It's funny what tricks your mind plays on you just due to dumb circumstance. To this day, I can't think of my high school graduation (to the extent I think about it at all) without remembering that I'd just heard Warren Zevon's Excitable Boy album for the first time a few days earlier, and the song Veracruz kept running through my mind. "I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns/ I heard Maria crying..."

I saw Warren Zevon play live twice. You might think the one I'd remember of the two was the Hancher Auditorium show, Iowa City, IA, 1987, when I was in the first row. Yes, I was on my feet shouting "LAWYERS, GUNS, AND MONEY, THE SHIT HAS HIT THE FAN!" like all the rest, and yes, it was a great show. The more memorable Zevon performance, though, took place in the unlikely setting of Whitewater, WI, in the early 80's. Of course, the trek to Whitewater was because it was Tom Carter's hometown; indeed, I think it was me, Tom, and Tom's latest attempted girlfriend, with the transportation supplied by TLAG (Tom's Latest Attempted Girlfriend). Is it just my faulty memory, or did we nearly stumble into the aftermath of an armed robbery while driving down a desolate Milwaukee street after the show?

That's not what made the show memorable. Coming onto the stage, Warren and the boys shouted things like, "OK, Whitewater, we're gonna play one more for ya!" before launching into an encore-worthy version of Werewolves of London... and then leaving the stage again. Ah, we get it... they're playing around with us and performing the encore first! Clever. Well, after a few minutes, the band took the stage again, and played the regular set-- but what I always remember was the last song played, because it had seemed that the show was really over. The lights were up, the P.A. was playing other songs, the crowd was beginning to disperse... and Warren Zevon, all alone, came back onto the stage. It might have been planned all along, but what it looked like to me was a rare unrehearsed moment-- a spur of the moment gesture. And he sat down alone at the piano and played the greatest version of Hasten Down The Wind I ever expect to hear.