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By sahewitt
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25 August 2008 |
More adventures from my band days
On Nantucket Island, Massachusetts there was once a place called the Airport Lounge long since burned down. This is the story of that conflagration. At the time, I was working in a band known as the Chris Martin Group. Chris was my brother and I endured many jokes about whether or not I was Steve Martin, although my family name is Hewitt (Martin is my brother’s middle name, as Alexander is mine – a nom de plume, as it were, for us both).We had arrived in the afternoon and set up early as was our habit. Following a short sound check, we had gone our separate ways to enjoy the rest of a sunny afternoon. I had gone down to the beach, which was a short drive down a nearby dirt, actually sand, road through the adjacent dunes to an attractive beach of which there are many on this picturesque island. The airport was directly across the road from the lounge. Attached at the stage door of the main building was a small bunkhouse where the bands lodged. From the stage, a large window looked out the airport. We spent many hours during previous visits attempting to determine the identity of some newly arrived sybarite. The lounge was a grand rock and roll (as well as other musical styles, I’m sure) emporium. Constructed entirely of wood, save for a large stone fireplace, the acoustics were magnificent. I imagine in years past music groups of a variety of genres performed for adoring crowds.Some delivery person backed a truck up to the loading area in the rear of the building. Reportedly the fire started there. When we returned later on in the day the structure was ablaze. My brother was in a bit of a panic because his guitar was in the bunkhouse. We managed to retrieve all our equipment from the bar except for his guitar, which was in the bunkhouse. One of the bar employees volunteered to recover the guitar. After ascertaining its approximate location this brave soul entered the bunkhouse on his belly to avoid the noxious smoke that was billowing out of the front entrance.After a few tense moments, he emerged with the guitar safely in tow much to my brother’s exultant delight. The hero got to his feet to the accompaniment of hearty huzzahs from those assembled. We watched aghast as the fire consumed entire structure with exception of the massive stone fireplace. Ultimately that was all that was left of the place.There was another bar that offered live music on alternate weekends under a reciprocal agreement with the Airport Lounge. We headed over there and fortunately convinced them of the wisdom of hiring us so at least we had work for the weekend. Unfortunately for us, we never worked on Nantucket again. I am unsure if the other club owner considered us unlucky, bad musicians or both but they never contacted us again. Whatever the case, it was distinctly our loss for a job on the island was a luxury not to be taken lightly. To work on that lovely locale was a special treat and though we found work at other locations on Cape Cod, none could compare with the Airport Lounge.© Copyright Stephen Alexander 2008 Only registered users can rate and write comments.
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