A Boy Called Sue
On April 22nd, 2000, I was seeing GbV for the fifth time and this time I decided to get a poster and have it autographed by the band. This was the third show in three days that Matt, Susan and I had seen and from what I had heard, the band seemed to be more approachable at smaller venues like “The Casbah” in San Diego than they were at larger venues like the “El Rey” or “The Roxy” in LA. I’ve always been a bit of an introvert and a little shy about approaching strangers, especially celebrities like the GbV. I had purchased poster on EBay which I planned to bring to the show, but when I showed it to Matt, he pointed out that the poster I had purchased was from the “Guided By Verde” line up, and that it would be inappropriate to ask the current lineup to sign that poster. I went back to EBay and purchased another poster; the promotional poster from the “Do The Collapse” album (the poster with the album cover for DTC) and I brought that poster to the show instead. At one point before the show, Susan had visited the restroom and when she returned, she told us that the band was in the back of the club hanging out and talking to people. Matt told me to go back and ask them to sign my poster. Unfortunately, my shyness kicked in and I didn’t feel comfortable about going back. Susan told me she would go back and get the autographs for me and she took my pen and poster and disappeared. 5 or 10 minutes later, she returned and had gotten all the band members to sign my poster. My excitement faded quickly and turned to horror when I unrolled the poster and saw that the band had personalized the poster for Susan, and not me.
Years later, when I became more comfortable and friendly with the band members, I told this story to Doug Gillard and he quipped that I was the “Boy Called Sue” from the Johnny Cash song. After a while, I had collected many more autographed posters and other memorabilia from the guys and decided to give that poster to Susan who I believe still has it.
One other funny little piece of trivia from this show. After the gig, the band was hanging out outside the venue talking to fans, so we decided to join them. Nate Farley and Tim Tobias had heard someone in the audience talking shit about Bob and decided to track the guy down and beat the shit out of him. Matt and I overheard this and decided to follow them and help if needed. In the end, we never found the guy and returned to the front of the club and hung out with the band. I had brought some pre-rolled joints along with me and Matt suggested that I light one. I started passing it around and was thrilled when Bob, Nate, Tim and Jimmy Mac all took a puff (If you look at the poster at the top of the previous page, I attached the roach from that gig just over the ticket in the lower left-hand corner of the poster). After a while, Pete Jamison emerged from their gig van (apparently, he had partied too much the night before and slept through the entire show) and we hung out for a while longer before heading back home.
While this was the fifth show that I had seen and by this time I had finally become familiar with enough of the material that I knew most of the songs they played that night and the smaller venue really allowed me to finally get what it was the Matt had seen in the band. I was a fanatic from them on! |
