I was milling around here in the Bagroom Studio when came upon the stuff I stored several years ago on the top shelf of the closet. You know the stuff..things you store that you refuse to throw away and hauled around with you for as long as you have had it..which for me is a long time.
I couldn’t resist opening this old treasure chest of memories. Of course every time this happens it digs up memories of good times long gone. This time was no exception and as I sat down to blog about it the memories of one particular item in this box came back to me like I was back there again.
Now I don’t take this walk down memory lane to frequently and it seems each time I do there is always something in this chest that makes me stop to think WTF was I thinking. In this case, this particular item I found in the box was something I had not seen or touched in almost 25 years which when I was again milling around packing up my memories to keep them from being lost.
In the box I notices this little zip locked plastic container with a cracked guitar pick in it. And as I always do when I make this trip down memory lane I ask myself..why would I keep an old Fender Thin Chocolate Brown Fireburst Guitar Pick..especially one that was cracked?
With all of the guitar picks I have laying around the studio WTF would I place a broken guitar pick in a sealed container?
After awhile it came back to me what made this guitar pick special enough to be put in a container and place in my memory chest. Holding it in my hand again triggered the memories I have about how I got that pick that go back to when I was 14 years old..which is a long, long time ago. This guitar pick is a memento of one of the few extra ordinary experiences I have had in my life. This pick that I deemed a treasure came from my very first concert I attended.
Feeling crack in the pick brings back the memories of a hot summer evening riding in the backseat of my childhood friend’s 4 door Ford Galaxies being driven by his mom who was taking us downtown to the Dallas Memorial Convention Center. It was there I would receive my baptism of what was known then as Arena Rock.
I remember us pulling into the parking lot a few hundred yards from the entrance and on the huge marquee of the convention center was plaster the name of the band that would be the first live band to introduction my ears to 80 decibel level guitar music. Now at this time in my life I had already spend about five years playing in a band in every garage in the neighborhood so I had heard what amplified guitar pounding can produce…but it was nothing compared to what was about to hit me like a two-by-four to the forehead.
I could still feel the crunching of the gravel under my hobnailed leather Beatle Boots as we worked our way across the parking lot to about a hundred yards from the entrance to the arena where the line inside started. It was then I got the opportunity to actually read what that humongous marquee said….see, I was never told who I was going to see in concert or who was going to play in the concert..I was just told in the hallway at school that morning..
Hey dude, I got Free Tickets to a concert downtown, you want to go?’
Back then you didn’t ask questions when the word FREE was part of any question you were asked, you just say yes and take what you get. So what I was getting for Free I was now reading on a 5000 watt blaring sign that was getting closer each step we took.
It didn’t take us long before I was looking straight up at the marquee and that particular image of that sign was the one image that is etched into my memory like my own super personal flickr account in my head. The marquee said…(this is a rendition of the memory in my head)
Of course, I had heard of Humble Pie from the radio and this was pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as what would happen during that three hour long evening.
I vaguely remember sitting through the warm-up bands which at the time were pulled from the local area talent to get the crowd pumped up. I have memory of me thinking of how totally lame they were compared to when Humble Pie came on stage.
Remember, this was my first Live concert and I had absolutely no friggin idea what to expect. During the warm up acts they kept the house light up so I got to see a lot of what a concern was all about. I remember the dingy lighting kinda gave the 40,000 square foot arena a garage feel.
The stage the bands were playing on was only about a foot off the floor which made seeing the band from the arena floor nearly impossible. During the three warm up band we worked our way to getting about 20 ft from the stage, which being musicians we knew that standing to side of the stage out of the direct blast of the towering speakers would give us the best advantage point to seeing and hearing the band.
So as the third band finished their set and started tearing down their equipment I could see that something much bigger was about to happen. About that time they turned the house lights down so low that we could only see each other and about five feet in front of us. I remember the smoke on the arena floor was hanging over us like a thick blanket so seeing anything going on on the stage 20 ft away was impossible.
After about 20 minutes of hearing loud clicks, pops, cranks and feedback squeals from the amplifiers being set up the arena all of the sudden went stone dead silent. I remember popping my ears thinking I had gone deft.
What took place was the people in the front row had been queued to someone had taken the stage and that message went across the arena floor like a prairie fire shutting everyone up to see or hear who it was who took the stage. I remember looking round thinking..what is going on?
In a few seconds we got caught up into this huge surge of people behind us pushing towards the direction of the stage which with the arena now being totally dark made the push feel like some gothic funeral march. But, hey, when your 14 you figure it is part of the experience so lets roll with the flow. Little did I know where I would be standing and what I would see when the crowd stopped moving forward.
I could tell that we had moved close to some sort of huge structure that was humming but there was no way I could tell what it was or how big it was. I knew from my experience with amps and PA’s that I must be standing close to a speaker column. About that time I turned to my friend to ask if he could see anything of the box we were standing next to when there came a voice so loud and at a high pitch that I remember almost losing consciousness. The voice coming out from above our heads was screaming..
ARE YooooooUUUU RRRReeeeaaaaDDDDYYYY?
Whenever I look a that now infamous Fender Thin Chocolate Brown Fireburst Guitar Pick that scream echo’s at the same deafening volume in my head.
