Look what showed up in the Inbox and on the official site now…. looks like it’s time to start planning for Spring 2007

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We’re pleased to announce that Widespread Panic will be one of the headliners of the 5th annual Langerado Music Festival taking place Match 9-11, 2007 in Sunrise, Florida!

The initial lineup announcement will be made at www.langerado.com this Wednesday November 15th, but we wanted to let our fans know a little bit early.

Tickets for the festival go on sale Saturday, November 18th at 10am EST at www.langerado.com. We hope to see you all there for our first appearance at Langerado!

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Woo Hoo! - Keepin’ Track!

WP - Spring Tour 2007

A scorching weekend at the Backyard has me back and excited about this band.

Wow.

A lot of Mikey influence and certainly the new guy playing the old chops .. Herring is a perfect fit and I hope they can keep him around for a while.

George was alot of fun, but the improvement is obvious and the bar has been significantly raised.

Find these shows and enjoy.

I think the lesson learned here is, don’t ever miss a tour closer weekend run of shows.

dave.

Transcenders 07/15/06 - MP3tracks

The Transcenders
7/15/06
The Troubadour
Austin, TX

Source: Core Sound Binaurals > Sharp MDMT15 (MD)
Transfer: Sharp MDMT15 > Creative E-MU 0404 > WaveLab Lite > CDWave > wav > mp3

Disc 1

01. A Dark Ride
02. Mr. Soul > PJ > Mr Soul
03. Take It
04. Runaway
05. Paranoid Cinema
06. TruckAlong Song
07. Change
08. Song of 3 Titles
09. Dixeland Delight

Disc 2

01. Mama Don’t
02. Like A Ghost >
03. Go Now >
04. Widespread >
05. What It Is >
06. Put It BAck >
07. Like A Ghost Reprise

Been playing around with info pages on some of my favorite bands from when I was in college and they were rocking the DFW area.

Pages are linked from the right hand pane, and the bands include Shock Tu (Dallas, TX) and Love, Survival & Drive (Houston, TX), although I’m sure this’ll spawn other pages - the overview page is here.
If you have anything to share - info, updates, pics, music, etc - either leave a comment or send me an email at:
texasrock-at-phreakshow-dot-com

Party On .. has it really been 15+ years …..

Who Ya Gonna Call - With Email Trouble From the Tour Bus?
Rock Stars Take Along Techs As Sidekicks of a Sort; ‘Give Hope to Every Geek’
By AMY CHOZICK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 4, 2006; Page A1

Computer technician Joshua Kapellen doesn’t look like a rock ‘n’ roll roadie. He’s cleanshaven, wears starched, white button-down shirts and a clip-on tie. But to megaband U2, Mr. Kapellen is just as important as all its husky stage hands.

Last March, lead singer Bono needed his Xbox connected while the band rehearsed in Canada. Mr. Kapellen got a call. He hooked up the contraption and a few minutes later was playing videogames with Bono. “It was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me,” says Mr. Kapellen.

Mr. Kapellen, 28 years old, put his life in Minneapolis on hold in 2004 when Best Buy Co.’s Geek Squad of computer repair people asked him to accompany the Irish band and provide tech support to the 120 people traveling with the “Vertigo” world tour. He has been on the road in North America and Europe ever since.

“We’re just ordinary guys,” Mr. Kapellen says of computer repairmen. “But somehow we get ourselves into these extraordinary situations.”

In the rock world, a measure of fame has rubbed off on personal assistants, groupies and even bouncers. But as the music industry becomes increasingly dependent on technology, the guy who gives tech support to the stars has become an essential, if overlooked, member of the entourage.

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After taking some time off, Widespread Panic returns to the stage
By Alan Sculley, For the Tribune
October 28, 2005

When Widespread Panic finished touring in late 2003 right after playing Madison Square Garden in New York City, the band made good on their promise to take all of 2004 off.

