Rock =W= Music: Part Three
Intermission: January 18 & 19, 1997. Charleston, South Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Please be advised: This essay is all about sex, drugs, and ROCK MUSIC! Okay, not really the first two, but because I was 17, there are some mild references to both (not really concerning me, unless you count “lusting over rock stars”). There’s also some mild cursing. Use your best judgment if you’re listening around young children.
If you’re just joining me, you’ve found Part 3 of my five-part Weezer series! Check out Part 1 and Part 2 linked here. This is a standalone piece, but it will make a lot more sense if you catch up from the beginning.
“My favorite kind of musical experience is to feel afterward that your heart is filled up and transformed, like it is pumping a whole new kind of blood into your veins. This is what it is like to be a fan: curious, open, desiring for connection, to feel like art has chosen you, claimed you as its witness.”
–Carrie Brownstein, “Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl”
Show #1
Pinkerton Tour: Music Farm, Charleston: Saturday, January 18, 1997
First we have to go to the Music Farm to find out what time the doors open. 8:00. Three hours away. Across the parking lot, I see their tour bus—their tour bus!! I thought it would be like on the t-shirts: black with a huge yellow =W= on the side. But it’s just silver. Still! I snap a picture. I hope one of them doesn’t come out and think I’m a huge freak.
They don’t come out. Unfortunately.
Flash forward to 7:00. We get in line and start talking with the people around us. The group in front of us are nice. There are some hot guys behind us. One of the behind-guys, who seems a little stoned, is talking about Weezer in technical terms, using their first names and everything.
This is the first time in my entire life that I hear another person talking about them the same way I do. It’s kind of blowing my mind.
“I’ve heard all of their released songs but one,” he says. “Even ‘You Gave Your Love’ and ‘Jamie’, but not the other one, which I think is also somebody’s name.”
I turn around. “‘Susanne’,” I tell him. It’s one of my favorite songs.
“Yeah,” the guy says, and then goes on to say how he’s going to keep this ticket forever because he’s probably never seeing them again. “Just like Nirvana—I had a ticket and the week before the concert the guy blew his brains out.”
My blood is gradually beginning to boil with excitement.
We finally get inside, and the club is pretty much how I expect it to be. A large, open room with a high ceiling and a stage at one end. I go scope out the merchandise; there’s my “If It’s Too Loud…” shirt, my navy “Rock =W= Music” shirt, as well as hats, a Pinkerton tee, a tee with lambs on it, a cornucopia one, a tee with an umbrella, and a Pinkerton cats one. I’ll buy one at tomorrow’s show.
There’s nothing much to do other than wait, so we go to the floor area, about three rows away from the stage. A lot of people sit down on the floor so we do, too.
This really nice guy sits down next to us and he’s pretty cool. His friend Travis has a beard and looks pretty good. He goes to College of Charleston and I know he’s under 21 because he has black Xs on his hands like I do.
“I applied there,” I say. “I haven’t heard back yet.”
“What was your SAT score, if you don’t mind me asking?” Nice Guy says.
I tell him, and he laughs. “Oh yeah, you’re in!”
For the next hour we talk to Nice Guy and a few other guys around us. Nice Guy says that earlier in the day he was by the tour bus and Pat came out and he got to jam with him on the drums!!!
I’m jealous as hell. I want to meet them more than anything.
Nice Guy also says, “I hope they play Pink Triangle, because that happened to me.”
I don’t ask him to explain. I already know what he means.
We’re sitting and talking and waiting and I look up at this little window beside the stage and see a familiar face peeking down at the growing crowd.
Travis goes, “Hey, isn’t that the guitarist?”
My heart stops. It’s Brian Bell. Holy crap.
I can’t help myself—I wave frantically at him. Is that a smile back? My pulse skyrockets. This is really about to happen!!
The opening band is called Nerf Herder, and they are fun. Nice Guy shouts, “Their drummer looks like the guy from Revenge of the Nerds!” It’s uncanny.
