| CHAPTER FIVE: 10 April 1999So Tommy, Katie, and I all had tickets to the Houston show. Katie is from Houston, so she knew the directions; Tommy had Zod (his beloved 280-ZX), so he was the driver; and me, well, I had the connections (and was the fan). The drive to Houston was estimated to be 3 1/2 hours - we would have ideally left school at around 2:30, but Tommy and I wanted to watch our friends Sarah and Christina perform with their band, Phasers on Stun, at our school’s battle of the bands contest that afternoon. All said and done, we got on the road at a little after 3:00.
The drive took a bit longer than anticipated, due to the fact that several streets were closed and we ended up on the COMPLETE OPPOSITE side of town. We did end up finding the venue (Aerial Theater) and Tommy went to park the car while Katie and I went to pick up our tickets. There was already a long line of fans here, and of course, I was getting anxious because I wanted to be up front and wasn’t sure if it would happen this time. So we trekked up to the will-call box office. We kept having to cut through the line and lots of kids, and kept on ducking under railings and up stairs. Somewhere in there, I cut my ankle - I later examined it to find a rather large hole in my sock, which revealed a not-so-large but slightly painful hole in my ankle. Aah well... |
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| We continued up to the will-call office, to find out that the band lists weren’t there yet. What to do? We wanted to get in when the doors opened, so we quickly ran around to the side of the theater where the band’s tour bus was. We walked halfway around the theater, past the bus, around the corner, and then back to where we'd come from. There was no sign of Tom, though, so we went back to the box office and caught up with Tommy. It was now almost 7:00, and when we went to check again, they had the lists. We signed off on the tickets and got in line. We waited there for a while.. while we were waiting, we all scrawled in on "DGeneration" on the ticket right above Offspring. They didn’t let us in right at 7... |
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| Pretty soon, the line started moving - we finally got to the front and while I was waiting to be frisked, I saw tattoo boy (the stage crew guy w/ the red/black hair and lots of tattoos, who, since I’m tired of calling him tattoo boy, I will now refer to as "spike") passing out flyers again. He seemed to recognize me, judging by his nod and the smile on his face as he handed me a flyer (almost identical to the previous night’s). Not wanting to waste any time, we rushed into the theater. Luckily, people had gotten held up at the merch stand and the bar on the outside perimeter of the building, so we occupied the last spots along the fence - and luckily, they were once again right in front of Danny’s mic.
We stood in the crowd and talked to a few people. Then, when people were checkin’ the equipment, I saw Tom on stage. He waved, acknowledging that we’d made it. So the show started and, despite the fact that I’d lost my voice, I sang along completely. I looked up at one point and Spike nodded at me... Danny saw me & smiled sooner than usual this time. At one point during the set, he spit up into the air and tried to catch it in his mouth, but it splattered all over the left side of his face. He turned to Spike, who was laughing at him. Tommy and I were cracking up, too. So, after playing an identical set to the first 2 nights, they closed and we went over to the side of the stage to wait for em to come out. |
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| Danny came out first (during Living End) and talked to kid #1 (more on him later)... then he turned, saw me, and smiled. "So you made it. I saw you down there..." He mentioned that he’d gotten my note the night before and then asked if I liked this band. I waved my hand, implying that I thought they were ok. He asked how long the drive was, and when I told him 4 hours, he sounded really surprised that we’d come all the way out. He asked if we were sticking around or leaving and I said I didn’t know yet. He said that he was going to go walk around, so in case he didn’t see me later, it was really good to see me again. Then he patted me on the shoulder a couple of times and walked out...
So we all walked out to the Merch. booth and stood around. I ended up gettin’ a sweatshirt like I’d seen Spike wearing the previous night (I’d wanted to steal it from him the night before). Tommy got a 7" and we went to have Danny sign it. We stood with Danny til we realized Tommy had left, at which point we stood by the cell phone display near Spike and kid # 2 for a long time. Tommy and I then decided to talk to the the merch. guy (same one as last nite). We told him we really appreciated his promotion of the band... A bit later, I found Danny and asked him to thank Tom for gettin us the tickets. He kept sayin how it wasn’t a problem at all... Kid #1 came up sometime in there... At one point, a chick walked by and told Danny that she was goin’ outside to smoke. Kid asked if that was his girlfriend for the night. Danny said, completely seriously, though with a grin, "It’s too early, I dunno yet." This led to a discussion about whether
Danny was a rock star or not, and then later to a story about him not being able to drink beer out of a bottle in this place. |
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| Danny left, and almost immediately, I spotted Tom & Ace standing near the bathrooms. I went over and thanked Tom getting us in. Katie and Tommy followed closely behind me (seemingly the trend for that night); we talked with Tom & Ace about a lot of stuff - the drive to Houston, their upcoming drive to Kansas City, the Offspring tour, the kid from the Offspring video (for "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" - apparently the guy’s name is really "Guy"), and T-shirt sizes. When Ace noticed Danny’s guitar pick on a chain around my neck, we started to talk about guitar picks. I don’t remember Ace leaving, but I do remembering him coming back; he came up behind and told me that Howie only had a few picks, but that he’d give me one if I wanted it.
