Summer break is sacred. Always has been, always will be. It arrives like a jailbreak and departs like a death march. The fun resides in between.
With the start of school looming in 1990, Funky Snake Oil had its sights set on squeezing out one last bit of summer fun. The opportunity arose from an unlikely source.
There was a new kid in town. He wanted to host a party, and we wanted to play a party.
The arena-rock-like negotiations commenced. When the smoke cleared, the date and venue were set: August 25, 1990, Dadeville, Alabama.
The machinery swung into action. T-shirts and stickers were printed. Flyers were distributed.
The night came, and hundreds descended on a scene that quickly began to spiral into chaos. A few songs were played. Some guitar strings were broken. There were even more fights than usual. There was an indoor hot tub involved. The police were called – repeatedly. We didn’t know it at the time, but apparently there was some kind of hospital facility just beyond the tree line where we were playing. The occupants had no appreciation for loud rock music.
The rest is history.
School started back on Monday, August 27, 1990. An article memorializing the ruckus in Dadeville was published in The Alexander City Outlook that Thursday, August 30, 1990. You can view the article, in all its glory, here. The event was also detailed in The Dadeville Record on that same date.
Looking back on that night causes equal parts grinning and wincing. It wasn’t Altamont, but it was far from the Summer of Love. No one was tear-gassed, but there were moments when that seemed distinctly possible. We ended up fleeing the scene like everyone else – in fact, we jumped out a back window with a brown paper sack full of our share of the $4 cover charge and got the hell out of there.
It all seemed like a good idea at the time.
We apologize to those in attendance who may have run afoul of the law that night or who did not get their money’s worth . . . by whatever measure. At the very least, maybe we left you with a story to tell.