Bring my heart back safely. Justin really understands how I feel, with that song. How some of us feel. God what a sucker I am for that man!

JoAnne is one of my longest pen pals�. When she first wrote me, I was doing *Vibrations from the Underground* an off-beat Moody newspaper modeled a bit after Drudgereport.com. I had a bit of a bad rep in the fan club, deserved to some extent, but I was aiming at honesty rather than ingratiation, a foul state of mind quite common in fan clubs. I never have liked ass kissing. All a matter of taste I suppose. I was just up front about the rumors, rather than sneaking around in dark back alleys of the Internet, and whispering like they were something to be ashamed of. You can�t believe the stuff I heard and never printed or passed on, as it was just TOO evil and twisted. Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear!

Anyway, Jo is a Martha Stewart type, mostly a housewife, but we stray in conversations to just about every topic, including mysticism, dogs, her work my work our pets��� whatever comes up in life. Both of us blow off a lot of steam in taping each other. It�s been a good relationship, and it was wonderful to finally put a person with the voice.

Coincidentally my rental car, which didn�t suit me at all, was the same make JoAnne drove. She had to show me how to run the AC (I had been living with ram air cooling up to that point). That Honda trained ME with it�s weird ergonomics.

JoAnne used to be part of the Atlantic City Moody scene in the mid 90�s, ran with a rather active group that somehow was gleaning comp tickets from the management. She said they did some pretty evil stalkerish things too (as did the Moody Bitch group at Tahoe). One very funny thing her group did was to sit near the Moodies in bars, and then when the band got up, one of her group would stand up and "accidentally" bump into them. She bumped into John once this way and said he packs quite a wallop when he hits you! (Geeze no wonder they hid when they got to Tahoe!) But she�s like me, after a while that sort of "fun" gets old, and she said "I had the Moody pen pals I wanted" and she�s been totally out of it for years.

Her country home is impeccable, beautiful, her dog Tundra (the same age as my dog Micco) met me at the door, we visited and had a great conversation. Then we packed up our cars, and headed out back through Landenberg and Amish country to Hershey. It was a beautiful drive, as I followed her, and didn�t have to navigate (I could gawk at the scenery for a change, rather than keeping one hand on a map!)

Some fool on-line had said about Hershey PA that "it�s a cute little town, everything is right there". Man I don�t know what they were doing, but I wish I had some. Hershey was a cow town, a factory town, spread out all over, no logic to the city planning. We got our tickets from Will Call, and it�s a good thing we went early, as there was a mess up of some kind (yike and I had my print out off line� soaked with water of course). The theatre reminded me of a prison, or maybe City Hall, no telling where the stage door would have been, so stalking the band was out of the question. We finally found the Hershey Lodge, YEAH got a room right where we could pull up our cars! We tried to find the Hershey Hotel, where we assumed the band was staying��. That was a nightmare to get to too. We got stuck in a morass called Hersheyland (another weird attempt at amusement parks) drove in circles for a while. YUCK what a messed up town traffic wise!!!

I think we choked down a big hamburger in the sports lounge (nice one) she drank coffee and I drank beer! And then we got it together, and off to the show we went�� they were actually checking bags at the door! I dashed back to the car under some pretense, and stashed my gear in my jacket, came back and sailed through the checkpoint smiling with my jacket draped over my arm. Whew! After all that, this night�s recording is really awful, as stuffed down in between the seats (very very tight seating, no leg room) you can barely hear things. We were dead center about 6 rows back (F) great views, but hard to get out if you wanted to move around (I�ve been know to do that). 

The good news is my photos came out THE BEST of the three shows here. This is my favorite crop of Justin. There were big fluffy blue clouds behind him, and I think that's going to be my new screensaver.   The theatre was ok, and I know they do a lot of Shakespeare in there. I would have liked to see a play in it. But again, I�m really spoiled by the Schnitzer (and I�m the stuck up daughter of an architect too), it was just a little too Rococo for my taste. The tiles were cool, gold leaf and such; the bathrooms were like the Schnitz, those huge lounge sorts of places where the ladies used to fix their huge flowing gowns, and bustles. But from the outside, it looked like something from a penal colony. I didn�t notice that the acoustics were any great shakes, but again it�s hard to tell with rock and roll.

At some point, a well known fan came up to me (sells Moody photos in a grey market on line), and before I could catch myself (it was the wine) I blurted out "Oh hi how are you *****" calling her by name. Glup, she�s one that flames me a lot! She recognized me too, but said "Remind me again who you are?" I almost slumped under the seat. But I kept smiling (teachers get used to that). Like the Grinch, I thought up a lie, and I thought it up quick. Gave her a totally fake name and locale of origin (acting school pays off again, I got away with it). I saw no reason in messing up a perfectly good conversation, and besides, I really had wounded her pride on line. I�m bad to do that, but it comes from tending to place honesty and facts over pride. I lose a lot of friends that way.

