My first Wallflowers concert was the day before the first day of classes for the fall semester, 1997. So, basically, my mind should have been on school, and should have been concentrating on the semester ahead ... ha,ha - good one! There was nothing on my mind except the concert that night. Around 2pm that afternoon, I had to run to campus to make another attempt to buy my books. The UPS strike was going on then, so a lot of the books for that semester hadn't arrived yet. Otherwise, I would have gotten my books a long time ago. Anyway, after another feeble attempt (you guessed it - didn't find any more of my books), I was on my way home when I passed by the Erwin Center. "Ah-ha!", I thought. I quickly turned into the Erwin Center parking lot, parked, and headed towards the back of the venue. Yep, the buses were there! Nobody was milling around the buses or anything. All was quiet, save for one staff member guarding the back door into the center. I was standing there for a minute, trying to figure out if there was a way in, or if I should stick around, or what. Then, I noticed this guy sitting under a tree nearby. Wow - and I thought I was obsessed ... I headed his way. I said hi, and asked him if he had seen anything interesting. "No," he replied. Hmmm, well he wasn't too talkative, so I headed back to my car. I decided to give up, and I got back in my car and headed home. It was way too hot to be standing around anyway. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, the caterer pulled up to the back of the venue. Dinner time!
About 3 hours later, my roommate and I were headed to the concert. Well, not to the concert yet ... first we were headed to Maggie Mae's on 6th St. to the pre-concert party held by Mix 94.7. It was fun - had a $.94 margarita, and they were giving away prizes. One of them was a Wallflowers poster that I really wanted. It was a poster of a photograph from the album sleeve - the one with Michael's head taking up half the photo. I didn't win it though. About 30 minutes later, we headed toward the center. I was stopped at the front door though. The ticketperson wouldn't let me bring in the big sign I made! What?? Argh! They did let me bring in my camera though. Oh well. We headed towards our seats. The opening band was already playing. They were all right. The only thing I remember is that their bass player had the head-bopping thing going. LOL - he was even worse than Greg! After the opening band finished, Adam Duritz came onstage to make a "public service announcement" about one of the booths outside. LOL - you can tell I was paying attention. Actually, I was too busy trying to get a picture of him. I checked my watch - I was worried that my other roommate wasn't going to make it in time to see the Wallflowers. She was stuck in band rehearsal that night. (I knew there was some "higher" reason that I decided to quit band my senior year). Turns out, she ended up missing the entire Wallflowers set. They started soon after that. It was great! I was so awestruck, seeing them for the first time. The crowd wasn't too into it though. They really only stood up for the hits, and Jakob kept asking the audience if we were tired. I kept running up to the front aisle to take pics, all the time trying to avoid the ushers. They played for only about 50 minutes. Sorry, but I don't remember much about it - it's kind of all one big haze. One thing I do remember is that when Jake was introducing Greg, he said "And on bass ..." and then I screamed really loud, and Jakob goes "yeah, I quite agree. On bass - Greg Richling!". After they ended with "The Difference", the came back for an encore, and played "Invisible City" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". Jakob wore a hat for the occasion. After that, the Counting Crows came on stage and played for about 2 hours. They were great - better than I expected. My roommate had made it to the concert by then, so she caught all of the CC's set. She was EXTREMELY disappointed that she missed the Wallflowers though. I felt really bad for her.
After the concert was over, we headed toward the back of the venue. We were actually up on this balcony, above where the buses were parked. We were leaning over the balcony, when Jakob walked out of the venue. Instead of walking around the front of the buses where the crowd was, he walked around the back and ended up standing right below where we were. He was very nice, and he stopped to yell "hi" up at us and chat to the people next to us. He then headed to their bus, and stood in the doorway for a while. It had grown quiet by then, so little ole' me decides to call out "Hey Jakob - where's Greg?". LOL - I wonder if he's heard that one before? He paused for a minute, and then yelled back "Oh, he's tied up right now!" He then went into the bus a little later. Hey - at least I can say that Jakob said something directly to me ... A little while later, Greg walks out the door with a girl in tow - I'm guessing it was Phoebe. So, that's who he was tied up with ... *cough, cough*. The bus pulled out of the parking lot a little later. I guess the others were already inside. We waved goodbye, and the 3 of us headed back to the car. I hardly slept a wink that night - I was still pumped from the concert, and I kept wondering when the next one would be.
I will never forget November 17, 1997, because that was the day that I got my job offer, as well as the day I found out the Wallflowers were going to do a show with Matchbox 20 in Dallas on December 30. That was the best day! I came home from class and put up a note on our apartment dry-erase board about the upcoming concert. Had to see if my roommates were interested. Nikki came home and was interested - she wanted to see Matchbox 20. Tina came home and freaked out - she was still disappointed about not seeing them the last time. So, with two of my roommates on board once again, I made two phone calls. One to my recruiter saying that I got her message, and was VERY interested in the job offer, and the second to my *favorite* people in the world - Ticketmaster. (This is why I like it when the Wallflowers come to Austin - I don't have to deal with Ticketmaster here). I got three tickets, and tried to forget about the obnoxious service charges. After all, it's the Wallflowers!
