Sunday would prove to be a bit less hectic for my area since by now, all the available tables had been given out to bands for their promotions and merchandise. I even had to give my Concourse Operations desk over to guitarist Gary Lucas, who wanted some promotional space since his label had pulled out and left him without a booth. We had several good shows scheduled for Sunday on the Concourse, ranging from Paul Mercer of the Changelings on violin to Voltaire, who always draws a good crowd. At the end of the day, I had scheduled a quasi "pub-sing," with three Celtic/rennaissance bands in a row: Emerald Rose, Three-Quarter Ale and The Lost Boys to wrap things up at around 8:30. I was able to catch a few of these shows, but I also wanted to skip over to the Marriott and check out the Dealers Room and the Exhibit Hall, which I hadn't yet seen. I didn't unlimber my camera for photos, alas, until much later in the evening.
I managed to avoid most of the Masquerade crowding and was luckily
not directly affected by the closure of the Concourse floor during
the busiest period. I got a call on my cellphone from Rogue of The
Cruxshadows, concerned that preparations for the night's concert
festivities in the Regency had come to a screeching halt during the
Masquerade, so I headed downstairs as soon as I could to try to
help matters along. The Klingon security goons at the door refused
to acknowledge my all-access pass, but eventually my friend Derek
and I were admitted; by this time preparations had begun in
earnest. Looking around the room, though, I noticed that there
wasn't a handy desk or table for Rogue to jump on during his
always-energetic performance. "Rogue, want us to find a table for
you to jump on, maybe put it in front of the projection screen like
last year?" "Yes" was his answer, so we were off to co-opt a desk
from outside and place it in front of the screen. Derek was kinda
proud of this and couldn't resist
hamming it up a bit.
The fire marshal insisted on having the doors open to the crowd
before all the preparations were completed, probably because the
sizeable crowd had piled up past the end of the Regency hallway and
was blocking traffic. The Brobdingnagian Bards were on the bill
first and still sound-checking at the time. In another example of
excellent cooperation between bands, the Bards, Emerald Rose and
The Cruxshadows all worked together to get the schedule almost back
on track: the Bards played a shortened set, and Emerald Rose and
CXS both worked to make the between-bands period as short as
possible. Voltaire was on hand to emcee between the two. It all
worked to perfection and Emerald Rose played to well over 500
people, while Cruxshadows played to a pretty full room -- somewhere
between 1,000 and 1,408 people (the fire-capacity of the ballrooms),
for the second year in a row at Dragon*Con.
The next sequence of pics is from The Cruxshadows' set in the
Regency.
The show's underway!
This is during the intro
Rogue and dancer Rachel Ullrich, stage-right
Rogue, close-up
Rogue on the speaker cabs, stage-right
Rogue out in the audience, singing (of course)
Rogue with arms raised
Rachel dancing
Another of Rogue with arms raised
Stacey Campbell (in background) and Rachel
Rogue standing on the speaker cabs, stage-left
..and again...
Close-up of Rogue, emotional moment
Rogue sitting in a chair, downstage center
Stacey C. on guitar
Rogue
"I can make a butterfly, or a pterodactyl..."
Rachel on violin
"There! That's the security Klingon who pissed us off! (Well, not really.... :))
Rachel on violin -- Gillian Mundt, who promoted Monday night's show at the Riviera Club, is in the front row
Rachel again, and Jessica in the background
Another of the top ten reasons you might be at a Cruxshadows show
(courtesy Voltaire): you really wish you were dancing with the lead
singer of the band, and...hey presto! You're dancing
with the lead singer of the band!
Close-up of Rogue. And the fog-machine
is finally running!
A spirited Rogue
It's impolite to point, unless of course
your name is Rogue....
Rogue and Jessica -- pretty keen shot
Here, Rogue has run out into the audience and jumped on a chair
Look, kids! The fog's back!
See previous rule about dancing with the lead singer of the band :)
Rogue has one of those kewl blue-LED flashlights in his hands -- about $12 at Wal-Mart, and they run forever!
Yep, Rogue also plays violin. He also fixes computers, but he does NOT do Windows. Willingly, anyway :)
He's got the security guy's attention, too!
Rogue's a fan of the Lost Boys? Who knew? :)
He's out in the audience again!