The crowd is pretty excited about Nerf Herder. There’s a lot of moshing and crowd surfing and I am right in the thick of it! Some people are really rude, though. There’s an annoying guy continually ramming into us, and some 40-year-old man in front of me is blocking my view. A guy nearby with long, stringy hair is more than a little drunk, and he and the guy next to me (also drunk) are about to get into a fight—I’m already getting pushed around enough without people throwing punches!
Before that can happen though, the Nerf Herder guy goes, “One more song and then WEEZER!!”
Everybody is psyched. The fact that I am in the same building as Weezer is absolutely insane!
The lights come up. The crowd starts moshing again even though there’s no music. The next thirty minutes are like the uphill climb on a rollercoaster; there’s an urgency in the air, all that energy and testosterone just floating around with nowhere to go.
I’m thinking, “I hope I see Karl,” Weezer’s roadie and fifth member and jack-of-all-trades, who writes a big section for the Weezine. And then there he is onstage, setting up Weezer’s gear. It’s kind of freaky because I feel like I know him and have seen him before, but it’s only from his pictures and his words. He comes to the front of the stage and sticks tape on the mic, and I yell out, “Karl!!” People around me are like, “Do you know him?” He waves at me, grinning sheepishly, and scoots back upstage to do more setup stuff.
I feel very cool.
And then, Matt comes out with a big smile and I am the first one to start screaming–I feel SO high!!! It’s the biggest rush of my entire life!
The whole room is screaming now, the stage is a magnet, and I am standing on my tip toes, my eyes desperately scanning for Rivers—Pat comes out with a smile, Brian’s not really smiling but the look on his face says “I am going to ROCK tonight” and he’s sexy as a mofo and he knows it, too.
I finally see Rivers slink out of the shadows, all in black. His hair is sweet and silly and he looks so cute and frail!
Then they start playing and it’s absolute pandemonium. “Tired of Sex” is first and people are moshing and crowd surfing and I’m jumping and screaming, “I’M TIRED OF HAVING SEX” which is kind of funny if you think about it and the best part is all the voices and craziness and mayhem around me—I’ve never been that close to so many hot, sweaty, insane Weezer fans ever in my life!
Our little group is getting pushed further and further back but I’m out of the mosh pit so I’m okay with it. Shoved up next to me, Nice Guy is recording the concert for a friend. He and I are shouting all the words and even though we can’t hear our own voices, mine becomes one with the sea swelling around us, hundreds of voices together, bound by the urgency of the moment and the music and four twenty-something, not-yet-rockstars taking us home.
I feel wholly and truly like the person I am meant to be. I belong here.
They waterfall through most of the songs off both albums, leaping from “Getchoo” to “No Other One” and “No One Else” and “Why Bother?”. “Undone” and “Say it Ain’t So” get HUGE responses but it’s the amped-up tempo of “You Gave Your Love To Me Softly” that makes the crowd go nuts. Then “Pink Triangle” (Nice Guy is so happy!), “In the Garage”, “My Name is Jonas” and “The Good Life”. And then “Buddy Holly” (yes!!) and, finally, a power finish with “Surf Wax America.”
The club exhales and I’m outside in the still-pulsing dark, inhaling mid-January salt-spiked air, feeling ecstatic, the closest thing to high I can imagine, never wanting to come down.
It’s the best holy sweet goddamn night of my entire life.
“We Opened for Weezer” —Nerf Herder
Show #2
Pinkerton Tour: Tremont Music Hall*, Charlotte: Sunday, January 19, 1997
I’m still on a Weezer high, and it’s not over yet!
After spending the night in Charleston, my mom drives us back to Columbia the next morning. I barely step out of the shower when Leslie knocks on the front door. It’s been over a year since we’ve seen each other but she’s the same fun, cool girl as ever!
Her older cousin, Will, comes over to eat Sunday dinner with us. Will is in his early twenties and is a very cool camp counselor in his own right. I mean, it isn’t Weezer coming over to my house to eat green bean casserole (imagine that!), but it’s still surreal to have someone as awesome as Will there!
