Keep On Keepin' On

As everyone knows, 1999 was the year of the internet, the year of the dot-com startup. While client/server ERP vendors languished, and while the traditionally warm fuzzy PeopleSoft "family" culture faced the unthinkable -- layoffs! -- Silicon Valley garage geniuses flourished, backed by soaring IPOs and huge venture capital backing. Mid-year, Dave Duffield effectively retired, bequeathing the future of the company to newcomer Craig Conway. (Through it all, though, developers at PeopleSoft were heads-down on a new pure internet product that would blow away the software world -- but not until 2H 2000: the amazing PeopleSoft 8 ... )

In spite of the turmoil, for the Raving Daves and our faithful fans, 1999 was one of our most fruitful years: 12 gigs burnin' that midnight oil and keepin' the PSFT spirit alive, including gigs at some prestigious venues like the Great American Music Hall, the Transmission Theater, and the New Orleans Superdome (which regrettably marked drummer Mark "The Wolf" Fletcher's last gig with the Daves). Oh yeah, we returned to Vegas and played for an estimated 300,000 geeks at COMDEX 99 ...

Toward the end of the year, big upheavals occurred within the Raving Daves ranks, as Leonard, Earl, and Randy left PeopleSoft for supposedly greener pastures in smaller internet companies, and long-time bassist "Captain" Dan McIntosh retired from the band to continue to toil in obscurity as a PeopleTools tech writer ... December 1999 was a chaos of auditions for new members ...

The 1999 Lineup

Baer Tierkel, guitar & vocals
Eric Tamm, guitar & vocals
Leonard Rainow, keyboards
Dalia Chatterjee, vocals
Earl Barron, harp
Dan McIntosh, bass
Rick Frank, guitar
Mark Fletcher, drums
Dan Williams, sound engineer
Randy Tucker, drums

Number of PeopleSoft Employees, December 1999: 6,357

The 1999 Gigs