Mark Fingerman is 'orchestrating' the crowd's cheering for an encore :)
Rogue during one of their two? three?
encores
After the show, my friend Derek and I had
this shot taken of us, with Rogue.
And that's it for pics of the Cruxshadows' show. It was the last
stage concert of the evening and the convention, but there was much
more to come that fateful Sunday evening. :)
THIS year I made sure not to miss The Cruxshadows' show -- see
my D*C 2001 write-up for the gory details -- and their performance
was as mesmerizing and as powerful as I'd expected. Maybe as many
as 1,400 fans, most of them screaming "More! More!" at the end of
the show, bore witness to Dragon*Con's biggest concert of the year
-- for the second year running! Their new CD Wishfire is
expected to sell at least 60,000 copies, and maybe 100,000, in
Germany alone, where their song "Tears" hit #2 on the nationwide
alternative charts and stayed there for three weeks. They played
for over 10,000 people at one German gig -- which is why Dragon*Con
is their very favorite North American gig to play. :)
Walking out of the Cruxshadows concert, what's the least-likely thing you'd expect to see? Hmmm, could it be members of The Last Dance and Bella Morte conducting an impromptu rap session in front of their Concourse tables? Well, that's pretty far up on my list....and that's exactly what Derek and I stumbled into!
Here's Rap-master Phil of The Last Dance,
emceeing the ceremonies. He has a certain flair for freeform rapping
and doubtless has a more interesting past than yer basic average
member of a goth-band. :)
James "DJ Anonymous" Warnock of Bella Morte and Phil
Rap-master Phil
...is in the hizzouze. That's promotor-Scott and James to the left.
A similar shot
Mis-aimed shot of Phil and someone.
At this point I snuck inside the Centennial Ballroom for my friends
in Lips Down on Dixie's live performance of Rocky Horror. I was
astonished to find the room completely full! At least 2,000
people were in there! So here are a few shots, taken when I
entered, during the "Creation Scene":
Riff-Raff a-crankin' away (portrayed by Tom Image)
...a better shot...
"Is it soup yet?" (I'm old. My Rocky Horror A)udience P)articipation lines all date back to the late 80s :))
Unveiling of Rocky
There he is! Rocky is portrayed by my good friend "Ripper" Hallows
"Hello, nurse! -es!"
Ripper running from Dr. Frank. At one
point during the chase scene, he and Frank (portrayed by my friend
Josh Chamberlain) engineered this really fun acrobatic flyover, to
the delight of the watching crowd
Magenta, Riff-Raff and Columbia
Frank and Rocky -- awwww, what a cute couple!
At this point I scampered outside to see what was transpiring with
the rap-session, and it was still going strong, with some audience
members taking the mic and participating. Since my djembe was
still in storage in the nearby Gibraltar Room, I ran and grabbed it
and started playing along. These next shots were taken with one
hand while tapping on the drum with the other:
Andy Deane from Bella Morte in da house!
He's pretty good at rapping, too.
Unfortunately, he couldn't remember the words to a Slayer song he
was going to rap with. :)
Voltaire and Rap-meister Phil in da house!
Voltaire in da hizzouse! He's quite good
at freeform rapping, as his many fans already know.
Voltaire and Phil
...and again, getting ready to shut it
down. All in all, this was one of the oddest, and yet most-fun
events I stumbled into at Dragon*Con 2002!
So with the rapping done, it was time to go back into the Rocky
Horror show, which was close to the end. These shots begin with
the "Floor Show" and continue to the end of the performance.
Here's Dr. Scott revealing his true nature
Janet, portrayed by Laura (and I think Rocky toward the right)
Floor-show. Brad's and Janet's arms look
weird due to lighting effects.
step-step-step-kick!
Well, finally I captured a kick
but not in this shot....
Typical Transylvanians, always the
party-poopers....
Shitty loong shot across the stage. No
thanks to Jefferson Starship for leaving their crap on stage,
either....
Dr. Frank during the soliloquy
Josh (as Frank) goes out amongst the audience....
...like so...
..and here... (darker shot)
Here's Josh putting some emotion into it!
ZZZAP to Dr. Scott...
The "flashback" scene
"We could do the Time-Warp again!"
