Continuing the Woodlands Tradition
#594 / Video Extra!
We got the weekend off to a fine start last night by returning to Woodlands Retirement Community to play for a happy bunch of friends who knew the songs in The Flood repertoire and were eager to sing along. Pamela Bowen was in the front row to capture these dozen minutes of the show:
And if you’d like the back story on any of the songs, click any of the links below for earlier Flood Watch articles:
How This Woodlands Thing Started
The Flood’s Woodlands tradition started more than a quarter of a century ago on an autumn Saturday night. And it was, by any measure, a rather inauspicious debut.
By 2000, the reunited Flood was a quartet, but going into that Nov. 14 gig, we were already down a man. As noted here in a previous report, our new bassist, Doug Chaffin, had boogered up his wrist while working on a car in his garage and would be out commission until the end of the year.
So Joe Dobbs arrived at 6:30 to give Charlie Bowen a ride to the job and as we waited for David Peyton, the phone rang. It was Dave’s wife, Susie, calling on the cell phone to report that they had just had an accident in the car, a collision at the end of their road. No one was hurt, just shaken up, but Dave wouldn’t be making it to the gig.
After they made sure the Peytons didn’t need any help, Joe and Charlie headed up the hill to Woodlands. Some of the residents of the lovely residence met them at the doors and escorted them to the entertainment room, which seats probably 100 to 150 people.
“The acoustics were good enough that we were able to set up without mikes,” as Charlie told his mom in a later email, “just using a couple of stools in front of the audience. When we started playing, there were about 20 people. By the end of the second tunes, we had a room full. They were into the swing stuff — we had ‘em singing along — and they really listened, calling out requests. We played for about an hour, joking between songs. For instance, we told them this might have to be our last public performance, because we lost Doug just before the previous gig, and now we’ve lost Dave before this one. ‘We’re running outa guys!’”
Afterwards, a half dozen residents came up asking the guys to come back again, and bring the rest of the band. We would, many times. In fact, The Flood played there three times in 2001 alone and since then has played several dozen evenings since that first minimalist outing.
Woodland Moments Over the Years
Those wonderful environs have witnessed some sweet Flood memories over the years. For instance, in 2016, Woodlands was the venue for The Flood’s first “live, in concert” album, produced by then-new Floodster Paul Martin.
And a half dozen years later, Woodland saw the final public performance of Floodster Emeritus Chuck Romine, which happily Pamela captured on video.
And just last July, The Flood was honored to be invited to entertain at an afternoon’s party to observe the 90th birthday of the band’s forever den mother, Rose Marie Riter. What a do! Well over a hundred guests at her Woodlands home!
It was an important anniversary for us. As reported earlier, The Flood met Rose 20 years earlier when the band was booked to play her legendary 70th birthday at which the newly minted septuagenarian celebrated by jumping out of a perfectly good airplane! Click here to read all about it.