Look closely....and you will see that the Skull and Bones fly even on stage with one of America's Premiere Rock 'n' Roll acts, Widespread Panic.


Welcome to the first edition of the Goodtimes 2007 ! This will be the first blog to speak of an actual good time, rather then the usual over-accentuated sarcasm affiliated with this blog's title. As many who know my rites of passage, the six hour drive to Atlanta, GA, every New Year's Eve is an annual tradition of mine celebrated with 22,000 other people...all whom know a thing or two about having a good time with one of the greatest American Folk Musicians of Our Time, Widespread Panic.

A band who first appeared on the scene in the early 90s alongside the traveling entourage of Neil Young's HORDE tours, Widespread Panic played on stages opposite of many other well known artists such as the Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveller, and the original Kryptonite meisters, the Spin Doctors. While most of these bands (the Dave Matthews Band being the only exception) have faded into obscurity, Widespread Panic has done just the opposite, and turned from the path of a moment's fleeting fame to the title of an all-encompassing extravaganza that culminates with a bang every New Year's Eve at the heart of downtown Atlanta. To put it bluntly, Widespread Panic is the best kept secret of the South. No other band touring today has a more loyal entourage, and their fans will whoop, holler, and scream for Panic's continued presence on stage for the difference between a two or three song encore! Panic plays an unrelenting style all unto its own, while yet covering so many musical classics, that simply following and trading their shows is likened unto an educational experience in itself.


For the past eight years, Widespread Panic has broke the rules of the so-called "conventional" music scene by the simple fact that they have consistently sold out 15 New Year's Eve shows at the Phillips Arena, an adjacent facility cornholed with the headquarters of CNN's downtown Atlanta office. The sight every year is always the same:mass crowds of vendors and overnight art vendors set up shop in the heart of Atlanta close to the Centennial Park and CNN; all who pawn their wares usually engaging in a desperate year-end sales blowout just to salvage some profit from what they could not sale during the previous year on tour with the boys from Athens, GA. Whatever one makes of it, Panic brings big business and profit with them wherever they go, and the vendors who promote them are usually rewarded with sold-out beer receipts in the booths, which are usually followed by whatever remaining concessions that exist by a show's end being sold out as well.

For myself, the Widespread Panic experience has been nearly a decade, and following the Boys is always a welcome escape from the shitty, oppressing reality that is America today. John Bell, lead vocals and rhythm guitar on a Washburn, is a true success story, as is Bassist Dave Schools, Keyboardist John "Jo-Jo" Herman, Percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, drummer Todd Nance, and now the newest lead guitarist to join the family after the tragic passing of Michael Houser, Jimmy Herring. And as a fan of the Lingering Lead with An Honest Tune, Michael Houser has been a tough act to replace. Being a down-south Mississippi Boy myself, when Panic originally replaced the cancer-stricken Houser with local Oxford Mississippian George McConnell, watching the transfer was painful at first, but an experience that improved with time as the guitarist learned to somewhat assimilate with the band's progressive, jazzy, latin-improv, southern-rock style. George helped fill a void when the band could have stopped completely.

New Year's Eve at the Phillips on December 31, 2002, would be a turning point in the band's ability to prove staying power. After tragically losing their leading guitarist and founder, the ability to perform and measure up to an expected sound would push the envelope as to whether or not there would be future gigs at the Phillips. To fill that void, the show would have to incorporate several elements of the audio-visual senses. Whether it was incorporating several guest musicians to help various songs along or playing incredible movies on the big screens in the Phillips, Panic took a stand and proved their musical genius along with their intellectual forebodings in the 02/03 NYE show. Playing on the visceral gut feeling that was entwining the nation leading up into our invasion of Iraq in the Spring of 2003, Panic graced the Phillips' big screens with images of the Renaissance and various other imagery associated with Christianity and the Rise of the Western Democracy that is now called America after the midnight countdown had commenced. At one point, black and white film reels depicting old Hollywood's version of Babylon and later on a cartoon of an animated Betty Boop dancing in a ring of fire that turns into a ring of dancing mushrooms is shown. Betty Boop is then removed and surrogated by a different image, the so-called Star of David, and bassist Dave Schools takes the audience out of the drums solo into a spirited melody of the Christmas carol, The Little Drummer Boy. This was the defining moment for me, the end-all, be-all doubts remover that Widespread Panic was indeed still on top of their game. Panic is all about that conversation that they have with your mind while watching them play...and one of the chief reasons I laugh at the morbid, brain-washed madrosses who crawl to the tune of Satan's Radio Stations all across America and have no idea who this great Southern Rock Band is just because Clear Channel does not play Panic's format on their stations.



And this New Years' Eve show was just as pivotal; Panic's newest member, Jimmy Herring, would have to say hello to the masses and put on a performance to remember, and that he did. Old Panic classics, such as Imitation Leather Shoes, have found new life as Herring can apparently rip into the leads with a scream that I have not heard since the days of Houser. The hairs on my arm stood up and my throat felt crushed as the howl of Imitation Leather filled up the arena, and I asked my wife if she could still stand. Panic is back, and with a bang from the Third Stone from the Sun.