I went and saw the Time at the City Stages Festival in Downtown Birmingham, AL on Friday June 16, 2006. This was show number 26 and as long as I keep having this much fun, I'll keep going to see these guys

Jason and Ashley picked me up from my home in Pensacola, FL a little after 2 p.m. Almost as soon as we got on the road, the typical road trip rain showed up, but it wasn't too bad. The traffic was OK and we made good time. Only hitting a little congestion in Montgomery, AL. We got to Birmingham right around 6p.m. and found the venue with no problems.

After parking the car, we made our walk through downtown to the festival. Now we were suppose to be hooked up for tickets, but I was unable to get ahold of my benefactor ahead of time. We checked the will call, but no dice. so I decided to go ahead and buy tickets. No problem, but it was a little pricy since I was covering all three of us. We wandered around and found the stage.

Well my worst nightmare as far as an outdoor show came true. The damn folding chair army was camped out in front of the stage. That and they weren't letting anybody else in that area. Nobody could stand by the stage and that's half the fun of a Time show. The schedule for the festival had The Time playing at 10:45 p.m. which was later than the 9:15 p.m. that was listed on the internet. Well since we had almost 5 hours to kill and it was 100 degrees we decided to go back to the car and chill out there. We sat in the air-conditioning and had a few sodas, waiting for it to cool off outside. Well after the sun went down and it dropped to a chilly 95 degrees we ventured back towards the festival.

I got a call from my hook up which somehow I had missed. So I called him back and proceeded to get my ass chewed for buying tickets when I had already been told I was getting in free. Jason overheard part of the conversation and when I hung up he was laughing his ass off . "Jerome cussed you out", he said. Too funny

Well we went back into the festival and made our way to the stage. I was looking around for somewhere quiet to call Jerome back. I ducked down this gateway where nobody was and of course as soon as I get on the phone the cops are trying to run me off. We exit the area and waited by the stage for Jerome. We went up to one of the guys working the festival telling him what we were trying to do. Well I know this happens at every show ever. Somebody says they are friends of the band trying to get backstage. For some reason this guy believed us and led us around until we finally found Jerome. I didn't get your name, but thanks for helping us out

We went with Jerome back to the area where the rest of the band was hanging out. It was a good block or more away so we really appreciate him coming and rescuing us. We greeted all the fellas and hung out for about 45 minutes before the show. It was nice and cool in this place so it we were glad for the temporary reprieve. Morris finally came in right before the show. We all gathered for a pre show prayer and went out the back to go to the show.

Morris got in his own car and we got in the van with the rest of the band. We made the short trip to the back of the stage and hung out waiting to go on. Now we thought we were going to be in the VIP section on the right side of the stage. Not quite. We actually got to stand on the left side with small group of festival workers, roadies, band support and other guests of the band. KICK ASS!!!

The line up:
Morris Day - Vocals and Cool
Jerome Benton] - Vocals, percussion and general mischief maker
Jellybean Johnson - Drums
Monte Moir - keyboards
Brice Myles( I hope I spelled your name right) - keyboards
Ricky 'Freeze' Smith - Bass
Torrell 'Tori' Ruffin - Guitar

The familiar ticking started and the band members all filed by us with Morris and Jerome coming on last. Here is the setlist with my ever insightful comments.

1. Ho Parade
2. Wild and Loose
3. The Stick
4. Blondie!!!
5. My Drawers!!!!
6. Fishnet
7. The Oak Tree
8. Jerk Out
9. Get it up
10. Cool
11. 777-9311
12. Girl-intro, no vocals
13. Gigolos get lonely too
14. The Walk
15. The Bird
encore
16. Jungle Love

I always love the beginning of the show when the fellas first hit the stage and Tori is just a blaring. The crowd was huge and they were really into. Before the show they were discussing what they were going to play and they said cut Ice Cream castles/If the kid can't make you come. They also mentioned add Rock no Roll so that was a good indication of what was to come. I was hyped as a mug when Blondie started and continued into My Drawers. If only they would drop the Skillet in between those two(hello Morris), I would die a happy man. There were various technical problems during the show with the keyboards, drums(from Jellybean pounded the shit out of the skins and tearing it up) and that other instrument(don't worry Mr. Civil Rite, I left that part off the internet like you asked me to). It was really cool to get another perspective of the show. We got to see more of the keyboards than usual and had a great view of Jellybean. We never get to see much of him usually since he's in the back, but the man was working his ass off and I have a new appreciation of him after seeing his performance from that angle. Jason was taking pictures and some photographer threatened to have him run off for using the flash. Whatever. Turns out none of them came out anyway which sucked. Jason was standing by Morris's coat all night and had to get out of the way for them to get it for Gigolos. When the Bird started Jerome came over to us. Ashley was hiding behind me and I just waved him off since I knew we weren't going to get any pictures of it. After The Bird some other festival guy was trying to run all three of us off, but we stayed anyway. Thanks to James and Jesse for looking out for us. No real surprises in the show. The keyboards were a little different, but I'm sure most of that was just having a new guy playing with the band. Tori ripped it up all night and especially on the end of Jungle Love he was going off. The show was probably about 1 hour and definetly better that Dothan performance wise.

We hung out a little backstage. Jerome invited us to come back to their hotel and hang out. The fellas pilled in the van again and we made the short walk to the hotel. Tori and Jellybean decided to go back and see Cameo. We passed since we were starving and wanted to get something to eat before closing time in the hotel sports bar. We ordered some food and chilled out. Monte came in a short while later and joined us. Later Jerome came and hung out as well. We probably were there for a couple hours and they kicked us out when the bar was closing. We got a few pictures with Jerome(which I will have online soon) and bailed. Jellybean saw us from across the street as he was coming back from the Cameo show and gave us a holler so we went back and talked to him for a few minutes. After that we made our way back to the car and started the trip home.

If somebody would have told me when I was 14 that I would that I would be riding to the gig with the Time and get to watch their show from backstage, I would have thought they were on crack. Back then I never thought I was ever going to see those guys live, forget about 26 friggin times. Thanks again to all the fells for the great show and treating us like family like they always do. Big props to Jerome for the hook up. I can barely wait for the next show

Too Cool! Thanks 4 the info.

Ho Parade? I never heard that one before. What's that, from the Corporate Album?