The cheapo digi-cam was acting up, taking a snapshot once every 10 clicks, and sometimes none at all. I'm thinking the silly thing is maybe eating batteries for some reason.

Since Terry had arranged it with Rosa's to take the motel rooms on Thursday and Friday instead of Friday and Saturday, we all ended up piling into Jesse and Jeff's room to save expenses. The plan was to simply take off back to Detroit after the gig. Terry spent most of the day in the van looking at maps and snoozing. We had several hours to kill before downbeat at 10 p.m.

I opted to do some exploring with the camera, with the first destination being a place I can buy some AAA batteries. I looked to the East on River Road, looked the West, and decided to go East since it looked from my vantage there were some store signs down that way. I ended up walking through a big sidewalk re-construction project, trying to dodge the tiny particles aiming for my eyes in a stiff breeze. After about a mile and a half, I realized I was just not in the right part of town, heading out of Schiller Park and into Rosemont. The main feature of Rosemont being the Rosemont Theater, touting a playbill with Paul Anka, forever etched in my memory as composer of the Johnny Carson "Tonight Show" theme. Does he sing that at his shows? Scat or something? Are there words to that thing? Mmm....

Just as I was about to decide to backtrack, a Rosemont police cruiser pulled over a hapless van load of family. I didn't see what happened, but I did hear the frantic barking of some canine in the back of the police car marked K-9 Unit. Did these people set the dog off? Drugs? I don't think so...there were kids and obviously mom and pop in the front seat.

I turned on my heel and headed back. It was a beautiful sunny day with a few puffy clouds and lots of jets roaring in and out of O'Hare. The camera kept stalling out, convincing me it was the batteries. I decided to cross over to the other side of the street to get a better vantage to see down the other side. Sure enough, down about a half mile from Denny's I spied a "Convenience Store" sign, and headed for it. Schiller Park is a forest-y tract of 50's brownstones lined up for blocks on neat grids. Well-kept lawns dotted with the occasional barbecue unit was the extent of the scenery. I passed a large open park area where locals were unloading for a soccer game, and meditated on historical scenarios for Schiller Park, founded in 1916--right after World War I. I heard Slavic accents and saw Mid-eastern facial features mixed in with Caucasian well-dressed and materially-nurtured SUV yuppies.

Jeff had staked out a couple of square feet on the floor to do some snoozing, with Jesse and Kenny lounging on the beds watching the Arizona-Yankees World Series game. I checked my email, then decided to go to Denny's and splurge on some institutional food, toting the laptop along with me in the hopes of catching up on these reports. I felt a little self-conscious breaking out a symbol of American hi-tech affluence in the obviously working-class ambiance of Denny's, but the young waiter with a Russian accent seemed to get a kick out of it. I spent about 90 minutes in there, accomplishing the food and publishing agendas, and headed back to the room.

Terry was in there now, finally tired of being chilly in the van. We all arranged our stuff for a quick getaway upon our return post-gig, then headed over to Rosa's. There was already a good crowd starting by 9:15 when we arrived. Tony had been hoping for more attendance theoretically guaranteed by The Reader "critic's choice" piece on Terry. Tony disclosed that a Critic's Choice is worth about a thousand dollars to the club, so he was hoping to make up for Friday. There had already been a large birthday party in there since 5 p.m., and the 50-something birthday girl was whooping it up having a good ol' drunk time. By the time we started up, she was shoutin' and singin' to beat the band...literally. The camera just stopped working altogether despite brand new batteries, so I don't know what's up. I really wanted some Rosa's pix.

It did end up packing out for about an hour around 11 p.m., and the band was coming together very nicely on most of the tunes. Terry was in great form, enthused to finally have a decent audience who was actually there to see him. For the last set, one of the performers in the Rosa's stable (can't remember her name) got Terry to agree to let her up to sing. Terry was getting a bit tired, so saw it as an acceptable risk to let her do one. She chose the Ben E. King standard "Stand By Me," and it turned out to be quite good.

For me, the high point of the night was being able to play on "Down In Mississippi," J.B. Lenoir's song about the sharecropper life "back in the day." Terry prefaced the song by saying, "We're gonna do a song we haven't done in awhile. I'm gonna do it now, 'cause it's personal." I had only run through it once at rehearsal, since they apparently hadn't been doing it that much, but I wish we did it every night. It's a powerfully written arrangement, showcasing the very best of what Terry Evans is all about. It gave me shivers while I was drumming. Although we didn't get to the song until around 2 a.m., the 20 or so people left were spellbound and loved it.

For the last song, the singer (I think it's Sharon-something) got up with Tony on drums to do "Don't You Lie To Me." With the prospect of a 4-5 hour trek to Detroit ahead of us, we hastily packed up at 2:20 and were outta there by ten to three. Rosa's is a really friendly place, and there were hugs all around upon our departure, with Gus, Tony and Rosa all outside waving goodbye as we pulled out and into the night.