Well, John and Jon , holy cow, I'm really surprised and deeply flattered by your comments!!! Thank you VERY MUCH! John, it was a true pleasure to talk to you and get to know you a bit. Jon, sorry we didn't get to talk more, but it was good to see you again, albeit briefly. Thank you for traveling all the way to Indy - John from freakin' NASHVILLE!!! I'm blown away! Thank you! I'm really relieved you enjoyed the show - would have felt terrible if you hadn't!

The show was a BLAST for us, too! It was sold out quite a while ago, but it's a small club - the smallest club on his current tour, so the fans had a chance to see him in a very intimate setting. Since it was a Tuesday night, we got things started early - at 7:15. We played with DD at this same place, our home away from home, Melody Inn in Indy, once before, two years ago. I saw Sam Bolle after our set at that show and though we have known each other since '97 he didn't know I was in the Madeira, so he missed our set, which was a bummer. But he remembered this time!!! He was in the club at 7 pm, heading for me with his hand stuck out and a big smile on his face! It was so great to see him and catch up with him a bit! It turned out that him being there during our set was a BIG DEAL this evening!

We played the first song, and at the end of it Patrick's amp went dead. Uh-oh!! It's actually my '64 Showman with a single 15" cab that Patrick's been using since '09. Well, he tried everything he could to figure out which part of the chain was dead, but no sound. God bless him, Sam stepped up and started helping - and offered for Patrick to use one of his Showmans which were right behind Patrick's amp!! At first he tried just plugging one of his heads into Patrick's cab, but still nothing - it appears that the cab was dead (probably just a short between the jack and the speaker), so he plugged Patrick into his Showman and his cab! I don't know what we would have done without Sam - we would have been totally screwed! What a guy!!! We're all deeply grateful to him!

Once we had those gremlins out of the way, we played a really good set, I thought - especially given that our last show was three months ago! But man, we just RAGED! It felt so good! At the end of the set, I was laughing out loud from pleasure and hugging Todd, standing next to me, who would have almost certainly preferred I hadn't! It just felt like being in a freakin' Sherman tank, leveling everything ahead of us! When we started the club was only about half full, and most of the audience didn't know us so they were a bit timid. But halfway through the set, it had filled out and they were getting increasingly into it. By the last song (Intruder, of course), they gave us a fantastic response, warranting an encore, and I was able to get them to move up to the stage for it.

It was really one of those great gigs you dream about and hope for, and I couldn't be happier! I'm very proud of my band! We sold a lot of merch afterwards - all a big difference from two years ago when the audience just never seemed to really get into us, and we didn't sell anything afterwards. Go figure! It was a huge relief that the same thing didn't happen this time!

Re: comparative volume, DD vs. the Madeira! Well, DD had FOUR Showman amps running (two for himself, two for Sam) and we had three, so he beat us there! BUT! We have two guitar players, and two of us will make more noise than even DD! I had my Gomez volume at about 7 (I think Dick's Showmans were at 7.5), which is louder than I usually go (5-6), but with all of us being so squished together on the small stage in front of Dick's band's gear and my amp having to penetrate through the drums, I thought it was necessary. The Surfer sounded truly GOD-LIKE! Holy cow, I LOVE THAT AMP ON 7!!! I think that was a big part of enjoyment of the show for me, too! (Nope, no earplugs for me - didn't wear them for the Cossacks shows last weekend, either - but I did put them in for DD's set. My ears were pretty shot by that point.)

