West Coast Memories: San Diego

Heading to San Diego tonight. KHB is playing the Belly Up. SCI performed there the year that I joined (1997). Man, that was a whirlwind year. I just looked back at all the dates and there seemed to be no downtime at all. We were serious road dogs back then.

We had just come from a long run starting in Gainseville, FL, through New Orleans, Houston, Santa Fe and Flagstaff. So I have scattered memories of that gig, but I do remember walking randomly on the railroad tracks looking for a laundromat (I probably never found one). Also, that night, I met a keyboard player that I had admired from my Baltimore days. He played with a band called New Potato Caboose. They were a great group that fell into the early “jam band” genre. The keyboard player would do this killer percussion jam on his Hammond B3 with the drummers – very inspiring.

SCI has come back many times since then though. I recall a great show at the RIMAC Arena in 2002. I’ve heard that the “San Jose” from that show was pretty slamming. We also played with RatDog in 2006 at the park. That whole run with them was so much fun. I had a blast talking and jamming with all the guys. Plus I got to dance my ass off watching their set every night. I am psyched to in SoCal. again and looking forward to another great night of music.

Kyle