April 15, 2002
When was the last time you had a blast? No, I’m not talking about the regular
everyday or every weekend kind of fun you have all the time. I mean, real
fun. A time you may’ve had that you single out and look back on and think, “Wow.
That was incredible. I will never forget that.” An experience that hit
you straight in the heart, purged your senses and made you feel truly alive. A
time that reminded you what you’re living for and may’ve even changed you as a
result of it. I like to look at those moments as little power-ups that life hands
out for free every blue moon just to give you a boost. Now, stop for a second
and think — when was the last time you had a time like that?
I’d like to think that we all have those experiences — as rare as they may
be sometimes. When I was asked that same question a few years ago, I stopped and
backtracked. Soon, I realized that I couldn’t remember when the last time was
for me. I mean, I could think of a bunch of times that I’d had fun — but
the last time I could say I honestly had a blast? For the life of me, I
couldn’t even think of one. After being confronted with the question, it started
to bother me and I thought about it long after the conversation about it had ended.
In the days following, I’d thought about it so much that it started to get depressing.
What was the matter with me? Why couldn’t I think of one? Had I ever had
a blast?
The truth is, during the time that that question was brought up to me, I wasn’t
having very much fun in anything. Now, I don’t like to think of it as my “woe-is-poor-poor-me”
period — but I must admit, it wasn’t one of my better eras. It was a time
right after my graduation from college that I felt like none of the things that
I’d grown faith in throughout life were going to come to fruition. That I was
growing old quickly, and the undynamic, predictable day-in-day-out routine I was
now living was a disappointing anticlimax to the enthusiastic vision of hope and
ambition I’d once had. I’ve always been really passionate about life and it wasn’t
until around then that I’d caught myself already in a mature stage of limpness
and overall discouragement. And, I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t until after I
was asked that question — and failed to come up with an answer — that
I began to seriously address the altered state I was stuck in.
This story was named after the date that all of that changed for me. It’s a day
that I look back on and think “I will never ever forget that.” I’d have
to say that, for me, the events of April 15, 2002 transcended just a fun time,
or even a blast for that matter — it literally changed the way I look at
life. That may sound dramatic, but it’s true.
I knew that I’d had moments like that in the past. You know, those times that
make you realize things about yourself and make you want to change and improve.
But this was nothing like them. This was like nothing I’d ever expected. This
was much, much more. It was something that revitalized my strength — replenished
my hope in everything I’d lost faith in — and gave me a fresh new reason
to believe that age-old saying: “if you believe in yourself, you can do anything”.
And it came from the most unlikely of places — a concert.
And it was a concert that I almost didn’t attend. Yep. All because I didn’t have
the $10 to get in. If you think about it, it’s kinda mind-blowing to imagine that
something as small as $10 can keep one from something that’ll ultimately change
their life, isn’t it? Yeah, so I had no money at all. Actually, not only did I
have no money, but I had no job, just lost my girlfriend of five years, was neck-deep
in debt and my motivation for anything and everything was in a whirlpool headed
to the septic tank of my brain to join my ego and all that other positive stuff
that makes you wanna be the best you can be. Nice, huh?
“How’d this train wreck happen,” you ask? Well, I’m glad you did because I’d be
more than happy to tell you. So, before we jump straight into the part about the
concert, allow me give you a quick history of my situation so you can understand
why the events of that day had such an impact on me. Ready? Let’s go.
I
In the Summer of 1998, I graduated college with a Bachelor’s Degree and moved
up to the New York area that August to fulfill all my hopes and dreams. I moved
into an apartment in a New Jersey suburb with my older brother, Mark, and got
an office job in the city. Things seemed to be going okay. Sure, it took a while
to get used to the new life I’d made for myself, but I knew that it was what I
needed to do.
By 2000, I finally admitted to myself that I hated my job and — also for
other reasons, which won’t be mentioned here — decided that leaving it would
be the best thing to do. Sure, they liked me and I’d gotten a big promotion in
the two and a half years that’d I’d been employed there, but the stress it’d piled
on in that time had caused me to lose weight, too many nights of sleep, and all
my patience and energy. It took a while to gather the guts to finally quit, but
I finally did it by early the following year.
A few days after I’d left that job, a friend of a friend hooked me up with another
one, which proved to be a stroke of luck considering I didn’t have anything else
lined up. But, because they’d created the position for me out of the goodness
of their hearts and couldn’t pinpoint the direction they wanted me to go, it proved
that it wasn’t going to work out after only a week. So I got canned.
Fortunately, there was an upside. Because of this, I could provide proof to the
government that I was let go from my previous job — even though it only lasted
for a week — and I was now eligible to collect up to six months of unemployment
benefits. Whew! Close call. Write that one down, kids. That could come
in handy some day.
So that’s how I became unemployed come February 2001. Hooray for me! Over the
course of the next six months, I spent my time scouring job listings and mastering
the fine art of frugality. I gotta admit, it wasn’t so bad in the beginning. I
did have some money saved up from my previous job and had my days free to do what
I wanted. And, c’mon — I was living in one of the biggest economic hubs of
the world! I was bound to find something soon, right?
Oh, how pitifully wrong I was. By the Summer of 2001 I was stretching a dollar
farther than I’d ever thought possible. I considered just getting a little job
somewhere to tide me over: clerk, waiter, burger-flipper, whatever. That wasn’t
beneath me. But, that idea quickly blew over when I calculated not only how much
I’d have to work to make somewhat of a profit after paying the commute expenses
because I didn’t have a car, but how much valuable real job-searching time it’d
take away. I needed something that paid decently if I wanted to stay afloat.
