One of the great all time southern rock bands is "The Outlaws". I did about ten gigs with them during my roadie years. I worked lights on some shows, and mixed monitors on others. Their biggest hit was "There goes another love song*", but that song only accounted for 1/100th of their powerful stage show. Some of shows are vivid in my memory like St John's University and Cape Cod Coliseum; most of them were so equally and consistently powerful that they all blur together. One show that was unique, and is "burned" into my grey matter (literally) was the University of Louisville show. The day started out great, a little bit overcast, a little on the warm side. The show was to be outdoors in the huge Cardinal football stadium. A stage was assembled and we unloaded the PA and lights and watched the sky. One fear of all roadies doing an outdoor job was the weather. Rain could damage the equipment and lightning (if it hit) could be deadly. We were ahead of schedule and had everything ready for the sound check. The Outlaws and the opening act had not arrived yet, and the sky grew blacker. By the time the road manager got there it had become a serious discussion about whether to postpone, cancel or move the show. The weather was degrading, so a command decision was made jointly by the road manager, the student activities manager and several roadies (myself included) to move the show. So the PA came down, the lights came down, and everything got reloaded in the trucks. The stage had to be struck and a large contingent of student helpers started to move it the short distance to Freedom Hall, the UL basketball arena. Then we waited until the stage was re-assembled. The wait was made easier when the sky opened up and rain came down in a solid sheet. The correct decision had been made, and now we were fighting two forces that were completely out of our control, "time" and "heat". You probably guessed the "time" part but what you have to understand is that for some reason the air conditioning wasn't working. By the time the show was set up it was approaching 90 degrees. The school was trying in vain to use large fans to cool off the impromptu greenhouse. We were already over an hour late for showtime when we did a token sound check. The opening act (I think it was "Mama's Pride") got no sound check at all. They opened the house and the wet fans poured in. For those of you with a background in science can you tell everyone what happens when a hot arena has about 5,000 human bodies hovering around 98.6 degrees added? That's right it gets even hotter. By showtime it was reported (although I never personally saw a thermometer) that the hall had soared to around 105 degrees. There was actually talk again about canceling the show, but this time everyone agreed to "Go". When the Outlaws hit the stage after the break, fans were actually passing out from heat exhaustion, but only a few. The "Florida Guitar Army" started with "Stick around for rock and roll*", and went through all their favorites including "Lover Boy*", and Breaker Breaker*". They had recently released "Hurry Sundown*" and played most of the songs off that new album. To the best of my recollection, this was the first show I worked with the band that Harvey Dalton Arnold had replaced Frank O'Keefe on bass. The Outlaws put on the best show I'd ever seen them do (and I had seen them seven or eight times at that point), the heat gave the entire show an urgency and raw edge that I can't attempt to describe. Nobody wanted the show to end, not the heat soaked students, not Jim, George or the rest of the "Cow Chips" (the nickname for the band's roadies), not myself or the other sound and light guys, and definitely not the band. They played and played and played under those lights and kept playing until they ran out of songs to play. Remember that as hot as the audience was the band was even hotter. They had thousands of watts of stage lamps aimed at them. Think of it this way, you're laying in a lounge chair out by the pool on a hot summer day and someone has come along and turned on a large sunlamp just above your body. When they came back for the encore they played their flagship song off the first album "Green Grass and High Tides Forever*." For those of you that are Outlaws fans, and especially those of you that were fortunate enough to see them "live" you'll know what I mean when I say that you have to remind yourself to breathe as Hughie starts the song...

In a place you only dream of, where your soul is always free

Silver stages, golden curtains, filled my head plain as could be

As a rainbow grew around the sun, all the stars I've loved, who died

Came from somewhere beyond the scene you see

These lovely people played just for me...

<Chorus>

Green grass and high tides forever

Castles of stone souls and glory

Lost faces say we adore you

As kings and queens bow and play for you

What is lost on the attempts to capture this song in the studio is the improvisation that took place during the instrumental break between lyrics in the live stage version. The blazing guitars of Hughie, Billy and Henry would add new riffs and wander off into uncharted land. Monte's drum solos always seemed to occupy just a little more time each time I did a show, and the audience would always go insane. Not just a little insane, stark raving nuts! Twenty years later, it's ironic that one of those lines in Green Grass states...

"All the stars I've loved, who died...played just for me."

In 1995 Billy Jones took his own life. A few weeks later Frank O'Keefe died of an accidental overdose. There will never be a true "Outlaws" reunion (at least not in this space-time continuum) but the surviving members have been discussing it lately since, as of this writing, the remaining band members are all still playing music. Henry Paul has a successful country band named "The Blackhawks"; Monte Yoho is playing drums in Branson Missouri on the "Branson Belle" riverboat. And Hughie Thomasson, the singer of the haunting lyrics above, has joined "Lynyrd Skynyrd." (Much more on Skynyrd later in the book).

To Frank and Billy I hope you both have found peace, the rest of you guys, STAY LOUD! 

This is a representative sample of the book "Roadie A True Story (at least the parts I remember)" and is the exclusive property of Karl Kuenning © 1998. This text may not be reproduced without written permission.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Karl Kuenning 1998

Used with Permission of Karl Kuenning.  Thanks Karl for a GREAT recollection !  Tom G.