Cat Features
Food, fans make touring memorable
Cat Town staff writer AG shares some of her experiences with the now defunct LA band Buckcherry
by Alyson Galipeau
Keith Nelson is feeling sick.
The fried seafood at the venue was horrible and now sits like a bowling ball in his stomach. Still, he is up, peering out the black-tinted windows of the bus at the throngs of young people gathered in the parking lot. Chattering, they sneak hopeful looks at the bus doors. As Keith steps off the bus, the fans flock to him, waving black Sharpie markers and CD liner notes.
To Buckcherry guitarist Keith Nelson and vocalist Josh Todd, this is a familiar sight at the end of a day in the life of touring to promote Buckcherry’s latest release, Time Bomb. This is the follow-up album to their self-titled 1999 debut that boasted the radio favorite “Lit Up.” The band, which also includes guitarist Yogi, bassist Jonathan Brightman, and drummer Devon Glenn, is four months deep into this United States tour, playing an average of four shows per week.
Keith enjoys touring, but reveals that it becomes tiring at times. “It’s hard being out there, but I love it and wouldn’t give it up,” he assures, blowing a stream of cigarette smoke and brushing ash from his white long-sleeved shirt. “It gets lonely on the road, and I miss my family. Miss my mother and my daughter and my daughter’s mother, all my buddies, just miss being in a house with a bed and having real food from time to time.”
When it comes to food, the road does not offer much variety, and Keith misses the quality of meals cooked at home. “I eat so much Wendy’s it’s disgusting,” Keith says. “Though I love truck stop food no matter how much I have it. Me and Josh love The Flying J outside Birmingham, Ohio. They sell these chili dogs that Josh loves, and the bus always smells so bad after we go there because he has to have them.”
“For some reason, I love McDonald’s breakfasts and I eat a lot,” Josh says. “But it’s not easy finding one with a parking lot big enough for the bus.”
After a few weeks, Keith deals with the tensions that spring from living constantly enclosed with four other band members. “It can be really tough seeing the same people all the time,” Keith says. “Sometimes there’s yelling and doors slamming. We like to go our separate ways once on land because we see each other way too much.”
Josh agrees, recalling arguments with other bandmates. “We just didn’t get along any more. We’d yell and wake the other guys on the bus.”
After arriving in that day’s city, band members often find themselves with blocks of spare time before and after sound check. “I lift weights usually,” Josh says. “Boxing. I work out for at least an hour, and eventually call my mom. I sit on the bus alone a lot, writing and reading, watching people outside. Or take catnaps. I think too much if I’m awake.”
“Josh and I sometimes throw a football around, or sometimes we look for a toy store to browse in,” Keith says of his free time. “Talk to the fans if they’re there early.”
Despite performing nightly, both Keith and Josh admit to nervousness before shows. “When our intro music starts, I start to get antsy and start to sweat,” Keith says. “So when I get nervous, I like to pick on Josh about the gay clothes he’s wearing and make him annoyed before hitting the stage. Usually works, too.”
“When we finally go on, I try not to look at the crowd because it will make me so nervous,” Josh says. “Once we start the first song, then I look at the crowd. I look for familiar faces first. Makes the show easier then. It’s like having friends over no matter what city you’re in, and that’s comforting.”
Keith, too, is pleased at the sight of recognizable faces. “A lot of people follow us, and that makes me really happy. When you go out there and you see familiar faces, and you know these people don’t live anywhere near there, it’s an amazing feeling.”
Outside, one boy with gold chains around his neck and an oversized black Buckcherry shirt jumps up and down. He grabs his friend’s shoulder at the sight of the tattooed Josh emerging from the bus, wearing a black sweatshirt and baseball cap. A longhaired girl, eyelids painted with sliver glitter and carrying a blue fuzzy purse, glares in jealousy as Keith collects a hug from another female fan. A grinning 19-year-old with spiked hair hands Josh a marker and a copy of Time Bomb. Its cover shows a boy with bandages on his eyes and mouth.