By the Fall, I wasn’t the only passenger on the U.S.S. Jobless. My girlfriend
at the time, Nadine, as well as several acquaintances, all got laid off due to
the terrible economy. Now we all had it bad. Oh yeah, and it was around this time
that I got food poisoning and had to go to the hospital and get needles and… well…
other stuff I didn’t want stuck in me. Ah, those were good times.
So, with my last unemployment check arriving in the mail, my job-search yielding
nothing, my relationship heading into rough waters, credit card agencies calling
my house every night because of the bills I couldn’t pay, my brother footing my
half of the rent, my ego crushed to dust and my passion for anything flushed down
the pooper, was there anything else that could go wrong? I mean seriously, what
else could possibly happen to make me feel more worthless, disoriented,
weak, decrepit, confused, exhausted and completely devoid of any reason to pursue
the dreams I once had? Obviously someone was listening, because September 11th
couldn’t have come at a better time.
That morning we all remember too well, all my petty personal trifles seemed to
vanish temporarily. I think I spent the entire day with my jaw on the floor. I
couldn’t think of anything else but what we all watched over and over and over
and over and over and over on TV. In retrospect, I look at September 11th as a
shock to my system. I mean, it was a shock to us all, of course. But, I saw it
as a symbolic jolt to the way I looked things I considered of high priority. Suddenly,
everything around me wasn’t so important anymore: jobs, money, materialistic crap.
All the little stuff that I’d thought was a big deal didn’t mean anything at all.
Nothing could match the intensity that September 11th brought.
Looking back, I think it was after I’d pulled myself from the tube and began to
reassess my life that I noticed how my whole view of my situation had changed.
Even though a lot wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, it still wasn’t the worst.
I think it was because of the sense of uncertainty that September 11th brought
was the reason I transformed the way I now so informally approached my issues
at hand. Instead of focusing on each problem individually as I used to, I started
to see everything as a unified, insignificant whole. For some reason, mashing
them all into one made them seem much more manageable and tolerable.
In the final months of 2001, my new outlook was well in-gear and I strived to
apply it everyday. With all the fresh images of destruction burned into my brain,
I now held onto everything I had going for me with vice-like grip as if it could
all be lost tomorrow. I even started to exercise and eat healthier. I went through
each day thinking, “One day at a time. This is only temporary. You can get through
this.” I took everything in such stride that I didn’t even notice that my once
dead motivation was slowly but surely regaining a pulse. It seemed that my point
of view was beginning to focus forward instead of downward.
At the start of 2002, I was confident that things would get better with the coming
of the new year. The first change that reared its head was the end of my five-year
long relationship with my girlfriend. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it at that
point. We’d both been through some challenging times. Actually, I was pretty surprised
that we’d lasted as long as we did considering the conditions we’d been in. It
was a severe blow to my system — not to mention my ego — but I was determined
to carry on.
You’re still here! Excellent! Now that that’s all out of the way, we can start
to get to the nitty-gritty. The story gets better. I promise.
II
It was either in late February or March of 2002 sometime that Mark pointed out
an article to me in a UK-based magazine called Bizarre. It was about some
guy called Andrew WK. “That’s kind of an odd name,” I thought. It sparked my brother’s
interest because it said he played ‘80’s influenced metal. Both of us have always
been metal fans, so we gave him a shot.
My brother downloaded a handful of his songs and we listened to them. As I heard
my first dose of an Andrew WK song come out of the little computer speakers everything
kind of held still for a few seconds. No, it wasn’t because I was blown away by
it — it was because I didn’t know what to think of it. Was this what I’d
expected from reading the article? And what was he singing about? Partying? Hmm.
Well, there definitely wasn’t anything like it out at the time. This was something
I could like, but it’d take some getting used to.
The one song we heard sparked our interest and eventually my brother had a whole
bunch of his songs downloaded. I’d decided that I got a kick out of them —
they were catchy, energetic and funny. But, what was this guy all about? Was he
serious? I hadn’t heard something so blatantly pro-fun since Twisted Sister or
Kiss. Was he joking — like another Spinal Tap — or was all of this for
real? I couldn’t tell. I thought that this was something that was either the dumbest
thing ever, or absolutely brilliant. It was great music, but if it was all a put-on
it could kill everything.
Sometime after that, Mark handed me a copy of the Andrew WK Manifesto he’d printed
off the internet. “You have to read this,” he told me. So I did. In it,
Andrew WK stated that his listeners weren’t followers or fans, but friends. And
they were to think of him that way because he took it very seriously. He also
said that he did everything along with them together. If something good happened
for him, it happened for them as well. It was clear that he wanted everyone to
live their lives to the fullest and never otherwise, and his music was about just
that. It was very, very positive. Other people probably would’ve laughed at it
or shrugged it off as part of an elaborate gag. But I was happy to read it. At
that point, I didn’t care if it was a sham or not because all it did was encourage
people to be happy — and what negative could be gotten out of that?
I remember going into a CD store and seeing his album on the rack. It was called
I Get Wet. I picked it up and looked at the song listing on the back. All
the songs I’d heard were there: “It’s Time To Party”, “Party Hard”, “Girls Own
Love”, “Ready To Die”, “Take It Off”, “I Love NYC”, “She Is Beautiful”, “Party
Til You Puke”, “Fun Night”, “Got To Do It”, “I Get Wet” and “Don’t Stop Living
In The Red”. At that point it hadn’t been released in the U.S. yet and was still
a British import, so it cost around $25. There was no way I could afford that.
I could barely afford lunch.
In the days following, we downloaded the rest of the songs we didn’t have yet.
Once we had an idea of what he was all about, the music became more and more infectious.
I would listen to the songs nonstop. Now, the reprioritized mind-set I’d gotten
in the wake of September 11th and the slowly growing optimistic attitude I had
towards it had a soundtrack: Andrew WK. The songs were loud, pounding, relentlessly
unhesitating and charged with an overflowing positive energy. It was great stuff.