Flash forward to December 30 - concert day!! My roommates had driven up from Austin the day before. I'm from Dallas, so I was already there with my family for the Christmas holidays. We spent the day hanging out with 2 of my old high school friends. After a late lunch, we headed back to my house and got ready for the concert. As we were on our way, Tina decided that she wanted to stop and get a card for the Wallflowers. So, here we are in the grocery store trying to find a card for them as quickly as possible. We finally found one, paid for it, and were on our way once more. LOL - that card came in handy later. We arrived at the Bronco Bowl, and there was already a line forming outside. We got in line and stood around for about 45 minutes. While we were standing in line, Tina wanted to get a picture of all of us. Nikki goes "Well, be careful who you ask because they could run off with your camera...". We all started laughing, and then got the guy behind us to take a picture. That picture is still up on my fridge to this day. The doors finally opened, and we headed to our seats. Not bad - the venue was pretty small, so even though our seats were for the upper level, we had a pretty nice view. David Garza opened. Yes, it's that same guy from that Best Buy commercial, where he says "I'm David Garza ... you don't know me, but you will!". Of course, I always answer back, "Well, actually I've known you for a couple years now David ...". Anyway, it was just David playing solo, with another guy on keys. He was pretty good. After he was through, Matchbox 20 took the stage. Wow, they put on some show!! This was before I had their CD though, so I only knew a few of their songs, but they were great! I highly recommend seeing them. They played for about 50 minutes, and then we were waiting again. Finally the Wallflowers took the stage. They opened with "Tonight's the Night". They played everything off of BDTH except AOMB, IC, and IWIFN. They also played "Ashes to Ashes" and "Sugarfoot" from the first album, and they played a cover of "Tracks of My Tears". It was a great show! The crowd on the floor was really into it. If you had tickets for the lower section, then you could go out on the floor and right up to the stage. I REALLY wished we had tickets for the lower level! The crowd around us was pretty boring. The guy behind me even asked me to sit down during "Bleeders". Ugh! Jakob introduced the band during "Tracks of my Tears". He introduced Greg as the star of the movie "Who's That Guy." LOL! He introduced Mario as "Mario Skinnier-Than-You Calire", and then Mario went into a drum solo. By the time the Wallflowers rapped up their set, it was around midnight. A lot of people had left already, so we moved up a lot of rows for the encore. Then, Nikki noticed that the lower level ushers had left, so we haul it all the way down to the floor as the lights were dimming. I weaved my way through the crowd and managed to have only 2 rows of people between me and the stage. Ahhh! I had never been so close before! It was so awesome! They started the encore off with "Invisible City". Tina handed me her camera since I was the tallest and had the best view. A guy next to me saw me taking pictures and offered to take one for me. The first thought that entered my mind was "Ahh, he's going to take the camera!" LOL! But, I said sure, and he took a great picture of Jakob. I got a great shot of Greg playing, since I was on his side of the audience (naturally). The second song they played was "Brand New Cadillac". I decided to stop taking pics, and really enjoy this one! They just rocked! Seeing concerts from the first few rows is so much better from way in the back. The energy from the band and from the audience is just so much better up there! I had a blast! As they were exiting the stage, Mario came to the front of the stage and threw his drumsticks into the crowd. One fell behind the barricade, and a security guard picked it up. These girls begged him for it, but he refused to give it to them. Ugh - security people have a tough job, but do they have to be jerks about stuff like that?
After the show ended, things really started to get interesting. We headed to the back of the venue again, to find the buses and vans. The back of the venue was surrounded by a huge gate with black material covering it, so you really couldn't see in too well. We hung around by the gate for a while talking. Then, the back door opens, and Greg comes out! These people who were standing next to us called out to him. He immediately recognized them and walked over to where we were standing. He started a conversation with these two people. The whole time he's talking to them, I'm standing off to the side, and Tina keeps poking me and saying "Give him the card, give him the card". So, just as he was about to leave, I poked the card though a hole in the fence covering. Greg sounded surprised (I guess he didn't even know that we were there), and he said "Oh, thanks", and took the card from me. He then headed to this car and got in the backseat. The gates opened and the car drove out. As it was passing by us, Greg waved to us. Hmmm, wonder if he ever read that card?
