Remembering Lloyd, Part 2:
Lloyd and me had been doing a small coffee shop and bar tour in the 90's and were regulars at one local shop where we played with our 2-Man band. We were good friends with the owner and her husband, who would also do magic shows and is still to this day a fixture and legend in the surrounding area. One day Lloyd informed me that we had a new gig out east at a local dive bar and he wanted to try out some new places since the locals had had quite a bit of us for the last few months. He said we'd probably make 50 bucks or so and I had no problem with that. I would have played in a garbage dump for free, I just loved to play. So, we packed up our stuff and headed out to the seedy side of the south side of Chicago. We arrived and went in through the back door with our stuff, and the first thing I noticed besides the smell, was that there were only 2-3 people there including the bar tender/owner. This was on a Saturday evening, right around 5 or 6pm so I figured the place wouldn't come alive for another few hours. We set up, started our set and got a few tunes in playing for the bar flies that were hardly awake enough to notice we were even there. Suddenly, the door swung open and this huge biker dude came storming in and quickly ordered a beer like he was late for something. He was undoubtedly in hurry for some reason. He glanced over at us and then did a double take and shouted "Lloyd!". Apparently, this was some sort of acquaintance of my friend. We took a break and Lloyd introduced me and they got a little caught up on things quickly, then biker dude told us he'd be back in a little while with some friends. What was transpiring out the bar door and down the block was a funeral for a lost brother. A Biker Funeral. If you've ever witnessed one of these, you can understand the enormity of the crowd that was about to descend upon us. The bar was packed to the point of having absolutely no stage left to move around on, and with this erasing of the line between performers and audience, it was a total free-for-all. I gave up my guitar to someone who I had no idea who they were but they said they could play. Lloyd did the same. We somehow got them back at one point and were being requested quite a few tunes that we had to improvise and gloss over, but I'll tell you that crowd didn't give a ****. They just wanted some noise and we were more than happy to oblige. Lloyd and me walked out of their with a few hundred a piece. I've played in quite a few bands, and have had some great nights, but that one night is burned into my memory as one of the most boisterously music filled adventures I have ever been on. It was all thanks to my friend.
