The story of the best night of my life, right before I got my best friend fired after originally posting this. It's cool now, he got a better job in the end. Maybe Karma works.
Posted on :
02-02-05 |
I was a little drunk, and never for the life of me thought I would get to talk with him at length, so here is the best I can do to remember what we talked about.
The setup:
My buddy Chris works at the Variety Playhouse. I was down at Smith’s Ole Bar playing poker when he called and tells me that Trey is hanging out in the lobby for the Bright Eyes show. He says he looks shorter then he thought. I ask if he can get me into the club, but he told me it was sold out and all his bosses were all there and watching and that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try and get me in. A little perturbed at this, I may have bitched a little about why he even called me in the first place just to tease me, but I was glad to know Trey was a few miles down the street from me hanging out and having a good time. I told my friend if he could think of a way to get me in, to call me, and I would be right there. He said Trey is doing some recording at Treesound studios here in town. I started trying to think about if I knew anyone over at Treesound that might be able to get me in over there in case it didn’t work out this night. My friend Molly used to answer the phones there, but that was years ago. I figure Chris getting me in at the Variety would be my only chance.
So Poker is done, it’s about midnight, and I am getting into my car to head over to my sister’s place in Virginia Highlands for some late night drinking, when my phone starts to ring. It’s Chris, and he says the show is over, and Trey is hanging out in the green room backstage. He tells me I should head that way right now, and he will try and sneak me in. So I call my sister, and tell her I am going to be a little late, and drive on over. Not sure where to park or what to do, I just drove into the lot.. past the parking guys which since the show was over didn’t seem to care much, and I parked as close as I could to back stage. There was a large crowd of kids hanging out. I wasn’t sure if they knew Trey was inside, too, or if they were hanging out hoping to catch the band as they left. I park the car, and my buddy appears right next to me in the lot and says “follow me, and look like we both know what we are doing”
So we walk in the back door.. past the security guards, talking about some sound board or something to distract them, and turn left and walk downstairs. I had been backstage at the variety many times to work before, but I had never actually gone into the green room… which is actually purple… but not like that matters. We walk downstairs, and he points out the redhead to me. Trey was standing on the other side of the room in a doorway, with his back to me. We walked up to the drink table with what was left of the Jamesons and vodka, and I took a few shots. That good old liquid courage. I had been drinking all night playing poker, but felt like I needed another boost. At one point, Trey turned around and scanned the room and looked right at me and smiled. Of course I smiled right back. My buddy really wanted to figure out how to introduce me… so at one point he decides to go over there, and maybe try to interrupt or talk to his manager or something. He starts to walk over there, and knocks over a bottle of beer off the table, crashing it loudly to the floor. Everyone looks as the beer sprays at Trey’s feet, and the echo of “party foul” was in the air and everyone laughed and hooted. So my buddy, realizing he just made a mess and got everyone in the room’s attention decided to get out, and get out fast.
He turned left and walked right out of the room, leaving me standing there by myself next to the drink table in a crowded room about 10 feet from Trey, who is still talking with the band with his back to the rest of the room. So there I am.. it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I am just standing there wondering what I should do. I’m thinking to myself “It’s like a general admission show, you gotta push your way up to the front” I don’t want to be rude and interrupt him while he is talking to other people, so I decide to just walk over and start standing right next to him, and wait for my chance. After about 5 minutes, that chance came. Some friend of the guy Trey was talking to, walked up and started talking to his buddy, distracting and breaking up the conversation just for a moment, and that’s when I spoke. “Hey Trey”
He turns around and I say “I just wanted to shake your hand and say thank you so much for all the hours of happiness you and they boys have given me over the years. I’ve been a phan since 91” So he shakes my hand and smiles and starts asking me if I grew up around Atlanta and about shows I might have seen in the past. He starts asking me about old Roxy and Fox shows. I told him I was listening to CD’s starting in 91, but it took me a few years to realize that they were even better when they played live, and that I first saw them in 93 at the Civic Center. Then he asked if I made it to the Halloween 96 show. I said, “Hell yeah!. I play a little music now and then, nothing too serious, but that show changed my life and the way I played from that time on.” He said “Really? Does that mean you used to play right handed, and now you play left handed?” As he said this he stepped back and did an exaggerated impersonation of someone switching up on a guitar to play it backwards. I laughed. “No.. I mean more of a mental change. The way you played was so percussive that night, I couldn’t help but use that style in my own playing from then on”
So then we talked about that show for a little while. I told him my thoughts on that night. About how the first set was just a good old fashioned Phish set, but then how the second set for the Talking Heads was unlike anything I had ever heard them do before, very percussive and choppy especially with the guitar work, and how much I liked it. Then about how for the third set, they came out and combined the Phish with the Talking Heads percussive style and how great it was and that I felt they kept some of that style in their playing from that point on. He just started nodding his head “yes” and he said I was completely right about that night and what I said had hit it right on the head. He said they had practiced for almost 3 months for that night, and that it was one of his favorite shows ever. I told him about how I was in Colorado in early ’96 and saw all four Red Rocks shows and that I loved them but that by the time I had moved back to Atlanta it was too late to get tickets for the Halloween show, so I had actually gone to a scalper and paid 100 bucks to get in to that show. He then pulled out his wallet and said “Well man, I owe you 100 bucks then” and starts pulling out 20’s and 10’s and I am like “no no no… you don’t owe me anything. It was my pleasure. It was a great night” He seemed pretty playfully determined to give me some cash, but after much protesting, he finally put his wallet away.
