Tribe Jam 2000 - Featuring Alan White of YES

8/21/2000 @ Nautica in the Flats, Cleveland Ohio

Photo: Mark McCutcheon

Tribe Jam is an annual event hosted by Mark Langston, former pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, now retired. All the profits from the event go to Cleveland Indians'charities. Last year they raised $100,000.

This year Alan White accepted the invitation to participate along with Eddie Money, Cleveland favorite, Michael Stanley, and the Indians band led by Mark Langston on guitar, and featuring Dave Burba on vocals, Jim Thome on guitar and Omar Visquel on drums.

Omar Vizquel & Jim Thome

Photo: Janet Macoska

8/20 Sunday afternoon, 4:00pm: Rehearsal for TJ2000 takes place at the Odeon. Alan White arrives with Mark Langston and sets about inspecting the drum set provided for him. After a bit of careful tweaking everything seemed to suit him just fine.

Melissa (Envision lead singer) and myself (Keyboards) join Alan on stage, along with Cleveland area guitarist, Danny Powers and bassist, Mark Matthews. Were we nervous? Well, yeah! But Alan put us all at ease with his easy manner and sense of humor. Songs rehearsed included: Cinema, Owner of a Lonely Heart, City of Love, and Roundabout. After working out some of the endings and a few vocal parts, we were done!

Matt, Melissa & Alan

Photo: Paul McCutcheon

8/21 Monday afternoon, 4:00pm: Soundcheck for Alan's band consists of running through the set once. We all gave careful instructions to the sound techs about monitor mixes, which is vital to a good performance!

Matt & Alan during soundcheck

Photo: Mark McCutcheon

Monday evening, 7:00pm: Melissa and I arrive backstage at the Nautica. Again, there are ballplayers everywhere, and I got my Dad's ball cap signed by loads of baseball stars. Retired Cleveland Browns quarterback, Bernie Kosar was there too. He really took us by surprise when he took off his Superbowl ring and gave it to Melissa to try on! Of course he wanted it back. Darn.

Bernie Kosar & Melissa

Photo: Paul McCutcheon

With a near capacity crowd of about 4,000, the evening opened with the Cleveland Indians band performing Van Halen's "Ice Cream Man". Indians pitcher, Dave Burba was dressed up as the Ice Cream man, right down to the pinstriped jacket.

After a few tunes from Micheal Stanley, it was time for our set with Alan. We opened with Cinema and proceeded into Owner of a Lonely Heart, which featured a short solo by Alan. Somewhere along the way, we picked up an extra guitarist or two, a few extra singers and a guy on congas! I noticed a steady decline in the quality of our monitor mixes.

Melissa

Photo: Neal Hamilton

Next up was City of Love. For this one, Alan invited Indians short stop, Omar Visquel to join in on drums. Mark Langston also jumped in on guitar. By this time everything was pretty crazy, and the monitor mix we had at soundcheck was pretty well shot!

Omar Vizquel & Alan White

Photo: Neal Hamilton

Then came Roundabout. Melissa & Mark Langston got all the ballplayers on stage to join in the festivities. Melissa was dispensing tambourines, cowbells, cabasas, etc. There must have been 25 or 30 people on stage jamming, singing, hitting things and just having a good time.

Roundabout jam

Photo: Neal Hamilton

All this went over very well with the crowd. I'll admit that watching a bunch of ballplayers jamming to Roundabout was indeed entertaining! I wonder if they would feel the same way about us trying to turn a double play, or hit a home run, or hit anything off a major league pitcher!

Matt

Photo: Neal Hamilton

After the show was over, Indians pitcher, Charlie Nagy invited us all to his bar & grille in Rocky River for food and drinks on him. When we arrive, I'm surprised to see him behind the bar, serving people, just like a regular guy! Alan was there with Gigi, and he patiently signed autographs and posed for pictures for all who wanted.

Photo: Paul McCutcheon

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