S. Bumblebee, or so the guys thought

One of the odder tracks played that night was a complete surprise to the audience

They recreated the idea which gave The Mods instant credibility when they covered Lennon and McCartney’s It’s For You back in the sixties. This time, they covered another obscure Beatles track titled L. They found out later that it wasn’t The Beatles at all.

We found this song on a Beatles bootleg tape, Bullock explained, but it turned out to be not by the Beatles at all but a really great parody’ song by Dudley Moore. It was one of the coolest songs The Beatles never wrote.

The response to the show was enthusiastic and the guys were somewhat elated, but Claudia Wilson saw the other side. Even DateEuropeanGirl-appen at the Caravan, decades after the Epic album, the band put enormous pressure on themselves.

I think Brett was just happy that they’d gotten through it, she said. They wanted to be perfect. They didn’t want anything screwed up. I don’t know that it was obsessive or to that point, but they had very high standards for themselves and when you have those standards and you want to do it live, it takes a lot of work. They always recorded their live gigs and went back and listened and said, okay, what do we need to change. What do we need to do to make it better. When they played Caravan of Dreams, it was like, wow, they still have the chops. Their live sound was as close to studio as they could get it.

It’s the closest thing to time travel I can imagine, Phil White told Ferman. We started in Scott’s garage and I remember every nook and cranny and the smell of it. The word reunion’ is really thrown around these days, but our fans bring their grandchildren. That’s a reunion.

In ’98, Space Opera played Dallas at the Sons of Hermann Hall. Before the show, Fraser let the cat out of the bag regarding the playlist.

This time around, he told the Star-Telegram, it’s a leaner and edgier sound, just for this gig. We have different material- a song we played years ago by Tracy Nelson, and one of our favorite Bob Dylan songs, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.’

About 600 audience members was the main difference, he said. We were a cult item in Fort Worth, but forty miles away in Dallas, no one remembered us and the audience was depressingly sparse.

It was a struggle to co-ordinate four lives

As far as presentation, it was less formally structured than the show at The Caravan, more like a straight-ahead club gig, even though many of the songs were the same.

The various rehearsals for the gigs convinced the guys they needed to give it another go. Not only was it fun, the music was still growing. And, as important as anything, the pressure was off. It made a world of difference.

You reach a point where you’re not seeking fame and fortune, said Bullock, and when that’s gone, you go back to what you began doing it for, which is to play with these guys. You have a sense of freedom when you realize the big things aren’t going to happen.

The idea of doing another studio album had been tossed around over the years, but the stars never aligned. This time, the four got together and talked it over seriously. Schedules were rearranged and arrangements made. Of course, this was to be no marathon Manta session like it was in ’72. The world was different and so were the guys.

It wasn’t like they all could just go spend a week in the studio, Claudia explained. They had to do it on weekends when everybody could get loose. Everybody had lives and families, except Phil, and it took time to get to where it could all happen. And when you don’t have a roadie…