Mike of the Ryche - HITNF tour August, 1997

Last August, QR came through Florida, they played 2 shows, Friday night they played in Tampa, and Saturday night they played in West Palm Beach (the ampitheatre there was a great place for a show, well worth the drive). My Wife and I got a babysitter for the weekend (it was our 8yr anniversary also) and we followed them to both shows. At the second show, I was thinking to myself "you know this is the 10th time I have seen these guys, and they have NEVER missed so much as a note!" As a musician myself I know that the odds of that happening are pretty slim (crud happens), so I was amazed. Well lo and behold, right after the acoustic break in "Sign of the Times", that leads into the solo, Chris flubbed his part (he played the electric part, Mike has the solo), now I don't know if it was because the sound man, forgot to pan Chris's electric up (you know how they both love to change Guitars in the middle of their songs), or if Chris, just simply screwed up. It was so cool, because afterwards, Chris walked up to Geoff for a minute, then Geoff announced something like "Chris feels that you guys got ripped off here, and he want's to play the missing notes from that song," which he did, which lead to the 4 of them (all excluding Geoff, for he had nothing to sing in the solo) having an impromptu jam for a minute or so. Chris had to make sure that we didn't get "Short Sheeted" on the song. It was so cool, to see. Thinking back, They were having a blast onstage that night (even though Geoff couldn't stand the warmth, what do you expect Florida in August is pretty hot). Now with hindsight, that was the last time that I will see Chris playing with QR. What a way to go.

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