In a copy of the Village Voice I picked up one day, I flipped through and saw
a listing for a show at Irving Plaza. It said “April 15 — MTV2 Presents:
Andrew WK with guests lostprophets and Apex Theory. Tickets $10.” I pointed it
out to my brother and he asked me if I wanted to go. Instantly, I shot down the
idea. I couldn’t spend a whole $10 on a concert! Are you kidding?! A ten dollar
bill was worth its weight in gold to me then!
One afternoon, amidst a session of channel surfing I stopped on MTV. I can’t remember
what they were showing, but it held my attention for a little bit. After it went
off, what looked like a deodorant commercial came on. Soon, I realized it wasn’t
a commercial, but a video for “Party Hard”. So I watched it all the way through.
I gotta tell ya, if I thought I’d understood this music before, seeing that video
for the first time was like a giant arm came down from the heavens and cracked
me over the head with a hammer. Witnessing the ferocity in it, which I hadn’t
seen or heard in a rock video in years, took over my body like a plague. Suddenly,
it all made sense. Now, I’m not that religious or anything, but I gotta
say, it was a pretty spiritual moment.
Just like what I’d read that Andrew WK had said somewhere, he was using the word
“party” as a metaphor for living. This was exactly what I needed. Mark pointed
out to me one of the first lines of the album, “Hang out with yourself and have
a crazy party.” I’d heard the album how many times and never noticed it said that?
Hang out with yourself. I mean, how many rock albums have you ever heard
say that in a song? That really made me see the strength of what he was saying.
It was about being who you want to be and doing what you want to do. That’s all.
And this music was strong enough, brave enough and confident enough to say “It’s
okay if it’s just you”, no matter how corny or goofy it may’ve looked to anyone.
It trimmed off the fat, all the heavy meanings and overly-fancy guitar work and
got down to the bare bones of rock music with a simple message: have fun. And
I thought that was pretty doggone admirable.
In late March, I Get Wet got a U.S. release and had a cheap $9 price tag.
Embarrassingly, I couldn’t afford it at first. But, eventually I justified its
purchase as a “living expense” to “improve my well-being”. Sure I had the mp3s
downloaded, but I wanted to own an actual copy. When I got it home, I listened
to it repeatedly. Sometimes four or five times a day. It was like something I
used to recharge myself over and over again. And it was just as fresh as hearing
it the first time every time I played it.
By early April, I saw the listing for the concert again in another Village Voice.
And just like before, my brother asked me if I wanted to go. At first I said no
because I felt like I could’ve used the $10 for something more important. But
he said that he’d lend me the money to go if I wanted. So, I thought about it
for a minute and decided to take him up on it. So he bought tickets.
III
The big day finally came and I couldn’t have been more excited. It was a Monday.
I hadn’t been to a good concert in a long time. I promised myself I was gonna
ride the crowd because I hadn’t done it in so long. Hey, I was only 26!
I wasn’t too old for that kind of nonsense, right? I couldn’t remember
the last time I had a good crowd riding. This was gonna be fun!
Mark and I went with another friend of ours, Meredith, who was also a fan, as
well as Nadine. Nadine and I were broken up at this point, but we were still close
friends — and she was the only one of us who lived in the city, so I headed
in early to meet her so we could go down to Irving Plaza and meet Mark and Meredith.
So it was the four of us.
When we got down there, it was already dark out and there was a long line of people
waiting to get in wrapped around the block. We got on line late so we couldn’t
even see the Irving Plaza sign from where we stood. After a brief wait, the long
trail of people started to move and we eventually made our way inside.
Just like any club-sized music venue, Irving Plaza was dimly lit inside. You got
to see all kinds of people walking around, checking their stuff, waiting for the
restroom, getting their drinking bracelets, just roaming or whatever. When the
four of us were set we went upstairs to the main area.
No one had taken the stage yet and people were still piling in. Many were standing
in clumps up close to assure their view for the show. We knew we had two opening
bands to sit through so we headed up another level to the second-floor balcony
to hang out. From upstairs we could see that, suspended above the front area of
the floor by the stage, was a giant net containing multi-colored balloons. “In
an interview, Andrew said that he likes his shows to be like one big party, “
Meredith told me. I thought that was awesome.
The four of us got a circular booth in the rear by the bar and watched the TV
screens that showed what was happening on the stage. We just chilled out back
there while the opening bands played. I don’t remember who played first, lostprophets
or Apex Theory. But they did their thing. None of us were really into their music,
but it was pretty evident that a good chunk of the crowd that came that night
was there for them. There were a lot of dopey, rap-rock frat boy types there scoffing
at the Andrew WK posters and shirts. “Aw, fuck him, yo,”, I think was one more
memorable lines I heard.
Towards the end of the second set, Meredith noticed that Andrew WK was coming
out of an elevator behind our booth. I guess it was a back entrance where the
performers came in from outside to head backstage. He had all his hair in his
face, a dirty white T-shirt and jeans, and was carrying — a box of lollipops?
Sure enough, he was handing out lollipops to everyone he passed.
As he walked through, people here and there would walk over to him when they realized
who it was. Now, mind you he was still relatively unknown at this point. His album
had only been out for a little more than two weeks in the U.S. and he just had
his Saturday Night Live performance two nights before. So he got pretty far into
the room before he was slowed down by a small group. None of us spoke to him,
but we saw him talk to a lot of people, shake some hands, pat a few backs, give
a couple hugs — and everyone he met got lollipops.
He disappeared into the V.I.P. section, which guarded the stage entrance, and
ultimately got through the far door marked for “Authorized Personnel Only”. The
four of us in our group thought it was pretty cool that we got to see the main
performer walk right by as we sat there. So, when the second band ended and the
lights came up, we made our way downstairs to claim our spots on the floor for
the headlining show.
