Hiway Freeker Plays to Halloween Freak Show

Author: Daniel Wolf Roda

Hiway Freeker made its long-awaited return to the Middlebury "jam" scene to celebrate the night of demons, goblins and just general scariness, playing last weekend in Johnson. There was no charge to get in, only a strict costume requirement, so we went dressed as newspaper reporters to get the inside scoop on what was going on inside this notorious art building.

"Finally," said the what seemed like eight-foot tall guitar player, who we will refer to as Santa Claus, "a room I can play guitar in without having my head hitting the ceiling." Then the Montreal-based jam band proceeded to play some sizzling funky numbers while costume clad Midd-kids bounced around excitedly trying not to wreck their dinosaur masks and cardboard chainsaws. The group pulled off such horrifying hits as T.V. theme song "Ghostbusters," while the exotic mermaid lead singer frightened the audience with her demonic growls. They also covered songs by The Talking Heads, Led Zeppelin and many more.

The event included a giant haunted maze, built by real Midd-kids, and a special artsy image projected onto the wall behind the band, which could be manipulated to "boogie" to the music and which was, according to Mike Rimoin '05, just plain, "cool."

There was also much excitement about the costume contest. Hunter Hess made a special appearance. Trick or treat! The Dude (as I like to call him) dressed quite successfully like a middle-aged woman, and boo! Sinan Tanridag '04 dressed like The Dude. Will they ever be the same? There were also students dressed like little babies, a sado-masochist couple (was that a costume?), an especially cute pair of dice and (drum roll please) the winner, a gigantic black hole from the space nebula, who remained plugged into the wall for at least 30 percent of the activities, unplugging only to accept the coveted prize, a date with the lead singer Serena and as-of-yet unbestowed upon him, a photograph taken by Middlebury graduate Ryan Kopel '03.

It was also vocalist Serena's birthday, and for those of you who were there, she's not 27! Some further investigation yielded that she is at this point in space-time really 30 years old and that she is dating Santa Claus, who rocked an enormous eight-and-a-half-inch white beard. Way to go Santa!

But this group of rockadelicks are not too old to party - they stayed up until dawn, assembling a variety of chairs and other furniture on top of their drummer, who happened to be the first unlucky band member to pass out. Further late night band activities included howling at the rising sun, beer-or-treating and devouring late-night ravioli.

After the day's events, the band decided to change its name from Hiway Freeker to Midnight Freaker after being asked by some unsuspecting Midd-kid, "Hey, are you in the band Midnight Freaker?" The band, after looking up the word "Midnight" in the Oxford Heritage Dictionary, decided it could not resist the new moniker and changed it for good.

Now they will forever bring some Halloween spirit along with them as Midnight Freaker tours on Asian cruise ships playing soul and Motown standards - this being the prediction of the keys player, dressed up like a mad scientist from hell. And the middle-aged scientist conceded, "This is my only hope for paying off my debt and moving out of my parents house."

So far, Middlebury has welcomed "Freeker" three times - once at its groundbreaking Mill show, which gave the lanky guitar player a headache and a crick in the neck, and for the second time last spring at the widely successful "Smilefest." Yet the spooky question remains, will we see Midnight Freaker and their flipped-out freaky van o' funk ever again?