| CHAPTER THREE: 8 April 1999So by now, you all know the first few stories about DGeneration. You know that they’re my favorite band. You know that I met Danny 2 years ago, that I made a fool of myself in front of Howie, and that I met Jesse outside of Coney Island High. You may or may not know that I’ve been occasionally writing back and forth with Danny ever since I met him. Anyway, when I found out that DGen had replaced the original opening band on the Offspring tour, I immediately got tickets for both the San Antonio and Austin shows.
The concert was slated to begin at 6:30 pm, so my good friend Tommy and I walked across the highway to Sunken Gardens at 5:15. To our surprise (and frustration), a huge Offspring crowd had already gathered outside the venue (a mid-sized amphitheater), and we found ourselves at the end of a very long line. When we finally got inside, we rushed to the stage and found spots just to our right of Danny’s mic in roughly the 3rd row back. We were right on the edge of the step; one step backwards and we would’ve fallen off the ledge. I saw Danny, Jesse, and Howie all backstage, but they were too far away for me to get their attention. |
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| The show started, and after a brief intro, they opened with "Scorch." (The set list consisted of: Scorch, Sweet Talker, Every Mother’s Son, Helpless, She Stands There, Hatred, No Way Out, Rise and Fall, Frankie) I was blatantly singing along to EVERYTHING and was trying to make eye contact with Danny. I figured that he probably wouldn’t even remember me, let alone recognize me in a sold-out crowd. After all, it’d been 2 years… About 20 minutes into the show (half-hour-long set), Danny looked right at me, nodded, and waved. So I wave and continue to keep watching and singing along. He started to throw tons of guitar picks my way; every time he’d finish with a part in the song, he’d chuck one out at me. I couldn’t catch any of ‘em, though. Before "Frankie," he ripped up the set list from the floor, handed it to a security guard, and mouthed "give that to the girl w/ the red hair" but the security guard just handed it to the chick in front.
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| So they ended, and we walked around a bit. We went to the other side of the whole amphitheater place and walked kinda’ back next to where the stage was and stood by a fence back there - we couldn’t go past the fence, but we’d seen Jim (guitarist) back there, so we decided to wait and see if Danny would come out, too. Jesse came out, and then Danny walked into view, so Tommy shouted his name. |
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| Danny looked around, saw us, and came right over to say hi. He said I probably know more words to the songs than he did and that we were probably the only DGeneration fans there. We talked about the new record and how it wasn’t selling well and how much Columbia sucked. We stood there talking for a bit, and all during it, people kept coming out from behind the fence, asking if he was hot, cause he looked flushed. They kept saying he needed to drink some water. Danny laughed to us about how they kept thinking he was going to pass out. "Do ya think I
should, just for the drama?" We had a good laugh about it, but then he had to go get water to make em happy.
Completely happy with the evening’s events, we walked over to the merch. booth to get t-shirts and the 7" (prohibition). We walked back over to where we’d seen Danny and sat down. Then Jesse came out with a stack of promo band photos & was signing em for people. He was gettin’ mad cause everyone wanted multiple photos and it looked like he was gettin’ sick of signing them. Tommy got one of the signed photos, but I had him sign my 7". We walked back to where we’d been before. Danny walked by (behind the fence) and waved (we were sitting down again). A little later, I looked up and Danny was walking right to us. "Where’s the merch. booth?" he asked me. I pointed it out to him - across the crowd. Then he saw I had the 7". |
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| "Aah, you already have one. I was gonna go pick you up one." He asked if I got any of the guitar picks and Tommy said, "Yeah, you threw like a million picks to her but she didn’t get any." Danny was all like, "yeah, I was tryin’. It’s kinda hard to get it to you." Then he left and went over to his tour / roadie guy and got a bunch of picks. He came back and gave Tommy & me each a pick and then asked if there was anything I didn’t have. There wasn’t. We talked a bit more and then a bunch of people came to talk to him. A while passed and somebody came to tell him that it was time to go, so he left the group and walked over to us to say bye. He told me they were playing in Austin tomorrow, and Tommy told him I already had tickets. Danny kept tryin’ to think of what he could do for me, so finally he decided on, "If there’s ANYTHING you need or I can do for you, get in touch with one of the stage crew and tell em we talked tonight and
hopefully we can get it taken care of." Or something - I don’t remember the exact words. He told us to have fun and take care. He turned to walk away, and ended with, "be safe," as he patted me on the back. |
 
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| The night had turned out so much greater than I’d expected: not only had the show been great, but Danny had recognized and remembered me, and we’d gotten to talk to him. I sat through Offspring (yes, SAT) because Tommy kind of wanted to see ‘em (I’d wanted to leave completely) and thought about everything that had just happened. I was already getting excited about the next night in Austin. |
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