Mark and I chose to take the main area in front of the stage while Meredith and
Nadine stood somewhere to the side to avoid the impending rowdiness. “I am going
to ride the crowd. I am going to ride the crowd, “ I kept saying to myself
as I stood in the sea of people on the floor awaiting the show. I think I thought
of it as something I could do to prove to myself that I wasn’t as down and out
of it as I thought I’d been the past few years. Sure, I hadn’t gone to many concerts
recently, but I still had it in me. I could still get in there with the best of
‘em. I kept shuffling my feet because I had so much energy built up. I was rarin’
to go from all the months of isolation and frustration I’d been through. It was
time to finally let it all out.
After a while, people started to chant and yell in anticipation as the crew finished
their work setting up the stage. It seemed that everything was in place, complete
with huge drape with giant image of the album cover on it — Andrew and his
bloody nose. The floor and the balcony above were jam-packed. I’d worked my way
into the crowd closer to the stage and was prepared to break loose at the first
note of the opening song. I was ready to go haywire. It was boogie time.
Without warning, the radio playing on the speakers fell silent, the lights went
black and the crowd started to cheer with excitement. In the dark you could see
the band members approach their instruments — sitting down at the drums,
throwing their guitars over their shoulders, and checking their mic and amp settings.
The announcer boomed over the speakers — "Helloooo New Yooooork!!..."
— and the guitar players started up the first strokes to the opening song.
At the time I didn’t know it, but those opening strokes proved to be the ticks
to a timebomb that was preparing to explode. Because when the announcer wrapped
up his opening statements to the crowd — “…Andrewww Dubble-yoo Kaaayyy!!…”
— and Andrew appeared in a spotlight stage-right, messy clothes, huge smile,
and fist already a pumpin’, he’d grabbed his microphone and leapt straight into
“Its Time To Party” like it was the last show he’d ever do.
You know the feeling when you go to certain concerts, where everyone gets really
into it, and about halfway into the show there’s a certain vibe to it — like
the crowd is really wild, the performers are all riled up and messy, and it starts
to kick into overdrive? Well, this was the only show I’d ever been to where it
seemed to achieve that feeling from the very start. It was crazy. If I
remember right, there were people flying through the air during the first song.
The band pounded the walls like a machine. From beginning to end it was virtually
nonstop. Some shows have a break where it gets slow, but this didn’t have that.
It was full-force from beginning to end.
Andrew thrashed around the stage flinging water from his hair, pumping his fists
and kicking his feet super high when he wasn’t growling into the microphone. After
the opener, they churned through “Take It Off”, “Ready To Die”, “Girls Own Love”
and “She Is Beautiful” without brakes. I’m telling you, I’ve been to a few concerts
— but this was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I think it
was a little before halfway through the show that people made it onstage. I’ve
been to other AWK shows since this one and they seem much more controlled than
this did, because this was absolutely out of control — and it was
great. People were slamming, riding the crowd, getting onstage, diving
off the stage, singing the songs with the band members into their mics,
throwing stuff around the crowd — shoes, plastic cups, and I think a beach
ball was in there — and just going wild. Especially when they got to “I Love
NYC” people got really energized. Andrew introduced it by saying something like,
“This next song is about you!” And people just zapped into lightening
mode. It was anarchy — and the songs just kept coming one after the other
like one-two punches.
About fifteen to twenty minutes into the show, I’d lost Mark and managed to get
all the way in the front of the crowd. I held on for dear life to a slanted stationary
pole that supported the back of a barricade which separated the crowd from the
stage. Wow! I’d never gotten that close to the stage in a concert! This
was awesome! I was pressed firmly against it — it’s mid-chest high
top rim was digging into me from the pressure of everyone behind me — but
that was okay. I could see people falling over the front of the wall where bouncers
would scoot them to the side. If I didn’t see them, I could sure feel them
as they crushed my head, arms and chest against the top of the barricade as they
fell over me. Sometimes Andrew and the band would grab people’s hands and pull
them onstage if they fell into the bouncer zone. And this show remains still the
only concert I’ve ever been to where the bouncers virtually gave up crowd control.
Things had gotten so rambunctious that the bouncers had to step aside because
they were so outnumbered with people coming over the wall. But through it all,
I kept holding tight to that pole as the current of people shifted uncontrollably
from side to side.
Next came “Party Til You Puke” and “Got To Do It”. “When should I get on the crowd?
Am I still gonna be able to do this? I have to,” I reminded myself. The
hyperactivity of the crowd in front of the stage didn’t let up for a second. I
tried to lift myself up by propping my shoe onto the vertical side of the barricade’s
metal surface that I faced, but it only slid off in my attempts. I also tried
to lift myself by pulling on the surrounding people’s shoulders hoping they’d
help me. But I was too close to the barricade to do any of that. I had a great
view of the show, but I was in a terrible position to ride the crowd. I knew if
I was gonna do it, I had to do it soon or they’d be on the last song. At one point
in the show, Andrew even grabbed my hand from the stage and gave it a tug like,
“You want up?” But then he let go with a look like, “You’re in there too tight.
There’s no way I’m gonna be able to pull you outta there.” It’s true. There
wasn’t.
After that came “We Want Fun” and the anthemic “I Get Wet”. Beer and water flew
through the air dousing anyone in the near vicinity. The beach ball was still
bouncing around somewhere. The top rim of the barricade I was clamped against
was starting to make my chest sore because of the pressure of the crowd pushing
me up against it. And I could tell the band had to be wrapping up. They’d played
almost everything.
Sure enough, they’d gotten straight through the super-energetic “Fun Night” to
“Don’t Stop Living In The Red”. This was the end, alright. I’d managed to stay
up front the whole time, but I never did ride the crowd. It was okay, I guess.