I think this is my friend Lokyei as Brad
...and again....
Aron Siegel as the Criminologist (right near the end)
...and again....
Show's over! The cast gathers on stage....
...and is called up one-by-one and introduced....
"Tom Image as Riff-Raff!"
My camera doesn't quite cycle fast enough to catch every introduction
...as you can see....
Here's the entire cast on stage to take a well-deserved
bow -- everyone, including LDOD's makeup and technical staff
They take a bow (Yea, it's kinda ragged)
After the show, audience is starting to depart after a rousing ovation for LDOD
I was aware of how much effort LDOD had put into their production at Dragon*Con 2002, even including auditions for the parts from within their own cast, and it was gratifying to see it all pay off in a damn-near flawless stage production. I've heard nothing but praise for their show, and they kept, held and built a BIG audience for the entire time. Great job for a troupe whose average age is right around 20 or so. :)
This ended my Sunday evening at Dragon*Con, and so we tiredly trooped upstairs. Ripper and Josh, who were crashing in my room (they're part of my Concourse staff) gladly washed off their makeup. Monday beckoned, the last day of our "vacation from reality." :)
Monday dawned and I slept in for a bit, since the only band I had scheduled
for the Concourse, Bach on a Hook, weren't due to start until 1pm. (I'd booked them
within a few weeks of the convention.) They called me and we got them
and their PA loaded in and set up. It was a good thing they brought their
own PA, since our own mini-PA is pretty crappy and Emerald Rose were
departing and taking their PA with them.
Here's a pic of their performance, and
here's another, and here's
one more. They had a cool sound, and I'd
like to bring back to the Concourse next year.
I made a final trek over to the Marriott, getting involved with a long
giveaway at TheOnering.net's table, and so I missed the end of Bach on a
Hook's performance; I'd wanted to say thanks and goodbye. Meanwhile, my
roommate Tim had me take this shot of him and
some chick in the Marriott. It's been two weeks and he still hasn't
asked for it. :)
And that brings my at-con pics to a close. I dutifully attended the Dead Dog Party for staff on Monday evening and then drove down to the Riviera Club for the Unofficial Dragon*Con After-Party with Bella Morte and The Last Dance. Naturally, almost everyone besides me was too exhausted and skipped it. :) As for me, I was exhausted, but didn't want to miss a chance to see both bands -- and friends -- perform again. :)
Unfortunately, due to some bad information, I missed Bella Morte's
opening performance, but arrived before The Last Dance took the stage.
Here are the pics:
Jeff
Jeff again. He's not only wearing a Bella Morte shirt,
but also showing his support (ahem) by wearing Bella Morte underwear. :)
Jeff (and Peter)
Nice shot of Jeff
Rick and Rap-master Phil :) (the memories of that rap-session could stigmatize the band for decades :)
Jeff and Peter
Nice shot of Rick
Peter, covered in boas. It's like a scene in Velvet Goldmine or something :)
Peter and Phil, on guitar
Close-up of Jeff
Rick, Peter and Jeff
Rap-master Phil goes hiiiigh
Not to be outdone, Jeff jumps on top of the stage-right PA
There's a certain Rogue-ish familiarity to the proceedings :)
Jeff on top of the PA again
"The fish I caught was THIS big, I swear!"
Some audience members on-stage, dancing
"Say, that stage-left stack looks like fun, too...."
Once again, it was a real pleasure seeing this band perform again. Even with a much-smaller audience at the Riviera, they put everything into it and it really showed. I really hope we have them back at Dragon*Con next year. I don't make those decisions, but if I did, The Last Dance, and indeed nearly every other band I saw this year, would be "in like Flynn." :)
After the show, we took this group shot of both bands; I'm fourth from the left.
After sad goodbyes and partings -- both bands felt like family by the end of the night -- it was time to drive back to the hotel and stagger into bed. I'd kept the room overnight into Tuesday because I hate trying to get out of the hotel in a blinding hurry on Monday when the convention is still running. Believe me, it's worth the extra expense. :)
Checkout on Tuesday was completely routine and I drove home and slept for many hours. Wow, was I tired! But my finale for Dragon*Con wasn't quite here yet; The Cruxshadows were playing in town in a few days and that would be the Final Unofficial Dragon*Con After-Party. :)