I walked over to where Howie was standing by the merch. booth and waited for him to finish talking to the parents of the 2 kids. When they finished, I told him I loved the show, and he asked if I wanted a pick. Course I did. He gave me one and proceeded to tell me that he’d forgotten his picks on this tour - he only had something like 5 total, so he said this was the only one he’d give out. We ended up talking about the past night’s shows (apparently he’d seen me all 3 nights. "You knew all the words"), Cleveland (and Big Fun, the toy store where I’d originally met Danny and where Howie claimed he’d blown all of his money), and the 7". Meanwhile, Katie and Tommy were still talkin to Tom & Ace about Howie and Spike being "straightedge" and Howie being vegan. |
 
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| So then the other 4 came over and joined us. Tommy started asking Howie about being vegan and straightedge - his responce being that he didn’t like the activist label that goes along with straightedge, (but by our definitions, he is straightedge). Ace brought up that Tommy thought Howie looked like Sylvester Stallone (which embarassed Tommy, I guess). Howie seemed amused by the comment, and asked if he looked like that on the back of the 7". This led to a discussion of spikey hair and showers...
So then Ace came up and we kinda shifted back to him & Tom again. They talked a bit about Whiskey Town (the other band they tour with) and we told em we’d definitely see em in September... We ended up talking about traveling and Europe and weird, random experiences. Ace said goodbye in here sometime and left. We also talked about smoking and bus driving and who knows what else... Somewhere else during all of this, Danny walked over to say his goodbyes. He once again thanked us for coming, and that it was good to see me again. Then I got a goodbye hug from him and he walked off.
I think Tom tried to say bye like 4 times, but we kept on talking. Soon after Danny said bye, he came back with this chick newly-converted fan and said he had the question of the day - he introduced her to Tom "my tour manager" and us, "my friends." She asked her question, "Can I barrow some money so I can buy one of y’all’s shirts?" (yes, she said "y’all") Danny worked out a deal with her: if she promised to call the radio station every day and request them, she could have a t-shirt. It was a pretty humorous situation. |
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| Now Howie, Spike, parents, and kid #1 were all standin by the front of the merch. booth. (Funny story. At first we’d thought that the parents were old friends of the band and that their kids were just fans by default - later I was searching online for DGen articles and ran across a review of a band’s show - Pure Rubbish. Turns out that dad, Kid #1, and Kid #2 are all in that band together and they’re big DGen fans. Go figure...) Tom finally ended up saying goodbye for real. We were about to leave, when Danny came back and talked to the merch guy. A kid wanted an autograph and Danny didn’t have a pen, so he was lookin’ around for one - I let him barrow my marker. We noticed the parents eyeing us, and as soon as I gave Danny the marker and he left, the mom came over to say hi and talk to us a bit. She left just in time for me to notice Danny walking off with my marker (Jesse had kept my other one the night before). Finally everyone left, so we
decided to go find Joe before we got outta there.
We saw Jim walk back in to watch Offspring, so we followed in hopes of finding Joe. Then Offspring played "pretty fly for a white guy" and we bolted. (I HATE that song). We walked to where we’d seen the tour bus earlier and stopped a bit past it. We soon relocated to some steps near the bus. We noticed Jim get outta the bus, so Tommy yelled to him and asked if he knew where Joe was. Jim left and soon Joe came around the corner. |
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| I stood up to say hi. "So you guys made it?" He asked if we’d gotten in, and Tommy said, "Nah, we just sat and listened from here." We all started talking about normal stuff - the drive from San Antonio, the show, Tommy’s car. . . Tommy then asked Joe to sign his 7". Joe went to get a marker but could only find a pen. After attempting to sign the record for at least a minute, he finally decide to switch to Tommy’s temperamental "sometimes it wants to be a pen, sometimes it wants to be a stick" pen. It wasn’t much of an improvement, but the only other option seemed to be the now-angry (due to the fact that I’d used it to scrawl out the DGen logo on the back of my sweaty hand before the show) fine-tipped sharpie. I’d originally had another marker, but if you’ll recall, Danny had stolen that one...
After the signing ordeal was over, we continued to talk. We talked about Texas, weather, Chicago, NYC, walking, driving, 280 ZXs (Tommy’s always impressed when people know about Z’s), Austin, school, tests, and Dallas. Ace stopped by for a minute - "You guys STILL here?" Tommy said it was all my thing, and Joe concurred. "Yeah, it’s all her, she’s the big fan." Sometime during this all, Joe decided that I was their "biggest fan" (his words, not mine), which was a nice compliment (to say the least). Eventually, it was time for us to go, so we had a typical goodbye (stuff like thanks for coming, good to see you) - he shook hands with Tommy and Katie and then said, "Erin, our biggest fan.." and gave me a hug. At that, we turned and walked back to the car. |
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