Sam told me that Dick's been doing better healthwise than a year ago, and has stabilized a great deal. He does seem frail and I don't think he's as tall as he used to be, but his tone was HUGE as always. He came in straight from his RV to the stage with his wife Lana announcing him, and played his standard set. I first saw him back in '92, and MANY times in between, and I don't think his set has changed one bit! Always just snippets of songs, a great deal of chatting in between songs, whatever may be on his mind, though he kept it relatively short this time around, and mostly played. He did some phenomenal harmonica playing at one point, and then did his usual drumming duet which was just amazing as always. Sam and the drummer (don't know his name) were PHENOMENAL and seemed to have some sort of mindmeld, a telepathy thing going with Dick! Crazy! I should mention though that at a few points early on in the show, Dick was making a LOT of mistakes on guitar, and I became really worried - several instances where he couldn't hit a right note no matter how much he tried! Like he had a mental meltdown of some sort. Just completely forgot the parts. I was fearing the worst, but he then somehow pulled it together and for the final three-quarters of the show played really well! Old age is a bitch, but Dick is still a fighter and a survivor and continues to end up on top! Just incredible.

The show went by very fast, and he ended it with Miserlou (of course), thanking us and walking off the stage with Lana's help, right to his RV, and that was it. No signing of anything, no selling merch (there was none for sale), nothing. I think those days might be behind us.

I've seen him play probably more than 20 times, and even though there were zero surprises, I do feel privileged to have had yet another chance to see the King of Surf Guitar in the flesh and hear that inimitable tone and technique of his. Of course he's not as good as he was in '92 - back then he was 55, in great shape and full of fire and chops. There's not that much fire anymore, and his chops are not what they used to be, but he's still one of a kind, my hero (for all his faults) and one of my greatest influences, and being able to stand five feet in front of him and watch every nuance of his face, his hands, his body, as he ripped it up was a true honor and a privilege. It was simply unforgettable.

(I wrote another post on his gear and put up a bunch of photos - see here: https://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/28428/ )

Here are some photos I took:

Here are some Madeira pics taken by others:

Here's the link to one minute of us playing "Journey to the Center of the Surf", the opening track that led to the death of Patrick's Showman!

https://www.facebook.com/craig.striegle/videos/1426764860683339/

Here are the links to a few videos of Dick playing:

Miserlou from two angles (I was standing right behind the woman that took the first video):

https://www.facebook.com/sherry.breitwieser/videos/10210576668712321/

This one taken by Todd of the Madeira:

https://www.facebook.com/todd.fortier.39/videos/10157304829360287/

And finally, the drum duet:

https://www.facebook.com/sherry.breitwieser/videos/10210576627231284/

Enjoy!!

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

I think Dick must have been in slightly better form last night than on the 16th. Lana still helped him onto and off the stage. She sat right at stage's edge, and Dick wandered over to her from time to time to be reminded of something or other. But his playing was sure and he had the audience right where he wanted us.

But this is the first time I've ever heard him refer to himself as "I" instead of "Dick Dale". No third-person references about himself at all. He was charming, self-effacing, humorous, almost silly at times, and so personable it was as if he was just hanging around telling stories to old friends and playing personal favorites. He talked about (and hilariously demonstrated) how Frank Sinatra once showed him to deliver lyrics with feeling, and he played (sang, actually) songs I'd never heard him play before.

I didn't get the sense of a farewell tour or anything. It was more like Dick wanted to really connect with us, instead of just bowl us over. It reminds me of the those first-person Broadway shows. I enjoyed his performance immensely.

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

Last edited: Aug 21, 2016 12:07:13

Ivan,

Thanks for all of the extra insights and the great photos. I was really impressed with Sam’s P-bass sound and playing. But didn’t know who he was. Just looked him up. Wow. He has quite the bassist resume, playing in lots of bands that I know. My being so impressed makes more sense now. Cool how he helped you guys out like that. I saw a lot of people at your merch table, so it’s good to hear that the sales happened. Yep, you guys rocked, tight and loud.

Noel- Cool that you got to see a DD show, too. It was fun, indeed.

One note of potential interest…
During the show, as Dick spoke, it struck me that he has a mild Boston accent. That’s where I grew up. Even though I do not have the accent, most of my relatives do. Some pretty thick. Dick’s accent was especially telling in one particular thing he said. OK, fine. We’re all from somewhere. After the show, I checked out his Wikipedia page. And it turns out that there has been some controversy and inconsistency regarding where he was born. So hearing the mild accent might be a little revealing in this regard.