The La Plata County Fair is in full swing, and as we’ve come to expect, the Friday at the Fair concert is going to be rocking.
This year’s featured bands are longtime hit makers Firefall (“You are the woman,” Just remember I love you,” “Strange way” “Cinderella”) and Orleans (“Still the one,” “Dance with me,” “Love takes time” “Dancin’ in the moonlight”).
Opening for the bands is local group Harvest & Sun, which will kick off the concert at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Rodeo Arena at the Fairgrounds, 2500 Main Ave.
If you go
WHAT: Firefall and Orleans in concert, with special guest Harvest & Sun.
WHEN: Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Friday; opening act, 6:30 p.m.; headliner, 8 p.m.
WHERE: La Plata County Fairgrounds Rodeo Arena, 2500 Main Ave.
TICKETS: General admission $30 (bring camp chair); reserved seating $45 (grandstand seating); VIP seating $65 (in front of stage).
MORE INFORMATION: For tickets and details, visit laplatacountyfair.com or email info@fridayatthefair.com.
MORE: For Firefall information, visit officialfirefall.com; for Orleans, visit orleansonline.net.
We had a chance to talk to Jock Bartley, co-founder and lead guitarist for Firefall (which formed in Boulder), and Lance Hoppen, Orleans co-founder and bassist. The following Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity and space.
Q: Where did your name come from?
A: (Co-founder) Rick Roberts was throwing out names and at one point, he said, how about Firefall? In Yosemite National Park in central California, they do a bonfire on top of a cliff and slowly push it off, and it looks like a big lava flow, and it’s called the firefall. And we all went, “Wow, OK, you know, that’s a cool name.” So we went with Firefall. And I started – that was before the internet – I started doing my homework, and I found pictures of the firefall. There’s the natural firefall of Yosemite ... every year the setting sun hits the waterfall, just so that it illuminates and it looks like a lava flow for 15, 20 minutes. And they call that the firefall. And the people at Yosemite figured, man, if we could make our own firefall and have it every day of the summer, we could draw 10 times more tourists to the park. And that’s what they did and it became a huge tourist attraction. Before it would start, the guy would come out at the bottom of the cliff with a big megaphone and go, “Let the fire fall,” they push over the burning logs. And it was spectacular. I’ve never been to Yosemite, but I’ll tell you that whole concept and the visuals you can get with firefall that gave us about three or four album covers to work with.
Q: Do you have any cool stories that stand out from that time?
A: Some I can’t tell, but I will just say that when Mark Andy moved to Boulder from Los Angeles, being a rock guy with gold records, moving from Los Angeles, you know it was Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Joe Walsh, Dan Fogelberg, Carl Wilson from the Beach Boys and assorted other rock stars from LA, and the truth is, they got sick of coming home off the road as rock stars and going to LA. So they said, let’s move to the mountains above in Colorado, let’s go to Boulder. And suddenly, when we were just starting Firefall, nobody had heard of our name, although a few people might know Rick Roberts, we started playing, (and) people like Steven Stills or Joe Walsh or Dan Fogelberg would come and sit in with us at a little club we were playing. And we were playing all of our original songs then, but we were still another year or so away from getting a record deal, but it was a very magical time. I was fated to be in the band Firefall and Firefall as a group of individuals; it was fated to happen. Even though it burned out after a while, I ended up opening the name and re-formed it because the songs were so good.
Q: Is it still fun for you? Is it worth it?
A: Oh yeah, the gig on stage, the 90 minutes, or whatever that we play, is really fun and fulfilling. Everything else, and particularly the travel and the airports, is a drag. It’s worth it for me on a lot of levels, including financially. I have a band that I have to keep in salaries and they want to work as much as they can. You know, I’m kind of going, well, let’s see, we just came back from for a four-day stint in Florida. The bill was Pablo Cruz, Firefall and Pure Prairie League and it was like, great rooms and sold out every night. But I was away from home for six days. That kind of reminds me of the old days, because we’d be gone for a month. And I remember one time the original Firefall band told our management, OK, we have to limit it to three weeks gone and one week home. And the manager goes, well, we could certainly book that other week. Nope, we’re drawing the line, because you have to have – I mean, I couldn’t even have plants in my house in the old days, (much less) a steady girlfriend.
Q: What can we expect at the show?
