It was a pretty groovy tune and the crowd definitely got into it with some dance gyrations. I was impressed they had an extra song that wasn’t on the double CD. Later, they would come up with yet another new song for the encore.
The next tune they played was the title track, “Shaggin’ Dragon Paddy Wagon,” followed by “Jamming by the I.” Both songs sounded great and the fans, who knew them better than I, were singing right along and pumping their fists, especially to the feel-good chorus of “Jamming by the I - I-95!” I guess people take their one major interstate highway seriously in this small state.
One of the first real surprises of the night came next when Buck busted out on the drums. He had the balls to take on a good chunk of “Moby Dick,” the long and masterful drum piece by the late John Bonham of Led Zeppelin. Then the rest of the band joined him for their original ode to Zeppelin, “Dirigible,” which was on the CD but had never been played live before. Masoli sang it with some serious mojo:
“Lead us back to that place
Where the houses are holy
And the mount is mystical
Life goes round … lost and found
Man the dirigible … let’s get cyclical”
Wild moshing ensued as the band thundered into a super-fast instrumental jam for the next minute or so. Freeway got his Jimmy Page swerve on with some heavy riffing throughout. Then Masoli returned to the microphone:
“Climb the stairway
Crash the castle
Lead us back to that place
Where the houses are holy
And the mount is mystical
Drink the hops
Smoke the poppies
Life goes round … lost and found
Man the dirigible … let’s get cyclical”
And, of course, the moshing resumed in earnest. Some of the young ladies, many of whom were wearing bikinis, had to step back from the chaos or risk losing what little clothes they had on. It was a fun scene.
The band slowed things down for the next two songs. As his band mates retired from the stage for a little break, Freeway seized the spotlight — just him and his Les Paul.
“We wouldn’t even be playing music right now if it weren’t for the legends who inspired us. They weren’t around for very long on this Earth, but the magic they created has stood the test of time and will live forever. This song’s for them.”
The crowd cheered and then went silent as Freeway poured his entire soul into that amazing rendition of “Too Quick.” Every fan who wasn’t in line for beer or a CD was mesmerized. The last lyric — “Fill up the shore that stands between us and let us swim” — was particularly powerful as we listened on the shore of Narragansett Bay.
Just Vin came out and accompanied Freeway on the next song, “Saturn.” Freeway swapped his electric guitar for an acoustic and Vin indulged his valentine with another track from the CD that he had never performed live. She melted like a chocolate kiss in the front row as Masoli crooned:
“I see the rings around your heart
You and me, we’ve got a part
In this universal drama, start
Yeah baby, start this up
Let’s make it hot
Connect the dots
Point V to Point S
Point Me to Point Yes
Come in Saturn
Do you read me?
Come in Saturn
Do you hear me?
Come in Saturn
Do you feel me?
Come in Saturn
Do you love me?”
That’s when things took a bizarre turn. A cup of beer went flying toward Masoli’s head from somewhere in the crowd. He managed to avoid most of it, but some beer did splash his left ear and shoulder as it sailed past him. Just when I assumed it was someone who didn’t like corny love songs, security guards were whisking a petite young redheaded girl out of the bar.
“Bye Morgan,” Vin said with a weird smile on his face as the crowd buzzed and laughed. His valentine looked like she wanted to go out and hunt down the beer thrower, but a couple of her friends held her back.
“It wouldn’t be a Freeway & the Vin Numbers show without at least a little drama, right?” Masoli added, drawing another cheer from the crowd.
The next big surprise came when Vin and Freeway left the stage and mysterious Ronnie “Friday” Perkins took over the spotlight. He high-fived the departing Freeway, stood in front of the microphone and, for the first time in his band’s brief history, performed something other than a masked chainsaw stunt. He rapped the second verse of “Wayward Wanderer” and had the street cred to convince myself and the crowd that these lyrics were not written lightly:
“Damn the river, beware the streams
Sometimes she comes in drips
Most times in floods
Sometimes she comes in Crips
Most times in Bloods
How she comes, it don’t matter
She’ll always get you in the end
The Wayward Wanderer”
Friday’s band mates jumped back into their places and powered through the remainder of the song with Freeway on lead vocals the rest of the way. But finally, perhaps a little bit of the “question mark” surrounding Ronnie Perkins was answered that evening.
