On October 20th, the band played what was to be their final gig together in Houston, Texas.  They then travelled 350 miles over night to New Orleans where they had a gig at Tipitina’s the next night.  While they travelled Shannon started into his new stash of cocaine, ranting and raving about the direction of the band’s career and casting blame all over the place.  At first Rogers partied with him but soon realized Shannon was out of control.  “I’ve already got your eulogy written, Shannon.  I know what I’m gonna say at your funeral,” Rogers teased.  Horribly ironic but he wasn’t talking about that night.  They had all seen Shannon in a much worse state.  Shannon was still wide awake and ranting when the bus pulled into the Dixie Parking lot on St. Charles Avenue at 7 a.m. the next morning. The five band members straggled through the dawn's light and checked in at Le Meridien Hotel.  Shannon and Rogers rode the elevator up together.  At around 8:30 Shannon called his girlfriend, and they talked for forty-five minutes. He managed to disguise how messed up he was.  They had fought the day earlier but everything was fine now.  Around 10 a.m., he left his room, saying he wanted to find something to eat. "He looked really happy," Chris Jones said.   He took the elevator down to the hotel lobby, stopped to invite doorman Don Weaver to their concert at Tipitina's that night, then headed up Common Street toward the lake. "He seemed like he was happy to be in town," Weaver said.  From the hotel, Shannon walked two blocks to L.A. Smoothie, sat at a corner stool, ordered a smoothie, paid with a $20 bill and made a call on his cellular phone. Melanie Thomas, who was working that morning, thinks he called a psychic on a pay-by-the-minute 900 line. After an hour or so spent reading the newspaper and chatting on the phone, he ambled three blocks back to the tour bus.  He got on the bus and took off his clothes except a pair of shorts and neatly folded them up, he locked the door behind him and laid down in Christopher Thorn’s bed and never woke up.

Around 1:30 p.m the crew  woke up and realized that Shannon was on the bus from his feet sticking out of the bunk.  They were supposed to be at the venue so they had to wake him up. The monitor technician tickled his feet, but he didn’t respond.  Lyle Eaves, the sound man, pulled back the curtain to wake him.  “I called out his name, shook him, turned on the light, and as soon as I saw him I knew something was wrong.  I screamed at the bus driver to go call an ambulance.”  They took him out of the bunk, and the tour manager tried CPR.  The ambulance came, and they announced Shannon was dead.

His body was taken back to Dayton, Indiana.  His girlfriend, Lisa, chose his burial clothes.  He was buried in his favorite T-shirt which simply said “AMSTERDAM” and was barefoot.  He always went barefoot whenever he could.  The casket was opened for those closest to him.  Rogers said, “It’s the first time I ever saw him not talking.  I was sitting there thinking, I can’t believe he’s not going to get up and just fill my ear full of the hugest steaming pile of horse shit you’ve ever heard.  I was just crushed.  It was my best friend.”  Each of them put in object to be buried with him.  Lisa put in the most.  Mrs. Hoon put in a letter to Shannon, saying she loved him and that he should sing to the angels.  That’s what she figured: that the angels needed a singer, so he had to go.  His niece, Grace, put in a little plastic cereal bowl so that Shannon could eat his Coco Puffs in Heaven.

Shannon was buried in Dayton Cemetery near the back close to his ancestors.  The grave reads, “Beloved Father and Son” and at the bottom is a quote from Change, “I know we can’t all stay here forever so I want to write my words on the face of today and they’ll paint it.”