060917 Ween, Cooperstown, NY

I’m so glad that Ween came back to life.  Following an aborted show in Vancouver the band unceremoniously broke up in the press, the two main dudes split up and went their own ways, resorting to recording solo albums covering the likes of Billy Joel and hosting guided fishing tours to make ends meet.  And somehow, during those dark days the band’s fame and notoriety grew and grew until they finally saw fit to throw a blanket over their recent past and go back on the road as if nothing had happened.

Sure, it isn’t ideal, but who cares?  My favourite live band was back in the saddle; if they could deal with the saddlesores then so could I.

For some unknown reason they had yet to book a full-on tour, opting instead for a bunch of one-off in-and-out appearances or short runs at best.  Luckily, in this smattering of shows came the proclamation that Ween would be playing at the Ommegang Brewery just outside of Cooperstown, New York on June 9th, 2017, and there was going to be camping!

The show was way too close to home for me to pass up, and with my newfound appreciation for IPA beers and my longstanding love of camping at shows, jumping on tickets was a no brainer.  

It was a relatively short drive and my crew arrived to find the lovely turn-of-the-century stone warehouse-turned-brewery complete with a striking arched driveway running straight through the middle of the oblong structure surrounded by rolling hills and meadows.  We parked on a strip of grass and lugged our gear to the entrance, where we discovered to our dismay that the strict no-outside-alcohol-allowed policy emblazoned on the Ommegang Brewery website was in fact so unstrict as to be non-existent.  It seems everyone in the lineup had a cooler full of iced beers with them except for us. 

At least we had less to carry I suppose.

We got in in short order and after staggering forth and back and forth again following four polite Canadians as they tugged each other from one equally unsuitable site after another with a “Maybe down there?” here and a “Sure, let’s take a look!” there, until I finally took the bull by the horns and said, “We’re setting up camp right here.”

In a burst of benevolence I left the crew to set up while I tromped to the nearest beer tent, which was far.  Along the way I encountered the merch tent, which was just opening.  I stepped up and stood pondering the evening’s poster, the sole customer in the tent.  

“You should buy two of them,” the crusty merch dude said from under his greasy baseball hat.  “Just sell one on eBay when you get home,” he continued, “you’ll make a killing.”

“If you were smart,” he went on, despite the obvious shock on my face, “you’d buy three or four.”

I couldn’t believe it, a merch pusher.  I bought one – a cool two-sided boognish-baseball card that will never make it onto my wall – and carried on in my search for beers.  

The truly unbelievable part is that I didn’t buy two of them.  Or three or four.  A few weeks after the show the $35US poster was going for $250 online.

By the time I got back to the campsite with beers for everyone we decided to pick up and move close to a friend we had run into who was camped in a much better spot.  We did it the hard way – a person on each end, we simply picked up the set-up tents filled with sleeping bags and such and somehow careened them through the growing tent city from our uneven patch to a tidy piece of flat land within actual viewing distance of the stage.

We started relaxing so hard that I took in the first three songs from our campsite drinking out of my buddy’s cooler before heading to the concert site proper.  As the sun went down on the first set I would occasional glance over my shoulder to check that my tent wasn’t being robbed or infiltrated by ruffians.  I loved how close our tent was to the soundboard!

The music was fantastic, the venue was great, and the beer was so-so.  Though the show was long it ended super-early, and as we were walking back to the tent I suggested we stop for another beer.  M’lady looked at me like I was an alien and insisted that we in fact empty our pockets and spend every last cent we had on beer…what, was I crazy?  

And she was right of course.  The night was young, our friend’s cooler was close to empty and we needed fuel for the evening.  We took what we could afford (which was coincidentally exactly what we could carry) and went back to the tent to begin the very excellent afterparty that followed the show.

Once I ran out of beer I grabbed that guitar and went site to site singing for my tipple.  I found a couple of half-decent jams and a couple of stinkers too but I had a good time and I got myself through the late night.

I found out that Dean Ween (AKA Mickey Melchiondo) emerged at some point in the evening and skulked through the camping area lugging his guitar and looking for a jam himself.  Unfortunately I was clearly zigging when he was zagging and we never crossed paths.  Too bad, if we had I humbly submit that the result would have been much more epic than Deaner & Co.’s three-chord starry-eyed weekend-warrior campsite jam that I later found on youtube.

Maybe next time.  Until then I just gotta stay ready.