It was a break that seemed long overdue, not just because Widespread Panic had toured and recorded for 18 straight years without an extended vacation, but because of circumstances that surrounded the band in the two years leading up to the hiatus.
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REVIEW Music : 6 musicians work as 1 in Widespread Panic
BY JACK W. HILL ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Being the well-mannered, focused young men that they are, no one in Widespread Panic made any mention Saturday night of the Razorback football team’s defeat at the hands of the Georgia Bulldogs back home in Athens earlier that day.
And while there may be widespread panic among Hog football fans over their team this year, Arkansas’ “jam band” fans were in hog heaven at Alltel Arena at a chance to hear one of the reigning bands of the genre, and the first chance to hear the group indoors hereabouts in a number of years.
Widespread Panic drew a crowd of 3,636, many of whom probably never sat down during the band’s more than 3-hour show. Well, there was an intermission of nearly 45 minutes, so those dancers could have rested then. As for myself, my legs are still sore from all the chair dancing I did.
With the absence of the Grateful Dead and Phish, Widespread Panic has ascended to a new level of stardom among like-minded, groove-devoted fans, although the band is just now emerging from a period of absence from the performance scene. Rust, however, was not apparent, as the six men quickly locked into the business at hand, never wasting time in idle chitchat and usually blazing seamlessly from one song into the next, shifting gears like a finely engineered race car. Only on a couple of occasions were there any awkward pauses when songs were finished.
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Widespread fans
Jam band’s followers go ‘Panicking’ on tour with their faves

By Yolanda Jones
Memphis Commercial Appeal
October 5, 2005

Cassidy Gilliam, her hat tilted to the side, squeezed out a tune on her harmonica.

As she stomped one foot, 18-month-old Cassidy had to be the youngest fan of the jam band Widespread Panic, in town for two shows at the Mud Island Amphitheatre.

“Baby’s first Panic show,” a neon-yellow sign made by her dad, rested beside the Tulsa family’s truck in a parking lot across from Mud Island.

“She loves Panic music,” said Brandon Gilliam, who has followed the Athens, Ga., band since the early 1990s.

Panic fans like the Gilliams arrived in Memphis Tuesday by the car- and SUV-load from all across the country.

They pitched tents, set up grills, sold jewelry and chicken wraps and T-shirts. They brought their dogs and hooked up with old friends.

It was like tailgating for hippies.

“Some people go hunting and fishing, well I go ‘Panicking,’ ” said Brian McCook of Tuscaloosa, Ala. “This is my life. This is my community.”

But just as the community was getting established Tuesday afternoon, Memphis police blew down its foundation.
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TIME AND SPACE WITH JOHN BELL
By Kayceman
jambase.com
We live in a fast-paced world - a day of instant everything and drive-thru anything. These are not patient times, and we rarely find moments for reflection. We used to work 40 hours, now we work 50. We used to sleep for eight, now we’re lucky to nail down six. Never has time moved more quickly.

Perhaps that’s why the 15-month break that Widespread Panic took flashed past us in what felt like a single breath. Not only is the break over, the band has already completed two tours, including stops at Red Rocks, Bonnaroo, and a slew of other premier locations. You might say it’s like they never left - but you’d be wrong. This is not the same band that put down their instruments for the first time in their career after New Year’s Eve at the end of 2003. Nor is this the same band that was anchored by the Telecaster of Michael Houser.

The past few years have been a constant evolution.

Every show, every song, George McConnell (who replaced Houser after pancreatic cancer took his life on 8/10/02) becomes more familiar to both the band and their audience. Like JB told me in his Chicago hotel room, “I just have to remind myself that it took me a long time to get to that feeling. It might take a little while to… to break in that new pair of shoes.” I know it’s difficult, but we need to be patient.

Read the whole interview at:
http://www.jambase.com/headsup.asp?storyID=7244

A ‘Spread’ of jam for rock-hungry fans
Widespread Panic gave fans their fill on Sunday, but the less initiated were left hungering.

A Review
By Stuart Harmening
For the Savannah Morning News

Ask any local rock fan about the frequency of big shows in Savannah, and you’re sure to get an earful of grumbles. With a few notable exceptions, the sorry state of marquee rock acts playing here is sparse. So when big-name acts come to town, it’s a little like feast amid famine.

And at long last, the hungry were sated Sunday night. Widespread Panic played its brand of psychedelic, bluesy, rock to a nearly full house at the Savannah Civic Center.

The Athens band has built a dedicated national fan base through years of relentless gigging that often draws comparisons to the Grateful Dead, Phish and similar acts. Widespread is known for never repeating a set list, offering fans a unique experience at each show.
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