Orion's First Incident!

For those of you who have no idea what I'm referring to, Russell, Orion and I attended three nights of The String Cheese Incident at the Red Rocks amphitheatre in Colorado.
String Cheese (or SCI) is one of our favorite bands. They are a 'jam band', meaning that they have a very free-form style of play in which they will 'jam' or freestyle during songs, so their shows are always different from one to the next and song arrangements vary wildly from their studio-recorded albums. They also might start one song, jam into another one, and then loop back to the original tune. Another typical quality of jam bands is that they rarely pause between songs, so shows are often made up of continuous play with only occasional chatter. Other famous jam bands are The Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic, and a few more up-and-coming groups. String Cheese and the ones listed here also boast followings, meaning that crazy kids like Russell and I love them so much that they devote their time and energy to following the band around the country on their various tours, going to many of the shows and supporting themselves by selling goods like clothes or food in the parking lots of each venue.
SCI has been on hiatus for about three years now, taking a break so that the members could work on their side projects and get some rest from the constant touring. They came out of hiatus last year to play the Rothbury Music Festival in Michigan, which was one of the best shows I've ever seen - and that's saying a lot. They had such a good time playing at Rothbury that they decided to do a select number of shows in 2010 - the first three being at the Red Rocks. They also did three sets at the Horning's Hideout festival in Oregon this past weekend, and are doing two nights before Halloween (dubbed "Hulaween") at the Hampton Coliseum in Virginia (we're going to those shows, too, so we'll have seen 5 out of 8 of their shows this year).
The shows at the Red Rocks were destined to be awesome. SCI hails from Colorado, and most bands put on great shows when they're on their home turf for obvious reasons. Not to mention that the Red Rocks is an absolutely incredible venue! It's a natural amphitheatre formed by red sandstone walls on a mountaintop that overlooks Denver at an elevation of 6,450 feet. Absolutely incredible at night... I've been there a few times before, once during the day just to play around in the park, and another time some years ago for a rave. Russell had never been, so it was fun to watch his amazement at the awesome views and beautiful sandstone forms surrounding us as we danced the nights away!
All three shows were awesome, but as I predicted the second night was the best. SCI played a lot of the crowd favorites, so the sold-out audience of 9,450 people were all singing along! They also had stunt sky divers come swooping down over the crowd at a couple different intervals, trailing colored smoke during the day and sparklers at night. Some of them came very close over our heads before skimming over the edge and down to the ground outside the amphitheatre.
The third night was special, too, in that they had a bubble machine going that spread thousands of bubbles over the crowd. Just at that happened they also released a pile of large clear beach balls for the audience to bat around, echoing the bubble effect. Add the colorful stage lights to the mix and you have an epic visual show! The last night was also the full moon, which rose right over the stage in plain view. When the band finished the final set, it was about midnight, and they came out to do the encore - which was "Midnight Moonlight" an Old and In the Way tune that fit the moment perfectly.
Orion was awesome through all three shows. He slept a lot in the Ergo carrier, but when we had him out of it and he was awake he was completely unperturbed by the crowds. He got a lot of love and attention from the other Cheese Heads - all of whom were really helpful in protecting him and us from folks who were unaware that we had a baby with us. That's one of the things I love the most about the crowds at Cheese shows - they are easily the best group. Kind, conscious, and fun - and way less sketchy than most.
I wish SCI were on tour, and I wish we were following them... It's been a life-long dream of ours to run away on tour. It still may happen, one of these days!