Dave Mallick Remembers Bobby Sheehan

11-15-98, Dartmouth, NH. The band brings out Andrew Winn of AGR to play with them on Mountain Cry. Bob's doing his thing on his side of the stage, and Andrew is all over the place. At one of the big breaks where everyone hits their note, Andrew takes a running start, a BIG jump behind John, and lands probably six inches from Bob, who almost recoils in fear.

11-30-97, Northampton, MA. Not the band's best show, but during one particularly long John solo, I look up to see only three members on stage. About 30 seconds go by before I see a huge puff of smoke from stage left, and just as Bob's due to kick back in, he emerges from the cloud to slip back seamlessly into whichever song it was.

11-10-94, Boston, MA. My first show ever - it is announced that Bob is an uncle. Bob gives a small, almost embarrassed smile. Bob always was about the music - he just wanted to get back to playing.

1-27-98, New York, NY. Perhaps the greatest show I've ever been to; a High Plains Drifter show at the Wetlands. In mid-show everyone's taking a break between songs to try to figure out what they're going to play next. Someone asks for a beer or water to the stage, and suddenly there's this HUGE hoot of feedback from one of the amps. "Okay...someone take the pot AWAY from Rich and get it up here." Someone promptly hands Bob one of them funny cigarettes.

7-21-98, Cleveland, OH. The date of the FANatic show taping. I could quote anything from the interview, but Viv wrote something last night that wasn't part of my experience. We were riding around on the golf cart to go to the Workshop stage, and she was sitting next to Bob. The cameras were on her and all she could think to say was "I'm riding in a golf cart with Bobby Sheehan." He just laughed at put his arm around her. We got to the Workshop stage and while I was chatting with Chan about all the questions we didn't get to ask on camera, she was hanging out with Bob. Before he disappeared into the tour bus, he let her try on his black cat ring.

Here's hoping you find your stage, Bob...

--Dave