My Cabo Experience 10/10 Part III....

[Vince G.]

The morning after the first gig of the week has me waking up on that shitty-ass mattress, but being very thankful that it's not the pavement outside the club where so many others are gathered for tickets to that night's "Los Tres Gusanos" show. Loni and wake up and wander over to the hotel restaurant, which has some decent prices and food to match. Have one hell of a breakfast, then head back to the room to prepare for that day's REDhead beach party....or so we think. I'll explain later. After we gather our things at the room, we walk over to the Cantina, hoping to catch some other REDheads there and maybe share a cab to where the beach party is being held. Nobody is there, except for shitload of tourists off one of the cruise ships that pull into Cabo daily. I stop in at the Cantina's gift shop to see what the status is on the Gusanos tickets sales. At 1030 they still have 275 tickets left. "Eesh", I think. I thought for sure it'd be sold out by now. So, off to Medano Beach for the REDhead Beach Party we go.It's only our 2nd day there, and I find it amazing how much Spanish I suddenly realize I know when dealing with cabbies and locals.

Loni and decide to walk there, because we're told that the beach isn't really that far. Shit. We get as far as the Hard Rock Cafe, about 5 blocks down, before saying "Fuck this heat!" and grab a cab. Off we go in a (somewhat) air-conditioned taxi van to Medano Beach. We try telling this pendejo (idiot) that it's at a place on the beach called "Tabasco's" at Medano Beach, but for someone who's supposed to be a local he hasn't frigging clue as to where it is. So, we have him drop us off at "Billygan's Island", a club right on the beach. We start walking, dodging every vendor trying to sell us everything from silver jewelry to Mexican blankets to wood carvings on the way to Tabasco's, which is located at the FAR opposite end of the beach. Nice. Loni and I stop for a breather, and that's when it hits me. "What's the date today?", I ask Loni. "The 10th", she says. "Fuck.......you're gonna hate me.", I tell her. "Why now?!?!?", she says. I reach into my backpack, pull out the REDhead newsletter I got in my email before I left for Cabo, and show her the party is for the 11th, not the 10th. Loni wasn't amused, to say the least. It didn't help we had vendors swarming around us like buzzards, which only added to her frustration. "I love you", was all I could muster up. Nope. No dice. Didn't work.

Well, we turned around and decided to head back to Billygan's. As soon as we got there we ran into Phyllis, Rosey (who was due to get married at the Cantina on 10/13), and Laura. Loni sees the spread (beach chairs laid out on the beach 1 foot from the water practically, and people waiting on you hand and foot), and she decides she's home. So, we kick it there for a few hours, and I bought some stuff from the many vendors that kept walking around us. Loni got to see me in action when it came to bargaining with them. Her reaction? "You're a cold-hearted bastard", but it was said with love. The water was great, the scenery awesome, but the prices on the drinks was less than that. When it came time for us to leave and settle our bill, it came out to $8. Mind you, all we had was 1 Pepsi and 1 bottled water. I wasn't too happy about that shit. We all caught a cab back to the hotel, where Phyllis got into it with the cabie once we reached the hotel. He wanted something like $9, while she had bargained for $6 or $7, I forget which one. The cabbie got so pissed off he said something under his breath and drove off. We all go for a short swim in the pool before heading back to our rooms. I believe that's when I met Angie and Trevor, though it may have been the day before.

Loni and I go walk around the local shops and seeing what they have to offer for souvenirs and such. Eventually, we make it over to the Cantina to see who's there for bit before walking around to the other side to stand in line for our 7:30 dinner reservations. When we get there, I realize that there were dinner reservations available for 6 pm, but I wasn't quick enough the day I bought mine and had to settle for 7:30. The good thing about having your reservations earlier was that once you were done eating, you could haul ass downstairs to the club and grab a good spot by the stage once the door opened at 7:30. Yeah..a lot of good that was doing me now, seeing as how my reservations were at 7:30! The dinner, however, made up for it. We had 3 choices; "Sammy's Drunken Shrimp", which was marinated in CWT, steak, or chicken. I chose the steak, and Loni chose the shrimp. Man...good shit! Sam has some quality people working in his restaurant's kitchen. We finish, get downstairs and I'm able to (luckily) secure a spot over on Vic's side of the stage with nobody near me for the first 1/2 of the show. The second half got soemwhat croded, but nothing like the other nights when it was just Sam and the Waboritas performing.