 Sure enough she started chewing on my alter ego on LC; I heard quite a few bad things about myself. I sat there and smiled, and said "Well you know, sometimes people are just passionate about their feelings for the band, and for certain subjects. And it doesn�t really matter anyway, we�re all just here to enjoy the music". Since she didn�t gain an ally, we parted amicably, and sat the rest of the show about 3 seats from me. I feel really guilty about lying to her like that. And she was so trusting too.

 A guy behind us in Hershey almost talked my leg off about [the] Doors.com and was giving me all these fan club details about THEM (like I don�t have enough to do keeping up with Moody Stuff). Jim is in the Happy Hunting grounds, I�ll let go of that I guess. This guy went on about "were there any Moody dolls?" yike. I told him about Crys Britton years ago making Moody dolls, and followed up with "I don�t think they let their images be used that way, they can be kinda persnickety" apparently there are a LOT of rocker dolls out there, and some folks collect them. (hmmm I could dig a Jimi Hendrix doll, must check into this).

 The show started, and they were still wearing the same things. It�s ok, I enjoyed it anyway. They look good in black. And they never wore levis either that I could tell. OH I take that back, looking closer at photos I see that Justin wears some black levis at some point. And they look good too!

Graeme stole the show as far as I was concerned. Jo is quite fond of both the drummers, and was cheering like a madman for Gordon several times. Graeme and Norda seemed quite chummy, and their friendship was my warm and fuzzy "feel good" moment of the entire tour. A VERY good sign indeed! Once Norda was dancing around, Graeme was too, and she started off stage, with Graeme following! Ahahah! They wanted that day off too and were looking forward to it.  During Graeme�s "Higher and Higher" there is one moment where he stops sorta in front of Julie�s keyboards, and does his "earthquake shake" which used to be for that great hula dancer he had on his shirt back (it jiggled and twitched). Well, this night, he did it, and Julie yelled back at him NO, not once but several times! It was pretty funny I thought. She was laughing about it too.  During the drum solo there was this wonderful Thunder Dance light show, with strobe chasers around the stage (light bulbs hanging in festoons! And DARN it didn�t come out on my slow shutter film). Graeme really got with it, bashing around! (Been reading David Brin, haven�t you Graeme? chuckle) Have a banana and a beer for me!

 Slidezone: Someone still says "slime zone" <chuckle>. The letters trickled down the scrim like a screen melting under a virus attack. Man I felt like that with the Internet community this time. You know, you try NOT to contribute to toxic behavior, but some of it is really righteous indignation. If you roll over and are blanc mange all the time (smiling with your best Miss Mary smile "Oh can�t we all get along?), that doesn�t cure the problems. Niceness is for Kindergarten and little guys. You have to get grumpy with older kids, or they stomp over you.

	Pre-show in Hershey, I noticed in the stage set, that my fave guitar, Justin�s Martin didn�t make it to the stage. It was 8:15 too, and I was worried! Oh could this mean?? Yeah sure enough, they did "Voices in the Sky" and Justin used the James Olssen for that. From what I can tell, this show was the only one they did "Voices" for this leg of the tour. It makes sense, a lot of folks did either the first or last half of this leg, and this way they caught people going to New England, or coming from the South (like me) and gave them a little variety. The backdrop lighting for this was birds, and it looked like something from the War of the Worlds lightshows. It also has some flute bits in it, so this was another moment to showcase Norda�s talents. The band was a little hesitant at first with it, a sorta "out of the rhythm" thing, but that�s good for �em to stretch their legs and do something different.
They are more serious for indoor shows, I think looser for outdoor. I do know this was the first time I�d glowsticked in a long time, as most of the shows here last year in summer were outdoor and daylight. Justin used the Olssen on "Voices". John shot the peace sign after OMTTL (a good night to do it, Earth Day). No keyboards on "Nights"? I was so glued to Justin during that song, I failed to notice, but that might be the case.
	Justin was doing a Low Energy night for reasons known only to himself. Bummer. He did a great job musically of course, and smiled a lot actually (but he was very serious in between). Justin has a bad habit of dropping non-verbal "bread crumbs" as I call it, when he gets in a weird state of mind. This was sorta one of those nights (especially during "December Snow"), but then again Jo said she spotted him yawning once, so perhaps it was time for him to take a day off too. During the bridge (Middle 8) to "Nights" Justin just stared off into limbo, in the general direction of the light booth. The wife might have been up there�. Or like I say, maybe he was just wishing he was elsewhere. I thought Justin had his aura "pulled in" this night, he was tired, slurring his words more than usual on IKYOTS (and the fingers were widdly all over, not coordinated well, jangled the frets more than usual). Never mind why I zeroed in on that song, but there was something interesting in Justin�s vocal timbre at one of the shows, and I can get pretty intense with a tape. I�m just mad my finger accidentally hit the pause button on the second side of the Greenville tape, thus that fantastic performance of "Nights" was lost. (Don�t worry, they aren�t going out to Ebay). Anyone reading, if you have a tape of Greenville (second half), can we swap?
At Intermission, a LOT of blue glow sticks were passed around by someone I don�t know (met her on line), and during "Other Side of Life" out they all popped. Most were in front of me personally (JoAnne and I were in the back of that mob, we had our own sticks). It looked like a forest of wands, very scary. The band reaction was interesting, you could see them twitch a bit, they were a little shocked that many showed up! Justin sorta laughed and acknowledged the whole thing at the end of the song. JoAnne had a great time with that, and I did too, it has been years since I saw that many. Looked like an invasion!

