Dardofest complete and honest review

[Jeremy Mixer <zepmeist@xxxxxxx>]

I was planning to get a start early in the morning, and meet up with a
friend of mine, Nicole, from the Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna list,
however, I came home from work at 3 AM on Friday morning finfding out that
she would not be able to make it, but we would definately be able to get
together Sunday evening.

So, knowing that Dardo would not be home until after 5, I pretty much
decided I would leave a buit later, which was jsut as well because I had
tons of packing to do, as well as lots of preperation.

I finally took off at 9:30, knowing there would be tons of rest stops due
to my own back problems. The drive down was great, I found my way no
problem, but put off looking for Dardo's housre until I found the Wendy's
in Patchougue that I was to meet Nicole at. At this point I tuned around
and went to Dardo's, made a wrong turn and looked and there was Grant
parking his car, so the wrong turn turned out to be a right turn.

I proceeded into the backyard, seeing some familiar faces such as Chris
Williams (who could tell that I recognized him but had no clue as to what
his name was...I will remmeber now) and Dardo. Several of Dardo's friends
were there for the bash, and we basically cooked some chicjken...however I
was pretty damn tired after 34 hours of no sleep and ended up opassing out
before the chicken was done. Of course, from what I ahve heard, the
chicken actually never got done, they just ate it anyway, but that's
another story.

WEll I woke up the next morning, helped hang some free givaway posters up,
and watched all the people arrive. Dave ANderson, Hugh Jones, a friend of
Hugh's, McCue,  Connie, and several others (including the one that I
always recognize but for some reason can never remember her name!) and
Shelby and tons of people...hell there were probably some people there I
didn't even realize was there. Dardo's stereo blew in the afternoon on
Saturday, so we were using my boom box for the entertainment. Hugh brought
Tequila, and as you could see from my posts, that pretty mcuh did me in.
WE were blasting through boots, I finally got to hear the "Oh My God"
tape. WE watched a couple of videos, and I was one of the last to go to
bed at about 5:30 AM.

I woke up at about 10:30 the next morning, jsut in time to say goodbye to
most. I took a shower, somewhat helped Dardo clean things up a bit,
although the fact was I was in a really lazy mood, but I couldn';t not do
anything. At 5 I departed to pick up Nicole, and told Dardo that we'd meet
at the Allman Bros show.

Well, I met Nicole.....nice young lady....anyway, we found our way to
Jones Beach and looked for Dardo and eventually gave up. We got our
tickets and went in. As we walked up to our seats, I musta freaked out
because the opening band went into the "Lemon Song" right in the middle of
some other blues standard and I about flipped. They did the same thing
again, only with a few other songs such as D&C/.....all were from the
first two albums.

Well, the Allmans came on....the new bass player sounded pretty good,
there were a couple of basslines that really caught my attention. Although
I am not a big Allman Brothers fanb, I did find the show very enjoyable.

The show ended, and we proceed to get lost on Long Island. While being
lost, I had a tape in which had ELO's "Fire On High" (as well as some of
my other current favorite songs on it." Nicole went on about how energetic
the song was and told me to turn it up, so I did, and she fell asleep (?)
before the song was over.

WEll we got to Dardo;s......everyone there was asleep, the house was nice
and clean again.....ended up going to sleep. Dardo was gone by the time I
woke up, and his wife was getting ready for work. SO I dropped her off,
and oproceeded home, drove around NYC for awhile then started having car
trouble, like my car dying in intersections and people throwing shit at
me. Well I made it onto the highway and didn't have a problem again, till
I called hoime and was informed that work was wondering where I
was......so I called them and  ended up going directly to work after
getting off I-95, instead of going home...but they now admit they fuicked
up on the schedule.

It was a great, wonderful weekend, thanlks all who were there, and big
thanks to Dardo for putting this bash on. I had a great time......If I
didn't live in Maine I'd try to do one of these things every weekend! It
was a blast!


Jeremy Mixer

"Charlie squeeze me some of those lemons and make me some lemonade.
 ...aww, you got it all over your leg"       -Tortelvis "Stir It Up"