For Keith and Josh, this is one of the more enjoyable parts of touring. “Some of the fans are annoying,” Keith says. “They ask stupid questions like ‘Did your tattoos hurt?’ But some fans are great. I always love to take pictures with them. I like it when people tell me little things about themselves instead of telling me what they love about me or about my band.”
Josh agrees. “I love to meet the fans. I love to meet the people I just saw singing their hearts out. It’s very cool to say hello to these people and see what they’re like. I always hope that pretty girl I saw in the crowd will be there, but she isn’t always there.”
Sometimes fans make strange requests of Keith and Josh. “Some guy threw a bottle and it hit my face,” Keith recalls. “I used this towel to wipe blood off my face and a guy in the crowd wanted it. I threw it to him, and next time I saw him, he asked me to sign it. Bizarre.” Keith later discovered he had been playing that entire show with a broken nose.
Other fans have asked band members to autograph unusual things. Like underwear, baby blankets, cars, and buttocks. And other eccentric behaviour includes throwing things such as clothing, garbage, and prescription medication on stage while the band is playing. “One girl threw her shoe at me, and her email address and phone number were written on it,” Keith says. “I thought that was odd.”
Often, fans give the band gifts, and other curious items. “I get real generic stuff mostly,” Keith says. “One girl gave me a Ron Jeremy shirt that I love. I get a lot of Harley Davidson stuff. People have given me weird home videos of themselves doing nothing, really. Stuff like that.” Some of Keith’s other gifts have been heart shaped straws and candy.
Josh, too, has received many shirts and necklaces from fans. “Someone once gave me a pink bunny. I thought that was sweet,” he says.
Despite their occasional annoyance, the fans are the ones who make touring worthwhile for musicians like Keith and Josh. “When you get to that last song of the night and you leave the stage and these people are screaming for you, it’s so good. They’re smiling and they’re giving you all they’ve got,” Keith says. “And it’s amazing.”
“I love to perform,” Josh says. “I love getting out there and dancing and singing and looking at all these people singing my songs back to me with almost as much passion as I put into writing them.”
Keith signs the last item of the night—a fan’s tattered denim jacket. Then, he drops his cigarette butt and stamps it out. Boarding the bus again, he joins the other four band members and chats about the show and the people he met. At 3:00 a.m., Keith climbs into his bunk, knowing that when he awakens, he will be in another city.
He hopes the food there will be better than today’s.
*****Tom Petty and the Baloney-Scented Waves
A review of the Tom Petty show at the Fleet Center in Boston MA, December 14, 2002
By Alyson Galipeau
“You’re going to see Tom Petty?” I was perplexed by the confusion my impending trip the Fleet Center was causing.
“Yeah, Tom Petty. You know? You DON’T. . . HAVE . . . to live like a refugee…” My singing was not appreciated. And I was still causing confusion.
What’s so weird about going to see Tom Petty? The man is all about rock and roll in its purest form. How can you not air guitar to “You Wreck Me?” And he was always on the radio while I was growing up. He was a staple. He’s huge. One of the most popular artists of all time, I would guess.
Even the friend who would be accompanying me was hesitant about asking me to go. He didn’t want to be laughed at for liking Tom Petty. Was I missing something? Is it just not cool to like Tom Petty?
Cool or not, I was there on December 14, in my flame print boots with the three-inch heels.
“Am I the youngest one here?” I asked my friend Kenny Phil, maneuvering around the mass of shouting, meandering, overwhelmingly middle-aged fans. Carrying plastic cups of beer, they glanced at their tickets and up at the many doorways into the venues, trying to find the correct entry.
“Nice boots,” one of them said. Toting a soft pretzel, he went into the men’s room.
A bald man with a large gut careened down the hallway, spilling some of his beer, and shouting with what sounded like joy. And the show hadn’t even started yet.