I didn’t have to. But I knew I’d be disappointed when I got home, as
silly as that sounds. It was just a task I gave myself to let me know I was still
alive and kicking.
As insane as the show seemed up to that point, people appeared to become mega
hyper in the last song. People made frantic attempts to get onstage one last time
as the band played. I think that was probably the one point in the show that the
most people were onstage. You couldn’t see any of the performers. But Andrew reemerged
when he lifted someone on his shoulders.
Andrew and the band gave high fives and hugs to the people standing near them
as everything closed up. It was a phenomenal show. People were sweaty, stinky,
wet from water and beer and who knows what else, and the positive vibe in the
room couldn’t have been better. The crowd cheered with a floor-vibrating roar
as the band waved to everyone and left the stage.
They disappeared for a second but the lights stayed off which gave you the impression
they’d be back for one more song. But what hadn’t they played?
As expected, the band returned to the thunderous crowd and Andrew came out last
picking up his microphone. He went back and stood on top of the drum platform,
held the mic with both hands up to his mouth and proclaimed, “Alright, I wanna
see everyone moving on this one! This is your last chance!!” Then,
after he got everyone pepped for the start of the grand finale he said in a booming,
monotone robotic voice, “When it’s time to party we will party hard!“
Why hadn’t I realized that they hadn’t played this song? I guess I was
so caught up in everything that I just didn’t notice. Well, as soon as I recognized
what song they’d returned for, Andrew had dropped his mic, jumped off the platform
and made a flying leap into the crowd, landing in the middle of them by the sound
of the first drumbeat. Simultaneously, when he hit the audience, the net suspended
above released its contents and covered everyone with balloons. Just when I thought
it’d ended, the most exciting part of the show had just begun.
While the band carried out the introduction of the song without him, the crowd
held up Andrew like he was a magnet to the swarm of hands and heads keeping him
afloat. I couldn’t really see him because he’d soared right over and was now behind
me somewhere — not to mention my vision impeded by the tons of bouncing colored
balloons that covered all of us. But, I definitely knew where he was when
his colossal weight pinned me down against the barricade as the bouncers pulled
him back towards the stage. Just for the record, Andrew WK is one heavy individual.
For a moment, I could’ve sworn I was the only person holding him up. When
he got back onstage, he picked up the microphone again and sang the song, keeping
everyone pumped in the intense vibe he’d already set in the past thirty to forty
minutes. Balloons, water, beer, plastic cups, clothing, shoes, that damn beach
ball, various people, streams of silly string, and now buckets of confetti that
Andrew tossed from the stage into the cheering crowd, now all took flight together
in the final wrap up of the song. It was official: this was the best concert I’d
ever been to.
But, instead of ending the song immediately like it did on the album, he decided
to kick it into a violent guitar onslaught — like a huge final sound explosion.
When this started, Andrew was handed a junky-looking guitar from a stagehand,
and he started to strum it into a frenzy. There was duct tape all over it and
he sprayed everyone with water from a plastic bottle attached to the top. But
the guitar had character because it matched his whole “mess up rock n’ roll” attitude.
When the water bottle was empty, he began flinging the guitar over his shoulders
by the strap again and again à la Cinderella. I thought the strap was gonna
break if he kept it up.
Then, he did something I could honestly say I didn’t expect, because I’ve never
been to a show where this happened. He took off the guitar, grasped it by the
neck, and gave it to the crowd.
If you’ve ever been to a concert or seen on TV where a guitar or anything large
like that is given to an audience, you know that it’s somewhat like a lamb carcass
that’s been thrown into a pit of wild dogs. And didn’t I know it.
Well, I did not see this coming. I thought he was gonna play it like a
madman, say his farewells and head off stage again. But, I quickly learned that
that wasn’t the case. I had to act fast because there was a guitar coming right
at me — and a ton of sweaty, riled up New Yorkers looking to get their paws
on it, regardless of whose face they had to pound to get it — followed closely
behind.
So when it was slipped into my hands we went down for the count together. Everything
went very black, very stuffy, and very claustrophobic — very fast. It felt
like I’d been swallowed by a giant stomach of people. All I remember is getting
punched and kicked on the way down. Just like with the excitement of the rest
of the evening, this was completely unforeseen. Hands reached in from every
which way I could feel, pulling at whatever part of the guitar they could get
their hands on. It quickly became an overwhelming physical challenge, but I didn’t
have time to think if I was ready or not — so I held onto it with every once
of strength I could muster up.
I could feel that the main body of it was stuck in the torrent down by my legs,
but I had a firm grip on the neck of it — possibly the best grip anyone in
the pile had on it. Next thing I knew, I could feel several feet of mob scene
stack on top of me while my back met firmly against the wooden tiles of the floor.
It was difficult to breathe, wreaked of sweat, smelly clothes and beer, and felt
extremely tight. But, I could still feel the guitar even though I couldn’t see
it in all the anarchy. I still had it.
Hands pulled at it — and pretty darn hard, too. I felt the body of the guitar
emerge and work its way up to my chest as it was pulled and pried every which
way. But that was probably the best place it could’ve gone because I was able
to get a better grasp on it and hold on even tighter than I did before. I wrapped
my arms into an X around the body and hooked my fingers onto the arches. They
could pull, punch, and kick all they wanted, but they wouldn’t get it. At least
I hoped not.
I still don’t remember how long the pileup lasted, but after I started to get
frustrated I began to yell for people to get off. I wasn’t going to let go of
it as much as they wanted me to. All that exercise and healthy eating I’d done
was paying off.
It seemed like at least five minutes. It was probably shorter than that, but it
seemed like a while. “Get off,” I shouted up to everyone, “Get off!!” And
after a few times of yelling that, down in the cocoon of people I was in, I heard
a voice say to me in my right ear with nothing louder than conversational volume,
“They can’t. They’re just as stuck as we are.”
