Remembering Summer Heat- Part Nine

Creative ideas often sprang forth from us collectively as a band. Oft times as we were performing, an idea would occur to one of us and we would simply spring it on our audiences as well as ourselves, sometimes without discussion.

We had written a few original tunes as well. As the years have gone by, I've forgotten a few of those tunes, but I do remember two of them. One was "Quicksand Mother," which I always thought would have been a killer of a name for a band. The other one, which Jay and I wrote together was "Sounds From 46,000 B.C." Jay had worked out the melody, I wrote the lyrics. It was basically a Viet-Nam war protest song and a nuclear bomb war protest song at the same time. Funny thing about that tune, I spent a large amount of time picking out just the right words to get our message across in just three verses, and I felt I had done quite well. Jay did as well, but when it came time to perform the song, Jay pretty much winged the verses because he never quite got a grip on my lyrics. He had the chorus down pat, no problem, but he never did get the verses down, so to speak. Hell, it didn't matter, the band performed our song at each dance we played, so that was good enough for me, just to hear it playing each time we took the stage.

We had a great night going one particular evening, the audience was huge, truly one of the biggest ones that had ever played at the Community Building, and they were a truly receptive audience as well. The crowd hadn't thinned at all as we made it into our final one hour set. The band was so tight this particular night, the sounds we were playing were awesome. Jay's vocals were so good that night; I'm not sure he ever sounded better. I felt like I was right on it with the lighting effects that night as well. The guitars were melded together, the keyboards sounded awesome, and Jim's drumming was excellent. Denny was enjoying the night, smiling more than I think I had ever seen him. Mike seemed to have been transformed to a higher plane, his guitar work was mesmerizing.

As the magic hour of the end, 11 PM approached, I had a very creative idea that I thought would prove to be awesome. I walked over to Jay as we finished a song and told him my idea. "When the vocals are done in this next song, have the band keep playing, and let's start tearing down while the song is still going on, and tear down one instrument at a time. What do you think?"

Jay started laughing and looked at me and said, "Charlie, you crazy son of a bitch, I love it! Let's do it, man!" He walked over and gave the instructions to Mike and Denny and I walked over and told Jim.

I told Jim, "We'll tear everyone else down and leave you playing drums at the end, all by yourself." Jim, while a bit apprehensive, picked up on the groove we were in and agreed.

As the years have gone by, I don't remember how we did it, where we started or who we started with, but I remember Jay and I opened up the doors while the band played on, and we pulled the van up to one of those huge overhead garage doors, opened up the van doors, and began tearing down the stage and loading things up in the van.

The audience again crammed the stage to see just what the hell Summer Heat was up to this time, and several times during our teardown, we received approval in the form of applause from a large number of those in attendance.

As each part of the band was removed from the stage and their instruments and amps were loaded up, a few more of our audience walked out the doors, realizing the show was ending. This entire scene took place as our strobe light flashed away, and it was an electrical feeling, doing what we were doing, because it had never been done before, and it never would again, we knew. It had to have been one of the coolest things we had ever done to end our show, and again, it was purely a spur of the moment idea that came about and that we acted on collectively.

When Jim finished his impromptu drum solo, around 60 or so people remained in the audience, and the majority of them clapped and hollered out encouragement to us, although I have to admit we did have that usual handful of smart asses in attendance that had to make their rude comments, although they were pretty much silenced by the approval of everyone else in attendance.

It was such a magical time, such a great time to be alive and performing for people, and it seemed the longer we played together and worked together, the more our ideas grew and the creative forces just seemed to blossom for us.

Our second Greensburg High School dance was in the near future, and on that particular night, even though our creative forces would be in full bloom, the audience this particular night would not be quite so receptive.

to be continued.....