We’re back on the road again — heading back to Utah.

Right now, we’re on I-84 in northeastern Oregon. I drove from Darrington to Seattle and then across Washington on I-90 and I-82 to get us back on I-84 without going through Portland like we did on our trip out.

Last night, we played the Whitehorse Mountain Rock Festival at the Whitehorse Mountain Amphitheater. It rocked. We rocked. I rocked. It was all a very rocking experience.

The Whitehorse Mountain Rock Festival is an annual event that lasts three days and features live music each day from a variety of bands. Friday night — the night we played — was a selection of tribute acts. Saturday and Sunday feature minor list classic rock artists and former members of bands.

The lineup on Friday was El Loco — a ZZ Top tribute; Thund Her Struck — an all-women AC/DC tribute band from L.A.; Strutz — an 80s rock cover band; And, finally, Sons Of Nothing — the premiere Pink Floyd tribute group.

El Loco, despite being the first band on at 6:00, put on a great show. They had the ZZ Top look down perfect. The guitarist and the bassist both had waist-length beards and the drummer had a thick dark mustache and bushy hair. They also had two dancing girls — one on each side of the stage — dancing to the music. The girls had at least three costume changes during the 90 minute set where they ran back to their trailer to change into a different miniskirt/top combination.

Thund Her Struck was a bizarre premise to begin with. Girls playing AC/DC... Girls liking AC/DC is unusual let alone playing it. In addition to being good musicians and highly energetic stage performers, the five women were all very attractive and had the guys (and girls) in the crowd cheering like wild.

After their set, Thund Her Struck had a “meet the public” table set up near the stage and a long line of people formed to meet the girls and get autographs and photos.

We arrived in Darrington around 2 in the afternoon. We had ten hours until we went on so it was no surprise that once some urgent issues were taken care of (e.g. setting up the crashing airplane, flashpots, and video projector) there was some time to burn.

The management of the festival treated us like real rock stars. I don’t know if that means we are real rock stars, or if it’s just easier for the festival to treat the Friday night acts the same way they treat anyone else.

Each of the bands had a trailer — a full-size motorhome with the fridge stocked with water, soda, and beer, hot water, toilets, shower, electricity, and TV.

The guys who drink in the band got all the beer they wanted. There was a to-die-for meal catered for bands and backstage staff which included seasoned buffalo chicken wings, meatballs marinated with pineapple, 3 or 4 different kinds of salads, and pretty much anything you wanted to drink. The management also had a fruit tray and a meat and cheese tray brought to our trailer later in the evening.

The amphitheater area at Whitehorse Mountain is set up as follows. There is a large multi-level concrete seating area arranged in an almost-semicircle. In front of that is grass. There is probably 120 feet from the first concrete step to a concrete pad in front of the stage. The stage is build into a log cabin-type building that also serves as the set up area for the bands. The stage is covered by a log roof. In front of the stage, they had a large lighting truss set up on eight pillars so there were lights above the front of the stage and then about 25 feet in front of that. There were also two light trees on the stage — one on each side — that had ten PAR-64 cans on them, each gelled a different color.

The front truss had several (8 or so) moving heads and multiple colored PAR-64 cans. The rear truss was all PAR-64 cans.

There were large speaker systems on each side of the inside pillars, facig the crowd.

We hung our projector inside the point of the log roof above the stage area and hung our screen above the drum riser toward the rear of the stage. We ran the cables for the projector down to the back of stageleft near the monitor mixer where I later set up my computers on a table.

Kendra, the lighting engineer, rocked. I was worried when I saw how “energetic” she lit El Loco and Thund Her Struck. Lighting Pink Floyd like that could be disasterous. She did great. The lighting was subdued and, for the most part, perfect. She also kept the stage thoroughly fogged up and hazed.

I thought it was dang cool we were working with a 20-something girl who was doing professional lighting engineering for a living.

It was still pretty light out when we set up the projector, so we couldn’t position it and focus it with respect to the screen. I made arrangements to bring a ladder out during the break between Thund Her Struck and Strutz to do that. By that point, it was dark enough we could see the image on the screen very well. We got the projector focused and almost positioned the way we wanted it; It was still a little slanted. I had to get back up before the Sons Of Nothing set and adjust it some more.

In addition to the projection screen, we also had a model plane rigged up on a wire to go from the concession stand at the top of back of the amphitheater seating — where the spotlights were — to the back of the stage. And, we had flashpots on each side of the stage which were to go off when the airplane came in.

Personally, I can’t say I’ve ever had a better show. The projection screen was really bright and colorful. I managed the video and CG visuals with more precision than I’ve ever done before.

The crowd was great. There were probably 2-300 people up close to the stage and a couple hundred or so more sitting on the grass or on the concrete bleachers.

We played from 12:15 or so until 2:30 in the morning. It was 4:30 by the time we got to our rooms at the Stagecoach Inn in Darrington. We were told we had to check out by 11 at the latest, so there wasn’t much time to waste not sleeping.

Thom and I got up around 9:30 and were the first ones ready to go. I walked to a convenience store nearby and got a couple Diet Mountain Dews to go and when I got back, Juli and Matt were ready to go too.

Speaking of Diet Mountain Dew, as soon as we hit Oregon and Washington, I couldn’t find it anymore on tap in the soda fountains. In fact, the selection of different sodas shrunk down to 6 or 8 pretty much everywhere we went in those states. That’s why I had to get 20 ounce bottles.

It’s not over yet as we’re still on the road, but I’ll say now that I had a blast and it was a thrill to get to perform my art (the projections, sound effects, and other special effects) to a large audience. Everyone I talked to congratulated me and the band on a great show.

Sons Of Nothing will be back in Salt Lake City in three weeks for a show at Liquid Joes and then, the week after that, we’ll be heading to Colorado for two or three shows.