A guy who was down there with me said it. “I guess you’re right,” I said back
to him. But while I found myself in such a peculiar situation, having a conversation
with someone at the bottom of a pileup, I noticed that my arms weren’t the only
ones wrapped around the body of the guitar. This guy’s were, too. Only while I
was on the bottom clutching it to my chest, he was on top of me facing downward,
clutching it to his. We were like a guitar sandwich. I’d noticed that his
arms were wedged in between my chest and the body of the guitar, just like mine
were between him and his grasp on it. How could I have realized in all this mess
that this guy was able to slip in with such a good hold as I had?!
We were still tightly piled on, squirming under the thrashing weight on top of
us. He pulled it tighter to him. “I’ve got it, “ I told him. “Its just as much
mine as it is yours,” he told me. “No way. I’ve got it,” I said to him. He repeated
it again, “It’s just as much mine as it is yours.” Man, just when I thought this
night couldn’t get any more unpredictable, huh?
People finally started to get off. Fresh air made its way to my nose, and light
reappeared. “I’ve got it,” I told my new friend again with growing aggression
in my voice. So he said it over, “Its just as much mine as it is yours.”
“I was on the bottom! My back was on the floor,” I informed him. I was
starting to get a little agitated. The crowd had now cleared off, the lights were
on — and my new comrade and I still hung onto the guitar on the floor, arms
clasped around it, facing one another with our noses nearly touching. My voice
was starting to get louder. I was getting angry, “It’s over! You lost
it!”
I sincerely felt that I’d gotten it fair and square. I knew I’d gone down for
the count with it and held on tight while I acted as the bottom of the pileup.
But, he wasn’t gonna give it up that easily. I can’t recall how we both got to
upright positions after people cleared off, but soon we ended up in the same exact
formation we were in on the floor — only standing now. We faced one another
eye to eye, and calmly discussed the matter at hand. …Okay, maybe I wasn’t so
calm.
“I was on the floor!! I was on the bottom!! You were on top
of me!!” I yelled in his face. Our arms were still locked tightly around the instrument
and a circle of people had now formed around us. I could hear some people say
they thought there was gonna be a fight. I could honestly say that if this kept
up, I thought there’d be one, too — and I’d never even been in one.
“It’s just as much mine as it is yours.”, he said yet again, “We were both down
there together. I held onto it, too.” He was keeping his cool much better than
I was. We both still held on to the guitar: its neck sticking straight up from
between us like a flagpole, and the black body still firmly clamped in our chests.
“I was on the bottom!! You were on top of me!!” I reminded him with
my nose stuck in his face. I’d never been in a situation like this in my life.
In the midst of all this I couldn’t help but be reminded of all my past battles:
my unemployment, my financial situation, my relationship, myself. I thought,
“I’m a good person, right? Why do I have to go through all of this? Why does everything
I work to accomplish have to be sideswiped? Why does everything I fight to achieve
always have to be ruined?” It was all rushing through my brain as I took
it out point-blank on this complete stranger. This whole situation had now become
personal to me. My heart was racing.
“Why don’t you flip a coin?” someone mentioned. I dunno who it was, there were
tons of people around us. “Yeah, let’s flip a coin,” the other guy said. “No way!
It was fair and square!” I shouted. He loosened his grip and suggested
again that we flip a coin. Then some of the other people around us suggested it,
too. “Yeah, flip a coin for it.”
My arms were still clenched around the guitar and my eyes darted from one person
to the next as they all suggested that a coin be flipped to decide who got it.
The evening’s surprises were coming at me like a machine gun. I could feel my
adrenaline pulsating. But as intense as the situation was, something came over
me right then — and I loosened my grip.
In what seemed to be a split second, everything I’d been through in the past few
years zipped through my head in a flash. This present situation came to represent
a symbolic embodiment of the problems I’d been facing since 1998. When I let go
of the guitar, I wasn’t concentrating on the coin that was about to decide who
got what. I was thinking, “It really could all end tomorrow. It’s an opportunity
for me just to be standing here.” I knew it was pure luck that I’d gotten
a hold of that guitar. It really could’ve been anyone in the whole place. And
that guy was down there with me — holding on to it just as tightly as I was.
Sure, I’d fought to get it, but so did he. Everyone who was in that pileup did.
I just happened to be fortunate enough to be one of the two who ended up with
it in the end. Now, it was time for me to face the music and accept what chance
had to deal me. Yeah, sometimes things weren’t as easy as we’d like them to be.
I remembered September 11th and everything it’d made me appreciate. I could see
clear as crystal what was truly important to me, and it wasn’t a guitar. It was
that I knew that I had the strength and determination to gain what I wanted. I
wasn’t old or weak or anything that I’d thought I was as a result of all my trifles.
I didn’t need a trophy to show off to prove to myself that I could do it. Just
standing there, after withstanding the pileup, and holding on to that guitar to
the very end, was a confirmation to me that I had what it took to achieve whatever
I wanted. It sounds like a cheesy after-school special, but that’s honestly the
way I felt. Sure, maybe tomorrow when I looked back and saw that I’d lost an Andrew
WK guitar in a coin toss, I may kick myself. But even then, it’d sure make a great
story to tell people, …right?
I handed it over to a random guy who’d nominated himself the honorary coin tosser.
As soon as he was the solitary holder of it, he turned to the both of us and had
the nerve to say, “You know, I fought for it, too. What about m—“ “Just
flip the fucking coin!!” we both yelled at him in unison with crazed looks
on our faces before he could finish his sentence.
When he realized how absurd his comment was, he reached into his pocket and took
out a nickel with the one hand he wasn’t holding the guitar with. “What side do
you each want?” he asked us. I signaled to the other guy that he could call it.