Craig Hurley led the band into “Police Station Blues” with a catchy keyboard intro. Masoli’s vocals were strong on both that song and “When She Wears Clothes,” a much lighter tune that was quite welcome at that point in the show.
Speaking of lighter, Masoli also sang “Zero Gravity” and “Take Us There,” two tracks that seemed to intensify the band’s bond with its fans. “Zero Gravity” had never been played live before:
“I could die tomorrow
So today I sing
Like there’s no sorrow
Weighing on me
No, they’re ain’t no sorrow
Weighing on me
Zero gravity
I float into space
And pay my respects
To the whole human race
We all got a voice
So let us sing
One world together
That’s my thing
So many people, so many places
So many hearts, so many faces
A world to inspire
Don’t be so dire
We all got a voice
So make it your choice
To be bold and sing
Yeah, be bold and sing
One world together
That’s my thing
Hey, one song to sing
What’s yours?”
I thought that was one of the band’s better moments of the night and the fans applauded them accordingly. Freeway’s vocals and guitar seized upon that momentum and took it to another level with his heartfelt, ear-bending performances of “Bucket of Blues” and “My Paul.”
The band switched from blues into crowd-pleasing, mosh-enducing rage rock for its logical pre-encore finale, “Medieval Upheaval.” Shockingly, the band did not even play “Papa Was A Gravestone,” the first single from the CD that was getting some radio airplay (sans the controversial lyrics) on the Providence station WBRW. Perhaps the Sea Mist had requested that they stay away from the tune after what happened at the Heartbreak.
The fans stomped on the floor and screamed until the band returned for a memorable encore montage that combined a new unreleased song, “Ain’t for Sale,” with a verse from another Jimi Hendrix hit, “If 6 was 9,” also off “Axis: Bold as Love.” Freeway introduced it:
“Thanks for coming,” the charismatic performer said with a huge smile as beads of sweat trickled down from his afro. “Drive safe and we’ll see you next time. This last tune ain’t on any CD. It won’t ever be. I don’t care how big or small we get, you won’t ever hear one of our songs on a TV commercial. That’s cuz we ‘Ain’t for Sale.’”
The crowd gave a huge cheer as the band cranked up the sound, and Freeway riffed and sang with more energy than his us
ual laid-back style:
“Grew up in a tent
But never went camping
Couldn’t pay the rent
But never went vamping
Corporate leeches sucking the world dry
If you got no soul after you sold out
Then you might as well die”
That’s when Freeway detoured into a memorable take on part of “If 6 was 9:”
“Now if 6 turned out to be 9
I don’t mind, I don’t mind
Alright, if all the hippies cut off all their hair
I don’t care, I don’t care
Dig, cos I got my own world to live through
And I ain’t gonna copy you”
Then the band did an astro-funky take on the song’s psychedelically warped bridge as Freeway updated the Hendrix lyrics from “white collared conservative” to something all Rhode Islanders could relate to in the present beaten-down economy:
“Wall Street executives flashing down the street
Pointing their plastic finger at me
They’re hoping soon my kind will drop and die,
But I’m gonna wave my freak flag high, high
Wave on, wave on
Fall mountains, just don’t fall on me
Go ahead Mr. Business man, you can’t dress like me ...
I'll die when it's time for me to die
So let me live my life the way I want to ...
Sing on brother, play on drummer”
That was pretty sweet right there. I had never witnessed a band do such an interesting version of “If 6 was 9” and blend it with an original song to boot. Freeway & the Vin Numbers finished off the show with the final verse of “Ain’t for Sale.” Freeway's vocals brought it on home:
“I miss the days
When the music endured
I wasn’t alive then
So I ain’t been cured
I miss the nights
When the airwaves were free
I wasn’t alive then
Shit, don’t hang no sign on me
This song ain’t for sale
And neither are we
Did you hear me, bro?
This song ain’t for sale
And neither are we.”
It was an unforgettable encore to cap off a kick-ass show. Objective rock critic or not, I applauded right along with everybody else as the guys took their final bows. As it turned out, this band definitely was worth the trip to the nation’s smallest state. And just like that, I actually started looking forward to writing my story about Freeway & the Vin Numbers for Power Chord magazine.
Little did I know at the time, there would be far more to the story than the music.