 Tour Diary: Sturgis, South Dakota August 8, 2001 It all started in 1938 as good clean fun. Some locals decided to stage a few motorcycle races and stunts. So, about 20 guys rode round in circles for the afternoon and some others drove their Harleys head on into the on coming traffic. Word got round and every year more and more people turned up to observe these crazy people. It was really run by no one. The Harleys just gravitated to Sturgis at the same time every year. And apart from the fact that your bike really had to be a Harley-Davidson, there were really no laws that anyone cared to abide by. It was a radical Wild West event attended by the rougher and the tougher men and women of the American motorcycling fraternity. Last year the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally attracted about 1/2 million bikers. 10-12 years ago if you weren't armed with a knife or a gun, the local police were more likely to give you one for your own good rather relieve you of your arms. Now, much in the same way that Vegas has turned from the ultimate den of iniquity to a Desert Disneyland, Sturgis has fallen prey to the cookie cutter American marketing plan: Print t-shirts, and they will come. Oh, and did they print t-shirts. Up and down the main street of Sturgis is a forest of T-shirt stands. The arrogance once displayed by facial expressions, club colors and body language is now communicated by the print upon the t-shirts. F*** You, You F*****g F*** printed on a baby tee is one of my favorites. Anyway . . . someone has to entertain these people, whom incidentally are no longer a bunch of tramps and thieves but teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers and social workers, pretending to get a bit reckless over the weekend. We all flew in the night before the show to re-acquaint everyone with each other and their equipment. We had a bunch of new crew so it helped to have us set up the gear and play for a little while to blow out the cobwebs in private rather than in front of 13,000 people. Luckily no one was using the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, so we borrowed that for the night and played a secret show for our crew and us until about 1am. At the back of the stage we found a Harley so Sheryl tried it for size and liked it. "On our next tour I want the tour sponsored by Budweiser and Harley-Davidson." We all laughed in approval. It was so wrong that maybe it was right. The next day was a Wednesday, but you'd think it was a weekend. We were at the Radian in Rapid City, 60 miles away from the Buffalo Chip Campground where the show was to take place. At 10am, it seemed that every biker in North America was not only here but was awake and riding their bike. The noise outside the hotel was a constant thunder of Harley racket. At any one time there were always at least 20 bikes going in any direction on any street block. The bikes were all shapes and sizes, as were the riders. Sheryl was intent to get a vibe for the event, so we checked out at 1pm and drove to Sturgis. Rumors of the six-mile trail back never came to reality and we pulled into town 30 mins later. A bunch of us got dropped off in Sturgis for immediate immersion into the world of the Sturgis rally. Yes, there were bikes everywhere, parked, moving, being cleaned, photographed, sat on, slept on and generally worshipped. Sheryl bought a buckskin leather vest that was destined to be the stage wear of the evening. She also did some shopping for her family and came back with a lot of Harley t-shirts. Peter got a neat little shirt for his 3-year-old. Jeremy got a Harley baseball cap. Mike a bright orange Harley shirt he will never wear (at least not in front of Oasis). Lorenza a bunch of shirts for her sisters, and Burt, our security man du jour, purchased at least 3 bags of Harley souvies. By 4pm everyone had been all over town and had seen it all. Painted breasts, a billion t-shirts, motorized tricycles and near naked men and women, but it was all disappointingly civilized. The Buffalo Chip Campground was allegedly where it all started and that is where we spent many hours waiting for the 10pm showtime. There was no point in going to the hotel as we were due to drive overnight to Sioux Falls after the show. Plus we were 60 miles from anywhere. The Campground catered for 13,500 people who were camped out for the week. The camping fee included entertainment provided every night on the main stage. Check it out- the timetable for our day was: 3:30 pm - Tinhorn A different kind of schedule. By the time it came for The Snake & Gator show, it had got very dark, windy and cooler. It was rather ominous. The Snake show in my opinion, bordered on animal cruelty but was entertaining enough to attract about 150 people to the stage, in the rain. The Snake & Gator Team are from the area and have been around for years. Fussy (Chris Fussell our production manager) who used to live in Rapid City as a kid, used to catch mice for the guys from the Snake & Gator Show. 10¢ a mouse was the rate back then. He and his buddies used to visit the nearby cow barns at night. The tact was to creep up to the feed bins, whip off the lids, shine in a flashlight and scoop up the scurrying mice by the teens. Not a bad way to make pocket money. Luckily Fuss has moved on a bit since then. I think. If there was a score report for the Snake show it was Snake- 1, Handler- Ouch! One of the sneaky reptiles got a little pissed and must have had enough of being teased by his handler and so sunk his four fangs into his hand. We were all worried that he might drop dead in minutes due to some kind of rare venom, after all they had made no bones about the fact that these were terribly, terribly dangerous reptiles. But, thankfully, later he was seen at the side of the stage cigarette in mouth and brew in hand looking like the only kind of serum he had required came in a can marked Budweiser. By 10:30pm the wind really kicked up. It was more than just a little breezy. The three big lighting rigs were blowing around so much that it became obvious there were going to be no dramatic lighting moments with Sheryl under a lone spotlight- she would have had to tap dance around just to keep in it. It was almost too dangerous, and then, just as we were 15 minutes late, the wind dropped and the Sheryl went on. It was a great show. Perhaps it was knowing that you don't mess with a Sturgis crowd that made Sheryl give her all. The night before we had been sitting on a little plane bouncing our way from Salt Lake City to Rapid City and Sheryl was sitting next to me passed out. A mere few days after her little operation she was running around as much as her health would let her - which was basically not very much. She was still constantly thinking about the record. Thinking about who how to tweak each song to give it that undeniable brilliant factor. In addition to all this she focused on making these 3 dates that were left in the schedule. This featured flying into Rapid City at night to start rehearsal at 11pm the night before the show. When I looked at her asleep on the plane, if someone had told me then that the Sturgis show was going to be one of the best she'd played for a while I would have never believed them. It really was a great show. What made the night for us all was not watching Lorenza trying to look comfortable with a 20ft albino python wrapped around her, nor meeting Tina what's her name from Survivor, but it was the sound of the Sturgis applause at the end of the set. No, it was not just cheering, not just clapping or whistling, but it was the sound of 1,000 Harley-Davidsons revving their engines in the pitch dark, in the middle of a field, in the middle of the night, in middle of nowhere, in South Dakota. PS If you can guess who the silhouette is in the fifth picture on the right - a free t-shirt & a signed set list from the tour to the first correct answer e-mailed to cbr400rr60@yahoo.com. Please include t-shirt size & mailing address. Words & Pics Chris Hudson, except where noted |
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The Set List Walk Away
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