“Heads,” he said. “You’re sure?” guitar-holder guy asked him, “You want heads?
I just wanna make sure it’s clear who gets which side.” “Yeah, I’ll take heads,”
he reiterated. And the coin was flipped.
Tails.
My heart sunk. The guitar was handed over to me and I couldn’t believe what’d
happened. I felt pats on my back. The guy who’d called heads grasped my hand in
a firm handshake, “You won. Congratulations.”
“Give him the strap!” someone shouted. I wish I could say it was my idea to give
the other guy the guitar strap, but it wasn’t. I propped the guitar on the floor
and struggled to get it off as everyone stood over me. When I finally did, I handed
it over to him. He deserved it. “Thanks,” he said to me. And we gave each other
a hug.
There it was in my hands, water bottled, duct taped, and two strings pulled off.
A basic black Peavey Raptor with a white pick-guard, white pick-ups, and a wooden
neck. To anyone else it would’ve looked like a piece of crap — but to me
it was a new shining symbol of victory. There was no one in the room that felt
as good as I did right then. There was no one in the world that felt as
good as I did right then.
After letting what just happened soak in for a second, Mark, Meredith and Nadine
popped up. It was like a scene out of a movie where it was their cue to enter
immediately after all the action had just ended. “You got the guitar?!”
Meredith asked me in surprise. “Yes! You didn’t see what just happened?! You didn’t
see any of it?!” I asked them. To my shock, they hadn’t. But I could understand
because there were still plenty of people around that filled the area.
By then, Andrew WK had come out from backstage and had a horde of people around
him to talk and sign autographs. He was like the center of attention so you could
see that he stood out. About twenty feet away he saw me with the guitar and signaled
to me over the crowd, “Don’t worry, I’ll sign it for you!”
After he said he’d autograph it for me, I felt like the rewards just kept rolling
in. Not only did I have the guitar, but he’d sign it too. This was beyond
anything I’d imagined. I was proud. I was glowing. I was exhausted.
In my drenched, stinking clothes I plopped down by the now lonely metal barricade
in front of the stage while Mark, Meredith and Nadine stood around me in a semi-circle.
Suddenly, I felt like all my muscles had turned to jelly. My clothes were soaked
and I was getting a little dizzy. I noticed people waiting near the crowd around
Andrew and a few others piling out were looking at the guy with the guitar. I
have to admit, as happy as I was, I was also a little paranoid at the same time
sitting there with it on my lap. I didn’t know if someone would jump me for it.
I’d never been in a situation like this before. Meredith asked if she could hold
it, but I said no. Honestly, it wasn’t out of selfishness — it was out of
safety. I didn’t want any of my friends to get hurt because of me.
After filling them in on all the details of the guitar war, I sat there resting
for a little bit, hanging my head low and regaining my breath. A minute or so
went by and Meredith, Mark and Nadine stepped away for a moment. Just then, a
huge, intimidating, black guy in a bouncer outfit walked straight up to me. I
thought he was gonna to tell me to move or something. He didn’t say anything,
but handed me a bottle of water. I thanked him, cracked it open and downed it
in seconds. Another bouncer tapped me on the shoulder from behind and handed me
a green guitar pick from the stage. Man, these guys were the coolest.
“Did what just happen really just happen?” I pondered as I sat there looking
at the guitar in my lap. I felt like I’d just won the lottery. Only this was better.
“I can’t believe it,” I thought, “I got it.” I hung in there and came out on top.
I’d never experienced such an array of emotions that I was experiencing right
then. Above all was the enlightened feeling that I could do it. That if I had
faith in myself I could do whatever I wanted — and the proof was sitting
in my lap. As I sat there by myself, the only word that could leave my mouth was
“wow”. I muttered it under my breath over and over. “Wow… Wow… Wow…”
Nadine, Meredith and Mark returned to where I was sitting and said that it looked
like Andrew had a lot of people to get to. A few passers-by gave me smiling glances
or a thumbs-up. One guy told me, “Way to hold on, man. Congratulations.”
I stood up with what strength my aching muscles had left and decided I should
start standing in the group to get things signed. As I approached the crowd in
my sopping wet clothes, I looked at everyone who had things to get signed: CDs,
ticket stubs, napkins, dollar bills or promo posters that they’d ripped off the
wall. Then I looked at the guitar in my hands and replayed in fast-forward everything
that I’d just gone through to get it. I wished everyone there could feel how incredible
I felt.
Andrew had chosen a small ledge by the wall to do all his signing. As the crowd
thinned and we got closer, I noticed that he was like no other person I’d seen
sign autographs. He wasn’t just signing his name on stuff and scooting people
along, but talking to them like he’d known them for years — shaking their
hands, giving them hugs, posing for pictures and signing no less than a sentence
or paragraph-long message to them on whatever item they had. Some even had him
sign their arms and legs or clothes they had on. He didn’t seem to have that celebrity-shell
that you just assumed came with the territory. He was very down-to-earth and gracious
to everyone that came to see him. Not only did he play awesome music, but he was
cool, too. He played awesome music because he was cool.
About a half hour or so passed and we were close to getting to speak with him.
You’ve gotta understand, he was spending time with each person.
This was no sign-it-and-see-‘em-off deal. Andrew seemed to want to befriend every
single person there.
In the crowd, sitting against the ledge on the wall, I saw the guy I’d had the
guitar scuffle with. He had the strap wrapped around his head like a bandana and
was talking to Andrew as he signed things for other people. He gave Andrew a brief
rundown of what’d happened after he’d handed it off to the audience. He told him
that he lost it in a coin toss to another guy, but had gotten the strap. I was
still a few people back, and the guitar I was holding got some looks when we overheard
his story. When he went to leave, I tried to get his attention to give him a good-sportsmanship
handshake — I kind of felt like we had a connection because of what we’d
been through. But he didn’t see me and disappeared.
