The Peoria Theater sits inside a mall that has been on life support since 1982. Attached to the theater is a bowling center, a sauna, and a neglected arcade.
Two security guards dressed as California Highway Patrolmen oversee the property.
When we arrived Derrick Hart & The Fantastic Possibilities Of Life On This Planet were assembling their massive stage show. While Mike and Alan bowled, I made a beer run that involved a Schnuck's cashier who had never heard of Jim Beam or bourbon. He used a telephone. I was told the guy who runs the liquor department had gone home early.
Returning to the megaplex, I found John and his wife Christine hanging out in the parking lot. John drank coffee from a thermos and smoked a cigarette. Soon one of the mall ChiPs approached. We were told to move, proving that coffee and cigarettes doesn't play in Peoria movie theaters.
Derrick Hart and his crew had decorated the stage with plush toys, homemade Radio Shack lights, and a life-size robot that seemed in a decent mood.
They kept their music slow and easy on the ears. Derrick gently referenced boxing legends in a Grandaddy timber, using "smurf" as a verb, while his right hand man Eddie launched flatulent balloons upward and onto the songs. Then he added Fisher Price feedback with a Toys 'R Us guitar. Sometimes he narrated through a megaphone, and let his horsey-on-a-stick whinny for emphasis. During one song, Eddie slowly unravelled his body from a mummified cacoon, revealing a butterfly costume in the song's crescendo.
The sextet was dressed for success, a motley melding of gnomewear, Nehru, sombreros, baseball caps, tape moustaches, and robes. Several kids sitting on a couch wore gorilla masks or those novelty springy alien antennae things that were popular in 80's malls. All the while a film played behind them. For the final song, a barrage of streamers bounced off of the band, and supermarket fireworks popped, like a family version of Great White's live show.
Derrick Hart put on something special for Peoria.
Too bad Peoria doesn't know what special is.
We played next. We weren't very good. We closed with "Vanilla Bean."
Three times.
During the fourth "Vanilla Bean," someone shouted out "Laura Clark."
Laura Clark is a 17-piece band that takes a long time to set up. While they were still setting up, I retrieved some keys I had accidentally left near the stage. I apologized for walking through their set up, and said it would be the last and only time.
"Good," said the lead mandolinist flatly.
Laura Clark is also the name of the band's lead singer. She is an "attractive" girlwoman who plays original guitars and musics. I think it's really cute that such a beautiful girl can be a woman with a band of men to make her songs sound so professional and good-sounding. Her father played keyboards and favored major sevenths, the kind that contemporary adults go mad for.
"That's my Dad. It's past his bedtime."
The rest of the family laughed. It was a good family time atmosphere.
"Thank you for staying. I know it's late. We're going to play some nice songs."
Laura Clark the band did play nice songs. All 23 of the band members knew exactly how to play their instruments the right way. Every song sounded like it could have been on the shiny radio. They played so properly, it sounded like 47 people were playing. And there were only 34 of them on the stage! They were that good.
And gracious, too!
"Thanks to The Bitter Tears. That was an experience."
That's the thing about being an artist. You have to have life experience. And Laura Clark was born with it.
"Can someone get me a beer-JUST KIDDING!! I don't drink beer.
It tastes like pee."
Now even though Laura Clark has never had a beer in her life, she knows that it tastes like pee because it smells like pee. That makes sense to me! Besides, her husband would kill her if he caught her talented face drinking a beer.
The only reason I immediately left after that was because I had to go drink some pee, I mean, use the restroom. On the way there a gentlemen compared The Bitter Tears to Phish. He insisted that he meant no harm for several minutes.
At the concession stand they sold liquor and pee, I mean beer. The guy behind the counter switched to speaking in Ebonics when talking to black men. I ate a soft, warm pretzel and watched other conversations, until someone asked me how Jay Bennett had been portrayed in the Wilco movie. Meanwhile Alan sold a bunch of CD's and pee, I mean LP's.
Our records just sound like pee.
The original plan was to spend the night in Peoria and drive back the next day. But if we hit the road right away we would get home by as early as tomorrow. Mike took the wheel for the necessary trip directly back home right now.
As the morning birds chirped in Chicago we passed an establishment called Family Bar.
"The family that drinks together, stinks together."
A big thanks to Derrick Hart & The Fantastic Possibilities Of Life On This Planet for putting together a wonderfully odd bill in reverse order. Since The Bitter Tears didn't "play in Peoria" I wonder if we should remove it from our past shows list.