After Greg left, this Ford bronco comes screeching around the corner. It stops by us, the front window lowers, and this girl sticks her head out. She looks at me and asks, "Was that them?" I walked over to the car and said, "No, that wasn't all of them, just Greg." "Who?" she asks. (And she calls herself a fan). "Greg, the Wallflower's bass player," I said. "Oh," she replied. "So the rest of them haven't come out yet?" "No," I said, "probably they'll come out later." So, the bronco pulls back around the venue, and heads to the other end of the fence. I walked back to where my friends were standing, and they had struck up a conversation with this guy standing by the gate. Turns out, he was the Wallflower's driver. While I had been talking to the bronco groupies, Tina had gotten a picture with him. LOL - that was pretty hilarious. Anyway, Mark (I think that's what his name was), was really nice. He was joking around with us, saying that he wished he was a rock star, so he'd have all these women standing around waiting for him. A short while later, the back door opens again, and a bunch of people walk out. I recognized Rami right away, and called out to him. He looked my direction and waved. I then realized that the person right in front of him was Jakob. Oops! They all headed straight to this van and started piling in. I guess we weren't going to get any autographs tonight. Mark headed to the van also, and got in the driver's seat and started the car. The gates opened by us, and the van started backing out. As they drove past us, someone in the van waved, though I have no idea who. Oh well - at least someone acknowledged our existence. As the van headed out of the parking lot, here comes the bronco again. It only slowed down long enough for the girl to roll down the window and yell out "Was that them??" Yes - I yelled, and the bronco went screeching after them. What were they going to do? Follow them all the way to Houston? My friends and I looked at each other and burst out laughing! It was all too much - the card, the pictures, the Wallflowers, Mark, the bronco - the whole thing was just too hilarious.
After we had pulled ourselves together, we noticed this small group of people gathering at another part of the fence. We headed over there to see what was going on. I wondered if maybe it was Mike or Mario, since I hadn't seen either one of them get in the van. It turned out that the guy everyone was talking to was Paul Doucette, the drummer for Matchbox 20. We joined the conversation. He was a really nice guy. (LOL, but like he was going to be rude to a bunch of girls). Anyway, he signed all of our ticket stubs and took at picture with Nikki and I. I mentioned that I was from Austin, and he said he loved it down there. Though, he said he always seemed to get in trouble down there. I'm guessing he was referring to all the bars and clubs on 6th Street. It had gotten late by then, so Paul headed back to M20's bus. It had to be around 1am by then, so we decided to head home. The Bronco Bowl is on the edge of the bad part of Dallas anyway, so I really wasn't keen on hanging around in the dark parking lot. At home, once again, I couldn't fall asleep. That had been such an awesome concert experience. It was 1000 times better than the last one. I couldn't believe that I had stood just on the other side of the fence from one of the Wallflowers. And not just any Wallflower - Greg - my favorite one! Ahh! The whole thing seemed unreal. I guess because everything happened so fast, and I was on this post-concert high, so I didn't take the time to think about what was happening. What a way to end 1997!
Well, there's only two words to describe this concert experience: tiring and hectic. And this is starting all the way to a month before, when I saw the ad for Rock For the Roses. Rock For the Roses is an annual benefit concert in Austin that is part of Ride For the Roses, an annual bike ride to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. This was the 2nd annual RFTR. The Wallflowers had played at the first one, so I had heard rumors for months that they would be playing at this year's. (Michael Ward and Lance Armstrong are good friends). So, when I saw the ad in the Austin newspaper saying that the Wallflowers were confirmed for this year's concert, I was pumped! That is until I looked at the date for the concert - May 23, 1998. The one day in which I had made plans for about the past 4 years! See, May 23 was the day I was going to graduate from college. @#$%! @#$&^! #$@! (And that's putting it mildly). So, basically I was really upset for about 3 days. That's when I started to do some research, and I found out that the Wallflowers were going to play the next day in Dallas! YES! I immediately called my mom in Dallas, and she called around and found out all the ticket information. (Isn't she the best). Now, the new problem was finding someone who would go with me. My roommates were out of the question - they had pretty much had enough of the Wallflowers. So, I called up one of my high school friends in Dallas and asked if she wanted to go. She was interested! But, not to see the Wallflowers - the Toadies and Violent Femmes were also playing, and that's who she wanted to see. Oh well - better than nothing. So, after calling up my favorite ticket distributor, I had 2 tickets for what would be my 3rd Wallflowers concert.
May 23, around 9pm. I'm sitting in a chair among my fellow graduates from the College of Business Administration. The speaker is droning on and on about how we can make the world a better place, and the only thing I can think about is that the Wallflowers are about 10 blocks away and will probably be starting their set pretty soon. Ugh! Half of me was mad because I was at this ceremony instead of the concert. The other half was mad at Lance, the Wallflowers, and anyone having to do with RFTR because they scheduled all this on a bad day, and as a result, I could hardly enjoy my graduation. I tried to remind myself that I was just being selfish, and I would get a full concert report from Janna. Plus, I was seeing the Wallflowers the next day, and I should be thankful for that. I guess I was just really tired. I had been up late every night celebrating, I had gotten up at like 5:30 that morning, and there were about 8 people staying in my apartment. I really needed some peace.
