifths of Hot 100 and a teener we’d somehow picked up in the Wal-Mart parking lot back in Salida. There was some kinda feeling in the air about this show. And them synchronicities and signs were awful abundant, I tell you what.
It was right chilly for June 6th, even by Colorado standards. And we hadn’t really packed anything warm before tearing outta Dolores County. All we brought with us were two cases of Natty Ice, four hits of acid and our toothbrushes. We were keepin’ warm thanks to them fifths of Hotty and the heating vents, just lettin’ the engine idle and burn some fuel like good Americans. The parking lot was fillin’ up nicely when in drives a tractor trailer that sounded like it was full of livestock. Uncle Dave and I thought it odd that someone would be takin’ a break to see a show like this, what with their herd in tow. But, you know; Pueblo.
We ate them four hits just before the doors swung open, and had a good hour to walk circles around the place, drink dollar wells and let that fry start comin’ up. Good shit from Lars back in Durango. That hippie knew how to lay a sheet, I tell you what. It was some clean, boy.
Doom Buggy opened and tore through a thirty minute set that got the place good and amped. Looked like security was fine with stage dives and a pit. Uncle Dave and I were about halfway up that lysergic peak when Naughty Monkey came out, naked as a pack of hot dogs and at least as high as we were. This was the first time I’d ever seen them in the flesh, but they didn’t look a whole lot different than when I seen ‘em the first two times, just risin’ up outta the pinto bean fields. The only real difference was there were always three of ‘em before. Now there were four.
Those boys fired up them half-stacks and out came a gawdamned storm of comets. That fry plus them songs equaled full on chemical sartori. Uncle Dave and I were peakin’ and freakin’, just swimming hard against the current of all that sound and fury for forty-five minutes until the first set ended and everyone just kinda exhaled together. Boys left the stage but they didn’t bring the lights up and folks just kinda treaded water there in all that sweat and stink. Then all the sudden there’s cows walkin’ round in there. Uncle Dave and I both took a step towards the door, just a muscle-memory reflex for sure, but that sumbitch we’d seen earlier had backed his trailer right up to the main entrance, opened it wide, and about twenty head of limousin/hereford lookin’ beasts had all come stutter-steppin’ into that human swamp right as the band came back out, still naked, carryin’ a car hood, a violin, a shotgun and what musta been a garden rake.
They started bangin’ on that car hood with a coupla hammers, with that violin run through their guitar effects and the bass just feedin’ back like the world was finally gonna end. Them cows did not like it one bit, and they went flat out apeshit. Bobok was firin’ rounds outta that pump action right into the ceiling and the pit was a half-person-half-mad-cow cyclone of meat, everyone just shittin’ and slippin’ and sliding round with no idea what the fuck was happening, or where they oughta go. Uncle Dave and I were holdin’ ground at the bar in the back, and the great blind hand of instinct just kinda pushed us towards an emergency exit as two fires broke out on stage, and rounds that definitely were not from a shotgun started ringin’ out.
The band played on. It was the most glorious thing Uncle Dave and I had ever seen or heard. That violin was in PAIN, and you couldn’t see nothin’ but smoke and lightbulbs of muzzle flash turning it all electric everytime someone sent another round into the void.
Next thing we know we’re outside with what looked to be the rest of the crowd, and the structure’s caught fire all the way through. But you could hear the band still wailin’, the cows still goin’ moo, and some sirens comin’ towards us from a long ways off. Uncle Dave and I tumbled right off that peak, got in the Cherry Popper, and cut a path straight back to Mud Creek.