Saturday morning (April 30th). I slept in, and by the time I woke up, Riss had arrived.

We got some blunch with Dave and Jerry before they went off to play in a special celeb/poker pro No-Limit Hold 'Em tournament. Dave had said that he didn't know if he was in the mood to play (we had CF sound check just 2 hours from the start of the tourney) but he said "what the hell" and entered. I really, really wanted to play, but seeing as that I am not a celebrity, a poker pro, or had 500 bucks to spend to enter, I had to watch the fun from the rail. Watching and not playing got painful, so Riss and I joined the CF crew at the pool. this was my first time at the Hard Rock pool, and let me say...all the rumors were true. It's pretty crazy out there. Like if you were watching some cheesy show like "Las Vegas" and they had a pool scene with a bunch of models, and it looked completely unreal and fake, ...well, that's what it was really like.

We kept checking in on Dave, and after 2 hours, he was STILL playing, and doing great. CF sound check start time came and went, and he was at that point ...at the final table! The field, which included alot of the celebs brought to the hotel for the weekend, and a load of poker pros (Jennifer Harman, David Williams, Evelyn Ng, Chip Jett) had been worked down to Dave, and Joey Fatone from NSYNC celeb-wise, and just Evelyn NG representing the pros. The purse was 10k for the winner, but Dave was short-stacked and knew that he had to get to sound check, so he came over to Riss and I and whispered "next semi-good hand I get - I am going all-in - we gotta get outta here". Well, he did just that. And doubled up twice, knocking two players out and drawing super lucky.

Now he was the chip leader at the final table. It was clearly time to hunker down and concentrate (although the "devil may care attitude" was working pretty well). I went to sound check to run my song a couple times with the guys. Like I've said before, the sound check portion of a CF show to me, is pretty fun in itself. All the singers, guitar players, girlfriends, wives, friends, etc. make it a full-on scene. As always, Michael Des Barres had me in stitches, and Terri Nunn couldn't be sweeter. Got to meet Rob Zombie, and John 5. Dave comes breezing in after a while, and wouldn't you it... he took that shit down! Won it! This time, not for charity (as he says, he was playing for the Carmen Electra shoe fund) they gave him a stack of 10 one thousand dollar chips. So needless to say, he was in a pretty good mood. We all finished up the sound check, and took off to our separate Vegas worlds until dinner.

Dinner was tasty, and afterwards we went and checked out the Nine Inch Nails show. As you could expect, a different world than the Coldplay show the night before. So cool to see the same room filled with two huge bands with dedicated fans, but bringing such a different energy. The Nails show was absolutely great. The songs, the pacing, the intensity was so strong and satisfying. Trent obviously has been working out, his arms were frigging HUGE. Jeordie looked perfect in the band, and the guitar player was my favorite. He looked like he was going to wreck himself every time he moved, he fell off into the space behind of his Marshall cab, smashed a perfectly good Les Paul, and just gave the stage the abandon that paired up so well with Trent's songs. The back of the stage had this giant (must have been LED's) light panel that did all kinds of hypnotic patterns and seizure-inducing rhythms. It was a truly fantastic show, I am really looking forward to seeing the L.A. date when they come around.

Right after the NIN show, it was time to head down to the Body English club for the Camp Freddy show. Now, picture you will a full house of Nails fans, let loose into the innards of the Hard Rock Casino, and meshing up with the standard weekend super-throng of partiers there to dance, gamble, and get into Body English. At every turn, there was some long line of people waiting to get into something and the entirety of it all seemed just on the edge of getting out of control. As if the crowd, were it to decide to grow fierce and unruly, the Casino in no way could ever handle it. Anarchy.

Body English is two floors down below the main casino floor, and we had to have security squeeze us all by the masses so we could get to the backstage area. I got a glimpse of the crowd in front of the stage, and it was insane. So many faces, arms flailing around, bodies everywhere. From a distance, it looked like one gigantic organism with a thousand faces and two thousand arms outstreched. The show began in a flash, and the core band (Dave, Billy, Stephen, Chris, ...Dono was on vacation with his wife) kicked it off. Cantrell sang the first couple tunes and then was joined by Terri. Mark McGrath, Steve Jones, Rob Zombie, and Billy Duffy were on for the next few tunes, then around song 8, I was up. As soon as the backstage door opened, I felt a hot push of human-heated air as I wiggled my way through the partiers to the stage. Once there, the guys launched into "She Sells Sanctuary", and like I said before, this time was special because I got to sing it with Billy Duffy from the Cult. I have always loved this song. Fuck. What fun. As usual, when the gig is going good, it streams by like a colorful blur of hands, smiles, screaming, and wafts of strange perfume. Looking around in all this bedlam and seeing my band around me, with good buddy Billy Morrison, and my anchor: Stephen Perkins' smile behind the kit, you just can't beat it.

The show was extra long that night, Robbie Williams sang "My Generation" from The Who, Annbella Lwin, Michael Des Barres, David from Disturbed (who KILLED "Whole Lotta Love"), Tone Loc, and some of the CF standards. I think the setlist was something like 20-25 songs. Biggest CF show yet.

After, Dave and Carmen had to be driven back home to L.A. so Riss and I kicked it with them, had an interesting chat about UFO's and Scientology, ate some room service, and saw them off.

What a night.

Left the next day, back to Los Angeles. One more ticket on Hotshot Air.

Thanks to Camp Freddy (especially Billy) for bringing me along, and Brent Bolthouse and his great people, Deb and Jennifer who made whole weekend happen. It was really nice to be included.