Friday, Oct. 31, 2003 | 8:38 a.m.
Exactly one year ago Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Freddie Mercury, Jim Morrison and Stevie Ray Vaughan appeared together at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium.
No, it wasn't some sort of afterlife jam session. The five musicians onstage were actually the members of popular jam band String Cheese Incident, commemorating Halloween with a special "Dead Rock Stars" set.
The five String Cheesers guitarist Bill Nershi, bassist Keith Moseley, violinist/mandolinist Michael Kang, pianist Kyle Hollingsworth and drummer Michael Travis dressed up as Morrison, Vaughan, Hendrix, Cobain and Mercury, respectively, and performed songs made famous by each member of the fantasy quintet.
"I think the highlight for me was seeing our drummer, Travis, dressed as Freddie Mercury, front and center, strutting around singing 'We Are the Champions'," Moseley said, chuckling.
Such a visual spectacle, combined with its inherent musical challenges, might be too risky a venture for most bands touring today. For String Cheese Incident, however, it simply marked the latest chapter in a long history of wild Halloween celebrations.
The Colorado ensemble brings that traveling annual party to the Cox Pavilion at UNLV at 7:30 tonight. The band also plays there at 7:30 Saturday night.
Tapped by many as the heirs to the jam-band throne once occupied by the Grateful Dead and the recently reunited Phish, String Cheese Incident has seen its fan base swell dramatically since its days gigging in ski towns during the early 1990s.
Tonight's Halloween concert has been officialy dubbed the "Freak-In Convention," also known as the "World Convention of Freaky People."
Planned festivities include judging for the "Freakiest Las Vegas Hulaween Convention Attire and Character" and the "Freaker by the Speaker Dance Contest."
And in a telephone interview from his Boulder, Colo., home, Moseley said that's just the beginning.
"Vegas is definitely a place where everyone can come and get their freak on, have a good time and go crazy. It just invites that kind of thing," Moseley, 38, said. "Typically, our Halloween shows involve a big production with costumes and special effects and dancers and anything from jugglers to parades to fire breathers, all kinds of crazy stuff.
"I don't know exactly what's going to happen for the 'Freak-In Convention,' but I am sure it's going to be very lively and very entertaining."
Tonight's show will also feature a "Freaky Wedding" charity raffle. The winner was originally slated to marry Travis onstage, but in a recent switch, that honor has been handed over to Kang.
Apparently, Travis' real-life relationship is further along than promoters realized.
"There had actually been some developments that pushed themselves through, so now Kang is definitely the most eligible bachelor," Moseley said. "So he's going to be up there on the Vegas wedding stand."
The marriage is supposed to last the duration of tonight's event, although Moseley said anything is possible.
"Hey, maybe if it's a match made in heaven it'll last a couple of weeks," he joked.
Musically, the Halloween show will also differ from String Cheese's normal nightly production in one significant way. As always, the concert will feature a blend of originals and covers, long stretches of improvisation and a totally unique set list.
But for Halloween, the band also performs a third, middle set, the theme of which will relate directly to the night's overall concept. Last year's "Dead Rock Stars" bit came during a show billed as "The Academummy Awards."
To preserve the element of surprise, Moseley declined to provide specifics about tonight's musical treat.
"It will be some kind of thematic presentation that will go along with the whole Halloween theme and all the extracurricular activities," Moseley said. "So it's going to be a special, unique show, which should be a lot of fun."
Tonight's show has been sold out for weeks, but seats remain available for Saturday night. Moseley promised that fans who attend the second Vegas performance won't be disappointed.
"Certainly, we'll have a special show worked up for Halloween," Moseley said. "But I think we're just going to continue with our freakiness right into the next night. There's no reason not to."
Both Las Vegas shows will also be available for purchase on CD in about four to six weeks. String Cheese Incident releases all of its concerts in its ongoing "On the Road Series."
The two Vegas shows should also include material from the band's latest studio disc, last month's "Untying the Not."
The album, which deviates greatly in sound and production from previous efforts, has been hailed as String Cheese's best work since the group's formation in 1993.
"We really wanted to stretch the boundaries musically of what we had been doing," Moseley said. "We were kind of at a bit of a burnout stage at the beginning of this new record and really needed to rejuvenate ourselves. So we really looked at the studio as a creative tool, more than we had in the past."
To that end, the band brought in renowned British producer Youth (only name given), best known for his work with the Orb, the Verve, Crowded House, Bananarama and the Fine Young Cannibals.
At first, Moseley wasn't sure the fit was right.
"I was skeptical. We kind of read his discography and it was like, 'Who are these people that he's worked with?' I didn't really know any of these bands," Moseley said. "But after we met Youth, we really felt his intensity and his vibe really matched our own. We felt his excitement and passion for the project."
With Youth guiding them, the members of String Cheese Incident worked to craft an album fans could listen to from start to finish, without feeling as if they were simply listening to studio versions of the band's live music.
"In the past, we had gone in and played live and the CDs had been more or less just a collection of songs," Moseley said. "For this one we went in with the idea of making a disc that's kind of a musical journey, sort of a loose concept album, both in terms of lyrical content and musical flow.
"We worked on segues between the songs and on the song sequencing. And we worked on trying to get the total length down to a time where people could and would want to listen to the album start to finish, kind of like, say, side 2 (the Beatles') "Abbey Road" or (Pink Floyd's) "Dark Side of the Moon."
Hearing Moseley speak, he sounds relaxed. You'd never know he and his bandmates are embroiled in a bitter legal battle with ticketing giant TicketMaster.
After years of providing direct mail-order tickets for hardcore fans, the String Cheese Incident saw its ticket allotment shrink significantly in recent months.
"Typically, we'd been getting about 50 percent of the ticket allotments for each venue to sell, and then TicketMaster sells the rest," Moseley said. "But they started enforcing these exclusive contracts that they've got with the venues, so as of last spring and summer our ticketing company was getting maybe eight or 10 percent of the tickets for some venues. At some venues we weren't getting any tickets at all to sell.
"So essentially we got to the point where it was either file a lawsuit or roll over and go out of business. So we took up the fight."
String Cheese is suing TicketMaster for what it alleges are antitrust violations. The claim is similar to one brought before Congress during the 1990s by Pearl Jam in another attempt to change TicketMaster's business practices.
Pearl Jam's efforts ultimately fell short, but Moseley said that band has been supportive of String Cheese's efforts.
"We've received some encouraging calls from the Pearl Jam camp. They're behind what we're doing 100 percent," Moseley said. "It's really been phenomenal the amount of support we've gotten from people all throughout the music industry who are really encouraging what we're doing."
Moseley said his band is intent on selling its own tickets in large part to combat TicketMaster's hefty service fees, which can run as high as $10.50 for a $32.50 ticket to a String Cheese concert.
TicketMaster has also filed a counter-suit against the band, though Moseley said he still can't figure out the grounds for such a legal action.
"I've read it and I can't make any sense of it. I think they feel really threatened by this, and they probably should," he said. "I think we've got a real strong case, and I think we have a shot at winning this case.
"It's really about us trying to control the ticket prices, keep them fair for the fans. We've been a real grass-roots organization from the beginning, and keeping the relationship with our fans strong and trustworthy is of great importance to us." There's no reason not to."
Keith Moseley,
STRING CHEESE INCIDENT BASSIST
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