There were T-shirt stands ever few feet. Red, white, green, and beige ones for the men, and a single white tank top with a guitar piercing a red heart for the ladies. “Oh how cute,” I said, examining it closer. It was $30. Holy shit. Kenny Phil bought three different men’s ones, which were also $30.
A man with a ring of gray hair around his head dislodged himself from the wall he was leaning on, and lurched over to me. “Ayyy. Nice boots!” He slurred, thrusting his alcohol-reeking face near mine. This was going to be an interesting night.
Kenny Phil and I found our seats, somewhere in the middle of the venue, several rows up from the floor. Listening to the muted roar of several thousand people talking, we gazed around us.
It was a giant middle-aged gathering. And they were all drinking light-colored beer out of those plastic cups. And then Tom Petty came out and they went crazy.
“WOO!” Our seat-neighbors screamed.
“TOMMY!” One man in a green polo shirt behind us yelled.
“YEAH!” A short lady with a perm and extremely large glasses in front of us roared, throwing her arms in the air.
And Tom Petty smiled, said hello, and launched right into “The Last DJ.”
A few minutes into this song, the couple in front of us stood very close together, partially blocking our view.
“Is there love going on in front of you?” Kenny Phil asked. It was then I noticed the couple was making out, and very passionately at that. She wore glasses and a Carol Brady hairstyle, and his hands tugged at the flipped-up ends of her hair. He too wore a polo shirt, except his was mustard yellow. He mashed his thick brown mustache into her face. They were missing the show.
They stopped kissing when the song ended, and applauded politely.
“MARY JANE!” The same loud man behind us screamed. “TOMMY!”
A strange, baloney-scented stench drifted over us. Kenny Phil and I exchanged a confused, slightly disgusted look.
Tom Petty, in a stylish blue velvet jacket, played “You Don’t Know how it Feels” instead, and the arm-throwing lady in front us liked that. She was rocking out. She shifted from foot to foot, squatted a little, and threw two fists into the air, nearly knocking a bag of popcorn out of the hands of a passerby. Then she seemed to do a little shuffling jig, her permed hair bobbing, and her glasses slipping down her nose. Tom Petty was smiling on stage, looking like he was having as good a time as all of us.=
“Let’s ROLL another JOINT!” The loud man yelled in a tone that let us all know he could identify with that line. Carol Brady and Mustard Yellow started going at it again. Arm Thrower raised her fist and left it there, as if to salute Tom Petty.
That odd baloney smell came again. Did they sell hot dogs at the Fleet Center?
When that song ended, I couldn’t hear what Tom Petty was saying over the ruckus that exploded around us. Arm thrower still had her fist in the air and was screaming “WOO!” Carol and Mustard stood with their arms around each other. Loud Man screamed “TOMMY!” He sounded hoarse. Clearly he believed that Tom Petty would hear him over all the other people in the venue and say, “Well hey there, man in the collared shirt a few rows up from the floor back there. What can I help you with?” Loud Man really bellowed when Tom Petty told us he was proud this show was sponsored by us, and not a clothing company.
Tom Petty pleased everybody by playing the songs we all knew. And he changed outfits a couple times, swapping the blue jacket for a brown one. Carol and Mustard made out through “You Wreck Me,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” “Learning to Fly,” (Arm Thrower spread out her arms and pretended to fly) “American Girl,” “I Won’t Back Down,” “Refugee,” “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” (Loud Man screamed so loudly then, I thought he would vomit) and “Free Fallin’.”
When the show ended and the house lights came on, we joined the herd again, climbing the stairs out of the venue. “Nice boots,” Carol Brady told me. This time, there were a lot more shouting, drunk people in the hall, and empty plastic cups all over the floor.
Kenny Phil and I talked about the show all the way home. “Dude, those people making out in front of you kept farting,” Kenny Phil said, explaining the baloney smell.
Was the age in attendance the reason why people kept looking at me funny for going to this show? Middle aged people can rock out too. They proved it tonight. They were so enthusiastic they almost caused accidents with refreshments. They were jigging. They were partying with their beer in plastic cups. And they have good taste in boots.