A: The band is rocking better than it’s been in quite a while, in decades, and the reason I say that is because my two lead vocalists, who are Steven Weinmeister and John Bisaha, he plays bass, Stephen plays guitar number two. I sing, but you know, I’m a guitar player. I got fantastic vocalists in the band. We’ve got Jim Waddell on flute and sax, who is just an amazing musician.
Q: How did you get involved in the band? You were 18?
A: My older brother Larry was the was leading the charge. All of the kids were musically inclined with parents for musicians. We came from that background, and so he was older and prodigious, he could play whatever he picked up. And so he had a band. Then he went off to college, and I started to play myself. My first band was when I was 14, and by the time I graduated high school, Orleans had started that year as a trio. I went to see them a couple times and they were fantastic. And then they wanted to expand, and Larry suggested me, and everybody said, OK, and there you go. That’s how I became part of the band, before we started recording.
Q: How old were you when the band took off?
A: First album, I was 19, but when “Dance with me” was a hit in ’75, I was 21.
Q: Was that an insane time?
A: We were highly motivated. We were working really hard, working all over the Northeast, primarily rehearsing, playing gigs. Our first album made a splash, and then the second one did nothing. Then we got picked up by Asylum, and that’s when things really started to happen. That was a steep climb, the first five years up until and following “Still the one” into 1977 – so from ’72 to ’77 was climbing the mountain. Then John (Hall) left for the first time and broke everything up. And then that was the history of the band: Come together, fall apart, come together, fall apart.
Q: Did you think the band would last as long as it has, and that you’d be the last guy?
A: No, absolutely not. I mean, who could have put back 53 years and to wind up with legacy in my care? We had our spurts, and we would try again and try again and be disappointed. It’s like, “Still the one” says, “We’re still having fun.” So when we were having fun, we would do it. When we had motivation and goals and we’re getting anywhere, great. But then when nothing happened, when records failed, when record companies went out of business underneath us, I mean things like that, just disappointments, then we would put it away for a few years and then find a reason to start again. And that happened, I think, maybe five or six times. Then finally, you know, Will passed in ’84, Larry passed in 2012, John retired from the road in ’22 and here I am, last man standing with a quintet that I’m really proud of. Every other version of this band has fallen apart, and then they’ve been reconstructed. This is a good, really good, version of where that leads.
Q: You mentioned carrying the legacy. Is it a good weight?
A: Initially, I felt like I had something to prove, to continue because, you know, bass player inherits the band – it’s kind of a cliché, but it’s not like I hadn’t earned it. It’s just like going out on the gigs after John was no longer there, and, of course, Larry had not been there a long time, and they were the driving force. So to be in charge, with like, “OK, let’s make a statement here, and hope it works.” And to reconfigure. Every time we reconfigured, of course, you lose a lot of institutional memory; when you get new guys, they don’t know everything you know. So you have to start over, rebuilding and figure out what works best in this version, and then keep that and move forward. ... There was a lot of shake up in the last few years until spring of ’23 is when this particular quintet came together. And it took six months for it to gel, and ever since, it’s been a well-oiled machine, and I know it’s working because the audiences love it. And so I think, yeah, maybe I had to prove something to myself and nobody else – the point has been proven.
Q: You guys are part of the soundtrack of a lot of people’s lives. What does that feel like?
A: Those songs – “Still the one,” definitely – they evoke memories, right? Like, where were you when you heard that? Our audience is primarily boomers like myself, but their kids, and actually, their grandkids, are starting to come out. The nostalgia factor for the older folks is important because it’s warm and fuzzy. And it’s nice to have had that kind of success so early, because it enables us to work 53 years. A lot has become a piece of Americana: It’s been used so much for commercial licenses of all kinds – TV, movies, commercials, political campaigns. I mean, everywhere you look, wedding songs. That’s ingrained in people, even if they don’t know the band, they know that song. So yeah, nobody predicted that; it’s just we were lucky.
Q: Is it still fun for you?
A: It is very fun. Like I say, these gigs are successful, but the travel is hard. Getting to Durango, is not easy, but once you’re there and you play, then you have your hour, plus whatever, and you’re all sweaty and you meet the fans after, it’s really cool. And yeah, the music remains kind of timeless and not, you know ... if we had had a hit on, like “Disco Duck,” that’d be a drag to play for 50 years.
Q: What kind of show can we expect from you guys?
A: A mix of the hits, obviously some fan favorites that have stood the test of time, and some unfamiliar things that just kind of work – very accessible first listening, a couple of interesting covers. It’s going to be a very uplifting, fun show. It’s all about music and fun.
katie@durangoherald.com