 JoAnne said she spotted a "staring stalker" over on the Magic Left again, when I got to talking about Miss Mousy, and the gal at Nashville doing the same thing. Justin and John should take it easy whom they do that "stare" stuff with, it sets off some gals into weird head spaces.

 Apparently there were a lot of "regulars" there from the newsgroups. Toward the end, JoAnne gouged me, trying to get me to rush the stage. I�m a little timid when it comes to pushing people aside, and we were dead center with a ton of people to climb over to get up front. She prodded me again. I went ahead, and plowed on through the rather large people in the very very tight rows (man that was a tight theatre). I�m so glad I have friends sometimes, they egg me on to do things I never would otherwise. We wedged down between John and Justin, apparently on top of several other on-liners whom I didn�t even recognize (East Coast crowd). The band is sorta scary up close. It�s much more manageable from a distance. Then of all people PAUL makes direct eye contact with me, and WAVES at me! WOW what brought that on? Maybe it was the goldfish jokes! (I wonder). Anyway that was very sweet of him.

 Well they left again, and you always wonder if this is the last time. I wanted to find backstage, but this theatre gave you the feeling there were innumerable tunnels underneath leading to secret exits, and JoAnne prodded me again. "Let�s go to the Hotel Hershey" so we did. It was a dark and spooky night, and we slunk into the bar, doing vigilance and scanning. MAN WAS THAT PLACE CHEESY (sorta fake Knott�s Berry Farm). Hotel Hershey was about double the cost of the Hershey Lodge, and not any better apparently (I thought the Lodge was sorta classy). Jo ordered up a glass of wine, and I got some water, as I was driving.

 The Moodies never showed, and I wonder if they even stayed there. Probably they dove into private vehicles and peeled out for Elsewhere, singly or in pairs. The bar was full of cackling conventioneers, I never did figure out what they were selling, but they sure were drunk. Jo and I talked quite a while, and I bled my woes to her, about how I was letting this fan club get to me again, and was it worth it, to interact with the childish crap that was happening. Mostly it centered around the events in Nashville. And why let the music and the band mean so much to me in the greater scheme of things. I put a lot of work into writing up things and documenting around the Moodies. Looking for meaning I guess.

 I wasn�t looking for encouragement, just answers and truth. Truth is the most important thing (no not from Justin Hayward, but from someone even more important to me, Doc Ricketts; as Steinbeck said, "He loved true things"). Jo told me something, in complete seriousness, which I hadn�t considered; "You are a voice in this fan club". I dunno about that. I suppose I am in a underground sort of way, and again, does that even matter? And is it just Pearls Before Swine?

 Do some people react to me so violently on line because I THREATEN them?????

 "Don�t� give up" she said in so many words. Oddly enough some of Justin�s bread crumbs said the same thing during the show. Don�t hesitate. Don�t stop. Ok. Here it is.

 So we finally gave up on the Moodies (sleep well wherever you are), cruised back to the Lodge in the balmy night air (nice Spring weather, as it was for the whole trip), we talked some more outside, sipping wine. Then finally crawled off to bed. I still couldn�t sleep well, and only got about three hours. How DOES the band do it, sleeping in a different room every night? Or cat napping on the bus?

 One more thing, and then that will end my Moody reviews for this cycle. From what I can tell, there are a lot of "regular people" who are joining the Moodybluestoday.com fan network, just out of pure love of the music, finding the news club on the Internet. Those are the people showing up for the shows, and I bumped into a lot of them. It is a mistake for the band or the management to ever think this fan following is "just a bunch of nuts" harmless, hard core, stalkers or otherwise. I would put the band�s popularity somewhere up there with the Beatles, that is no lie. Certainly they are more popular than the Doors. Mainstream normal folks are returning to the band after the kids leave home, and there is a strange ongoing fan evolution happening here, what with MBT.

 I wonder where it�s all going next?

Next Stop, Falling Water!