So he says he is really enjoying talking to someone who is being honest with him about things. We talked about Phish and the breakup a bit, and about why he had to do it. He said that all he ever wanted to do was make people happy playing music, and I assured him that he had done that with me many times over. He said he felt like he wasn’t able to make everyone happy anymore and spoke about how the organization “was” (he made a point to punch the word ‘was’) 40 people all looking to him and others to keep them working, and it got to be too much. That it wasn’t fresh and pure feeling to him anymore. I told him that all the way until the end, it was still fresh for me, and many other people I know. I told him if it were up to me, that I wish they had just dumped their entire set list, and only played new songs from now on, that I would be just fine. I said something like “I don’t need to hear You Enjoy Myself again. We have all heard it before, we all know how it goes” and then I told him I really wanted to hear an Undermind jam, and was bummed that I didn’t get to.
He leaned in to me, and put his arm around my waist, and whispered in my ear “Just you wait. It’s not over yet. There is more to come” So I asked him what he meant by that, and he just smiled and said it again. He asked me if I thought I could reach the same levels of happiness by watching him play with others instead of just with Phish. I said that I liked TAB, but that nothing really got me going like a Phish jam. Then he says again “Just wait until this summer. Will you come see me this summer and give me the chance to make you happy again?” I said of course, and asked if he meant with TAB. He said no, that he has something else going on with a few new people, and that he wants me to give them a chance. So of course, I agree to. How can I say no?
So by this point, his friend comes up and starts to try and pull him away, and I am just dumbfounded. She was a cute blonde girl and she tells him it’s time to go. I ask if this was his wife, and he says, “No, she is an old high school friend”. So by now, he has gotten really close to me. Kinda like a nice close goodbye. Like nose to nose with his arm around me and my arm around him like old chums. I remember thinking to myself “Wow, I’ve got my arm around Trey, how cool is this?” He says “Thank you so much for your kind words. It’s been my pleasure meeting and speaking with you” I told him about my sister, who did the whole 97 summer tour and that she knew I was hoping to meet him that night and was a bit jealous. He told me to say thanks and ‘Hi’ to her for him. Which I did later that night. If I hadn’t been her brother, I think she would have wanted to kill me. And we gave each other a hug and he started heading towards the stairs. And I’ve had a perma grin on my face ever since.
So after he leaves.. pretty much the whole green room emptied out of people, and my buddy comes back down with his fiancé. He tells me that after he dropped the beer bottle, he felt like he just needed to get out of there so he wouldn’t ruin my chance of getting to talk to Trey. He said he went back upstairs, and helped break down some sound equipment. He said after a while, he realized that I had not come back upstairs yet, so he went down the steps and took a look and saw us talking and was happy for me. Then he said he went back up and finished wrapping up cords and was done with the sound for the night, so he came back downstairs again, and saw us when Trey with his arm around me talking nose to nose.
Some people have asked me if I thought Trey was sober, and I would say yes, most definitely. He was drinking a Rolling Rock when I walked in the room, but looked and talked like he was totally sober.
All in all, it has to be some of the best 15 minutes or so of my life. I had been feeling down since my grandmother died at the end of December, and this chance meeting has really picked me up. I just feel lucky, and like somehow, somewhere, the cosmos decided to let me catch a break. I want to thank my good friend Chris, for giving me the opportunity. I could not ask for a better friend. I called his fiancé later that night to make sure she knew how wonderful he is.
What a fun night. Now I have shaken the hands of both Trey and Victor Wooten. (In totally different years) Can you imagine how sick those two would be together? |
