there were dozens of shouts, cries and near-orgasmic wailings of “lopez!” throughout both nights- the dude’s a people person for sure. He more than exceeded everyone’s expectations and brought a new energy to the phoenix scene that everyone responded to immediately. Lopez is basically the result of catherine zeta-jones getting eiffel tower’d by paul bunyan and zorro with the lone ranger on camera duty and no one bothering to take a paternity test. the tour that gave us an instant all-timer in the pizza jam(!!!!!), back to back shows at the sweat and joy-filled tonic room, and of course the band’s new folk hero- the man, the myth, the legend… lopez.īorn out of a perfect storm of jams, booze and end of the week giddyness in the mixlr chat room during the neenah show at cranky pat’s, we finally got to meet him in the flesh when he flew out from milwaukee for the last exit shows, and he did not disappoint. However, we can’t talk about this past weekend without talking about the midwest run at the end of september with shows in boulder, denver, lincoln, milwaukee, neenah, chicago, and ottawa. Opening for lotus this weekend, playing phish after shows in new york over new year’s eve, and opening for umphrey’s mcgee in january up and down the east coast ensures that they’ll be playing to crowds that recognize and appreciate their talent, which should eventually pave the way for their own national tours that will allow them to come back to arizona with their guns blazing and a bigger, rowdier crowd here to greet them. shows like last weekend’s at venues of this size are about to be considered the good old days, so i hope everyone there realized what we were witnessing. they weren’t presented as such, but if you’ve been following this band then you know how big they’ve gotten in the last 6 weeks and how big they will continue to get through the end of the year and throughout 2017. On friday and saturday of last weekend (october 28th & 29th), spafford played what amounted to two farewell shows at last exit live in their adopted hometown of phoenix.