The next morning I got up about 2 hours earlier than I expected. I just couldn't stay in my apartment any longer - too many people. I packed up my stuff, scrawled a goodbye note to one of my roommates, tip-toed around the people lying on my living room floor, and headed out the door to drive to Dallas. I had BDTH blaring the whole way. I can always count on the Wallflowers to cheer me up! It turned out that I arrived at my house before my parents, who were also driving back from Austin that day. So, I had the entire house to myself. It was so quiet. It was great. A few hours later, my friend picked me up, and we headed to Starplex. It was warm, but not too bad. We found our seats and sat down, and then started the long waiting process. There were about 5 bands playing before the Wallflowers. The Violent Femmes were good. Some of their song lyrics were hilarious! The only song I knew was "Blister In the Sun", which was a song from when I was in high school. Next, the Toadies come on. They're a much harder sounding band, so there was some moshing going on behind us on the lawn. Then, later in their set, a bunch of kids rushed the stage. If I had thought about it, I would have joined them because then at least I could have gotten into the front section. Once again, I had seats in the back section. Finally, a little after 8pm, the Wallflowers set started. 
The set for the concert was the same as the set from my December concert - the set with the chandeliers. They opened with "Tonight's the Night", and the set list was remarkably similar to my December concert. Only this time, they played "Angel On My Bike" - my favorite Wallflower song. Finally, I got to hear it live! Awesome! During "Laughing Out Loud", Jakob started coughing on the first line of the song. He goes "Sorry, I'm going to try that again. I want to make sure you get your money's worth for this song ...", then he started the song over. At one point during the concert, Jakob also referred to the Toadies - "They had some bad words in their songs ... ". LOL! They closed their set with "The Difference". They seemed really tired that night. They were probably tired from their RFTR show. It didn't matter anyway, because I was really tired too. Anyway, at that point, I decided to try my luck with the ushers. There were a lot of empty seats down in the lower level anyway - I didn't want them to go to waste! So, I told my friend I'd see her in a minute (she was kind of bored anyway), and I sized up the ushers: One middle-aged lady ... no, one middle-aged man ... maybe, one late teens/early 20's guy ... Bingo! I went up to the guy and asked if he'd let me down to the lower section. He asked to see my ticket, and then paused a moment. "I guess I'll let you go through ...". Cool! I flashed him one of my brightest smiles and started to walk past him. "Wait," he said. "I should warn you that we don't allow cameras, so try to keep it hidden." "Thanks!", I replied. Wow, cool guy - he let me through, plus warned me about cameras. So, by then the encore was starting and here I was again, making my way as close to the stage as I could get. I stopped about the 7th row and ducked into an empty seat. The guys had started "I Wish I Felt Nothing" by then. The guy next to me had his arms up in the air and was loudly singing along. Hmmm, time to move! So, I made my way up to the 4th row, and moved towards the center. I was right in front of Greg and Rami, and was next to some young girls, so that looked like a safe place. 
I started taking some pictures then, trying to make sure that someone was always blocking me from the nearest security guy's view. As you can see, one of them is giving me the evil eye. The guys started playing "Heroes", which is awesome live! I took some more pictures, and notice the guy standing in front of me looks exactly like Mario from the back. I have no idea who the guy was, but from the back, he could easily be a Calire. Anyway, I noticed that instead of the usual stadium seats, there were just 3 rows of chairs in front of me. So, I pulled the chair in front of me towards me, and motioned to the girls next to me to go ahead and go through the opening into the next row. They were like "good idea", and went through, and I followed them. Now, I was in the 3rd row. They now played "Brand New Cadillac"! Wow, a 3-song encore! That's so awesome! 
As the song finished, I pushed my way into the 2nd row because I was determined to get one of Mario's drumsticks. Unfortunately, he threw them to the other side of the audience, so they didn't even come close. Oh well. Man, it's so much fun being up in the front! Once again, the energy I experienced up there was awesome! I made my way back to my friend, and we headed out the venue. I mentioned that I wanted to find the buses, since last time I met a member of M20. My friend humored me, and we walked around to the back of the venue. I found the gate, but no one was around waiting or anything. It was completely deserted. I could tell that my friend was getting impatient, so I told her that we could go home if she wanted. So, of course we head home. Unfortunately, later I found out that as the Wallflowers were leaving, they stopped their van and signed autographs for the fans that were out there. So, basically if I had waited around a little longer, I could have met them, talked to them, and gotten all their autographs. Ugh! Is that a sign or something, that it just wasn't meant to be? Hope not. I swear - next time I'm there!