AAAH, but you ask..what is the tie in with this guitar pick and the concert I went to. I am sure you can figure that I got the pick at that concert. But getting a guitar pick at a concert is not that special. Anyone can go to a concert and if you are on the arena floor in front of the stage you can possible be lucky enough to pick up one of the picks the guitarist throws off the stage after breaking one from hammering it against the guitar strings. But not everyone can get a guitar pick the way I got this particular guitar pick.
That memorable scream was made by Steve Marriott, guitarist and lead singer of Humble Pie, made famous during his recording of Fillmore Live album,the spotlight blasted through the pitch black arena and hit the stage focused on a local radio personality who, after standing there for what seemed five minutes waiting on the crowd to hush, softly asked the crowd..
Well are you?
Of course the crowd exploded. The announcer held his arms up to quiet the crowd down to say as fast as he could..
Dallas, lets welcome HUMBLE PIE…..
Yaw, you guest it! All hell broke loose just as the stage lights came on and Mr Marriott and, then New to the band member, Peter Frampton, in perfect synchronization hammered the famous Thunder Chords of Humble Pie’s hit…I Don’t Need No Doctor. It shivers me when I hear that tune today…
Now that the stage lights were on I found I was standing to the left of the stage about five feet from a roped off pathway to backstage. I had the view of a lifetime of everything going on behind the stage and what was going on in front.
Behind me was a speaker column 12 feet wide and stood about forty feet above my head but was sitting on a stand about 8 ft high off the ground. So I was standing under the blast. In my face was the side of a 20 foot tower of Marshall amps the size of which I had never seen. At my feet was three floor monitor speakers the engineer who was sitting a table to my left was listening to which provided better sound than any rig I had ever heard…I was in Arena Rock Heaven… How I got there must of been karma…
Though this location did block my view of Mr Marriott’s jumping around the stage it did give me a clear view of Peter’s set up..again, another memory etched forever in my mind.
For Almost two hours I stood in aw soaking up what now is just a memory. But my memory of this evening was not finished.
The roped off area I was standing next to was the lane the band took to go back and forth to backstage. During Peter Frampton’s long lead guitar solo (back then long guitar solo’s were mandatory. Some lasting 15 to 20 minutes), Steve Marriott went back stage. As he quickly went by he pointed to the T-shirt I was wearing which I proudly wore since it had the Gibson Guitar Logo on the front. After the quick point he gave me a Thumbs Up.
Now for a 14 year old who was already star struck with standing in front of a mountain of dreamy electronic equipment next to a rope where Steve Marriott, one of the most entertaining guitarist I had ever seen, goes walking by pointing at me and give me a thumbs up was really what could have been a bowel moving experience…but I was only 14. How was I suppose to know WTF just happened?
To me back then he was just some dude about four foot tall, covered in sweat and strapped to a Chocolate Brown Fireburst Gibson Les Paul Studio (yes I am a Gibson Geek) walking by about three feet away with a huge possum eating shit smile looking at me and giving me the Thumbs Up….what a friggin dumb ass I was….that was friggin Steve Marriott dude.
Yes, I scold myself about that when I think back, but end up thinking that it was probably best that I just smiling and and give him the Thumbs Up back. Because back then concert promoters use to hire huge horse size guys who probably couldn’t make it on the Dallas Cowboys and more than likely had connections with Hells Angels to be body guards for these rock stars. And there were a ton of those big guys standing around. I am sure if I had moved an inch one way or and another I would be telling you of a different memory I have about this concert. However, being as exciting as that moment was, the real exciting part came later.
As Mr Frampton was winding down his guitar solo, Steve Marriott came back down the aisle to take the stage. They had brought the house lights back down and had Peter in a spot so the crowd could not see Steve taking the stage. But I could.
This time Mr Marriott came out in a different T-shirt and he was strapped to a solid Cherry Red Les Paul Gibson Studio. He took the stage to end the solo with Peter and go right into the next song…which was the last number for the night.
This time when Steve came off the stage he was running, but he ran up to me to hand me his Chocolate Brown Sunburst Fender Thin Guitar pick and to give me another Thumbs Up after thumping me on my Gibson logo. Just like Santa Clause, he never said a word and continued to run off the stage into history.
So there ya have it, the story of the Chocolate Brown Fireburst Fender Thin Guitar Pick that I have zipped up in a container and now deposited back into my memory chest.
I would like to say that this specific event in my life spurred me into some related direction like playing in a rock band or doing something in the music business, but it didn’t. It did make me want to play the guitar more and at age 17 I purchasing a 1969 Black Beauty Les Paul Studio Custom. I did and still do enjoy playing that kind of music.
So why didn’t I make a bigger deal of this back then?
Hey, back then I was 14 and like 14 year olds today, the focus was not on the moment and what just happened. No, the focus back then is like it is today with 14 year olds and that was to look cool and score chicks..which I probably scored big on the Cool part at that concert, but definitely fell short with scoring chicks which there were a ton of them around that evening wanting what at the time I thought was that Chocolate Brown Fireburst Fender Thin Guitar Pick, but I will keep those memories to myself… What was I suppose to do, take them home with me riding in the back seat of a 4 Door Ford Galaxies that my friend’s mom was driving..what a dumb ass I was.
