A Hot Time in the Old Tent…

#106 / Flood Time Capsule: 2003

Nineteen years ago this week, The Flood played its hottest-ever gig … and the notes and rhythm we brought to the stage had only a little to do with it.

“That was as too-hot as I’ve ever been!” recalls banjoist Chuck Romine. What Doctor Jazz is looking back on was our day-long performance at the West Virginia State Fair in Fairlea, near Lewisburg. It was mid-90s and we spent the day in a broiling canvas tent under the relentless August sun.

But the swelter and sweat are only part of the reason the gig is so enshrined in The Flood’s collective memory.

The day also is memorable because of our fellow troupers: we shared the stage to which we were assigned by alternating our 45-minute sets with performances by a trained dog act.

We took that scheduling as a teaching moment, allowing us to learn … oh, a number of things, among them:

• Not all dogs have the same level of appreciation for carefully crafted kazoo solos (“Bow-wow’ yourself, Bruno!”), and

• The Flood was not as high in the performers’ pecking order as we perhaps thought we were, because between sets, while The Floodsters were left to fend for themselves in the 90-degree heat, the dogs got to retreat to an air-conditioned green room.

Recently on Facebook, when remembering this gig, Floodster Emeritus Dave Ball, who was in the audience that day, quipped, "Sure, the heat was blistering ... but face it ... the dogs were good .…"

(To that we replied, "Yeah, Bub, and we still get nice cards from some of them. D'ya know that Trixie and Beano went out on their own? We hear they teamed up with a pony and a squirrel and are working a circuit up North....")

Years after the August 2003 fair gig, Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen were still sharing stories about it with Chuck. Click the button below for a little audio of conversation between songs at a weekly jam session.