The Gusanos come out at full force, and it's one solo Hagar tune after another, which had me pretty disappointed. Since they were supposed to be famous for doing cover tunes (Zeppelin, Montrose, Creedence, etc.), I was really expecting a lot. Not that I don't like Sam's early solo stuff, but it wasn't what I expected. It was pretty much a healthy dose of solo Hagar, Montrose, and Hagar-era VH material played that night. Vic jumped up on stage from the audience, and Jesse helped out on keyboards at one point. Mike was all over the place, and he was having the time of his life. Looking at his face you could tell he really misses playing live. I really felt sorry for him, not getting a chance to play for the last 3 1/2 years. Sammy really got a chance to shine on his own playing guitar for most of the night. Working alongside Ed for 11 years really did push him and make him a better guitarist. I shot as many pictures as I could that night, working 3 different cameras; my digital, a pocket-sized APS, and my Canon AE-1. I only wished that Mike would've spent more time on my side of the stage so I could've got off more pictures for his web site. Songs performed that night included "Rock and Roll", "Baby's On Fire", "Two Sides of Love", and "I'll Fall In Love Again".

The big shocker, and major hit, of the night was when they played "Runnin' With The Devil". I swear, the roof almost caved in, the foundations shook, and everyone screamed until their throats bled when Mike proceeded to pick out the bass intro with his teeth. I think a few of us lost control of our bodily functions as well. And, unlike the '88 Monsters Of Rock tour, when Sam would only perform about 1/2 the song and let the audience finish it out, they played it in its entirety, and Sam did a kick-ass job on it. With Mikey behind you on bass, you can't help but do a great job on this song. Prior to playing this, Sam told a short story about discovering how his birthday was close to Dave's, and when he found this out it made him want to change his birthday. He also added how he invited Dave down to Cabo so he could pIay at the club, anything he wanted, but he said that for reasons known only to him, Dave refused the invitation. To show their wasn't anything bad between them, and as a toast to Dave, that's when they performed "RWTD", with Sam belting out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVE!!!!!" while Mikey picked out the bass intro. I honestly didn't think it was gonna get any better than this night, but then I still had 10/11 to see. Oh, man...was I wrong.

The night ended early, with the Gusanos only playing a 70 minute set, and with Loni and I camping out in front of the Cantina with a host of other people for our tickets to the 10/11 gig. This time, we were better prpepared. We had a Mexican blanket I bought at the beach that day, and I went back to the hotel and grabbed the pillows from the beds. I walked off for a bit to find out that Jorge, the club's manager, came out and decided he wanted to wake someone up, so he chose to lie down next to Loni, who promptly did wake up. Everyone all got a good laugh out of that one. I told Jorge he could lie down again as long as it got me free passes for the rest of the time we were there. He thought that was funny. Jorge, man...I wasn't joking.

I'll pick up 10/11 later.

[austxdan]

Thanks for the detailed post. I look forward to reading your next one.

We went to Cabo on a Carnival Cruise back in 1994. We went from LA to Puerto Vallarta to Matzatlan and the highlight of the trip was going to Cabo.

Carnival kept on saying we might skip Cabo because of the weather. We got to Cabo about 7 a.m. and had to leave at 12 p.m.

I wish we could have spent the entire day at Cabo like we did the other two destinations. It was too short, but we did have breakfast at the CW Cantina and looked all around that was very cool.

Dan