After a few more people, I’d finally gotten up to Andrew. He turned to me and
grinned through all the hair in his face. “Hey, you got it! I thought it was gonna
break in half,” he said to me in a rusky voice as I handed the guitar over to
him. “So did I,” I told him, “I didn’t know if it was gonna survive that crowd.
I just held onto it as tight as I could!” I told him how I’d hit my back on the
floor and struggled to hold onto it, only to win it in a coin toss afterwards.
“Well, it’s yours now,” he confirmed to me as he placed it down on the ledge to
be signed.
“Who do I make this out to?” he asked me as he took the cap off his black marker.
“Jeff,” I told him, “With a J.” I don’t know what I would’ve done if he’d signed
it to “Geoff”. That would’ve been awful.
He pushed the remaining strings aside a little to get extra space on the white
pick guard to sign. “You play some of the best music I’ve heard in a long
time,” I said to him as he permanently tattooed his all-capital block-lettered
message onto the guitar. He thanked me. And I really meant it, too. Right then
I found it so strange how this guy, who I’ve barely said a few sentences to, had
helped me so much in the past few months. And now, he’d given me something that
I would forever look at as a sign of my perseverance and a million other things
it’d come to represent. He had absolutely no clue what this meant to me.
He was quiet as he concentrated on his writing and I spoke to a few people that
stood next to us about the whole guitar story. He wrote his message along the
right side of the pick-guard and finished the remainder of it on the space to
the left. When he was done, he lifted it up and handed it back to me.
“Thank you so much,” I told him. All of this meant more than he could possibly
know. “You deserve every bit of credit you’ve gotten and will get,” I said, “You’re
gonna go far.” After that, he gave me a firm handshake, looked me in the face
and just said, “Together.”
After that, he gave me a pat on the back and told me to have a great night. I
walked out of the crowd feeling like I’d just gained a new friend.
I went back to meet Mark, Nadine and Meredith. “What did he write?” they asked
me. I held it out to them so we all could read it:
DEAR JEFF,
NEVERENDING PARTIES WILL NEVER END!
ALL THE BEST IN THE WORLD
YOUR FRIEND,
ANDREW WK
~
So, that’s what happened. That’s the story of one of the biggest and best blasts
I've ever had. After that, I went home, propped the guitar up on my dresser,
thought long and hard about what happened that night and went to sleep.
And how did all of this ultimately change things for me? Well, I’ll tell ya
— more than I can fathom even now.
From the next morning on, I felt like a long, dark chapter of my life had ended
— and a new, brighter one had begun. It really was like the final stages
of a metamorphosis had come full circle, which then started me into a growing
momentum. I look back on it and still can’t believe it happened the way it did.
After September 11, 2001, I felt like I’d completely reprioritized my entire
life. It showed me that it was very possible, and very real, that it could all
end in a fraction of a millisecond. It was a force that gripped all the loose
and tangled cords of misdirected thought that I’d struggled to make sense of
in the years preceding it — and reconnected them, giving me a deeper understanding
and appreciation of everything around me. That, in turn — and without trying
to sound too “out there” or “culty” — gave me a profound sense of clarity
about my life. It wasn’t about the money I didn’t have, or the loneliness I
was enduring, or the stuff I couldn’t afford, or the job I didn’t have, or the
debt I was in, or the people I was angry at because of my misfortunes. It was
about the opportunity just to be able to live and breathe. Everything else seemed
so miniscule, irrelevant and selfish. I had more than I’d ever realized
going for me — and wouldn’t take any of it for granted from that moment
on.
And just as I see that date as the day I picked up myself from the bewildered
and misguided mess I’d become, I see April 15, 2002 as the date that my strength,
hope and desire for life returned. That was the day that triggered the spark
which ignited me like a turbo engine. What September 11th reassembled and made
me appreciate, April 15th confirmed and fired into motion. I realized that my
ambitions weren’t an illusion after all. They were always possible. I could
do whatever I wanted. So what if my life wasn’t going exactly the way
I wanted it to? It was a process, an adventure — that’s the way it was
supposed to work. Just like your parents and teachers pounded into your
head growing up, that’s just the way it was — unpredictable. And all this
time, I realized that I’d been resisting against it’s current of change I was
incapable of winning against. Now was the time for me to live it and embrace
it for what it was. It taught me the vital lesson of where my boundaries lie;
where I had control and where I didn’t. And nurturing that state of mind, I
could overcome any obstacle and accomplish whatever I set my mind to.
Since April 2002, the problems I struggled with back then have been either resolved
or reduced to the point of being easily managed, and my optimism towards who
I am, what I can do, and everything that surrounds me has done nothing but multiplied
in size. I’ve also spoken to Andrew a few times as well. Not only did he remember
who I was each time I saw him (which completely surprised me), but at
the album release concert for The Wolf on September 9, 2003 — also
at Irving Plaza — he even told me that that guitar was a one-time thing
and the only one he’d ever given away at a concert. How 'bout that?
So, how do I wrap up a story like this? To be perfectly honest, I’m not completely
sure. What I can tell you is that my view is locked on forward and upward, my
speed is on full-throttle and I enjoy every day and every minute as much as
I possibly can. It’s still constantly revealing new chapters to me every day
— some happy, some sad, some angering. And I accept them all.
But through every one, I like to think back about the whole experience that
helped me get where I am, and it just adds to the motivation that keeps me going.
Not to mention the great story it’s given me to tell! And tomorrow, next month,
even fifty years from now when I tell all this to someone else, I'll be able
to say that I'm living proof that you can overcome your hardships.
Because I know for a fact, that if you just believe
in yourself, you truly can do
anything.
-Jeff