After lunch, we say goodbye to Will, my parents, and my brother. We hop in the car and Leslie has a yellow boombox on the front passenger seat because her stereo doesn’t work. I press play and what do ya know? The first song is “Surf Wax America”. SYMMETRY! The tape lasts the whole way there.
Immediately the conversation turns to Scotty, the hot punk guy we met at camp. We can relate our feelings about Scotty to each other so well because we both know how bad he is.
“He deserves to be at this show,” she says, and I nod vigorously. He’s so cool.
We talk for a long time and never run out of things to say! At her house, I meet her mom and dad (she’s an only child), and then we’re off to a cool store, Rock and Roll Emporium, which has tons of rockin’ clothes and footgear. Leslie gets some phat Simple shoes in green. I get a ring for three bucks—it’s cool.
Back at her parent’s house, we eat yummy spaghetti. My brain is on fire with what’s coming next. Go! Go! Go! it’s shouting as I look around the table and make pleasant conversation. I am so ready!!
In the car, to get hyped up we listen to REM, “Shiny Happy People” on repeat. We get lost a couple of times—it’s kind of tucked away—arriving at Tremont around 7:15.
Another sold out crowd, another long, cold line. Some people were lighting little fires in the pinestraw but security makes them put them out. To keep warm, I smoke my 13th and 14th cigarettes. It doesn’t help! I’m in just a t-shirt, and a nice guy lets me wear his jacket until we start to move.
Inside is a little grungier than Music Farm, a couple of rooms, some pool tables and couches and video games. The bassist from Nerf Herder is playing one, in it to win it. In the next room is the stage, the sound booth in the back, and an open floor. We head to the front, stage left, and park ourselves there.
Just like last night, there’s a group of guys next to us; these are a year or so younger: Adam, Jason, Woody, and another one who calls himself James Bond. Adam goes to Richland Northeast and Jason goes to Spring Valley. They remind me of Beavis and Butthead—they’re making semen jokes about their hair gel—but because they’re from Columbia too and like Weezer they’re cool enough, I guess. They’re flirting, playing with Leslie’s cool watch that flashes red and green when you shake it, and Woody puts his arm around me for a second. Weird.
Adam is saying something like, “Brian, the guitarist that nobody likes.”
“What?!” I kind of squawk out. “He’s the hottest one!”
Adam shrugs. I guess he doesn’t care whether Brian’s hot or not.
Under the dark ceiling and the red glow of the lights, it’s fun to talk with other kids about Weezer. But we’re not here to meet high school boys.
I hear the opening notes of that 80s song “Whip It” and look up and there’s Nerf Herder approaching the stage. They bring the fun and energy just like the night before. Everybody’s screaming and moving, even though I know that most of the people here are hearing them for the first time. When they play their song, “Nosering Girl”, I feel so cool knowing the words and singing along.
They finish, and we wait. Even with the swell of the crowd during Nerf Herder’s set, we’re still three rows deep from the front.
I keep my eyes peeled for Karl again. He comes out, fiddling with the gear, prepping the stage. He sets up about ten bottles of Evian. He puts tape on the mic again, and I now know it’s for Rivers’s guitar picks.
I get Leslie and the guys to help me yell out “Karl! We love you!” and it’s totally cornball but he acknowledges us and it’s yet another thing that makes me feel like I know a secret–only those of us in the fan club have a clue about who Karl even is!
Waiting and waiting…and then some weirdly familiar music** comes on and at first I’m like What the hell is this? But then I remember that it’s Weezer’s entrance music and here they come and I’m screaming AGAIN and going crazy AGAIN and I can’t believe that I’m swimming in this moment and I’m about to ride their wave for the second time in 24 hours.
As they get into position, each members’ personality is alive and well onstage. Rivers toddles out, wearing black again, head down, shoulders hunched. Pat is no-nonsense on the drums, Matt bounces out like a balloon, and Brian struts out and situates himself at the microphone stand right in front of us.
We could have touched him, and we sure as hell want to.
They launch into the same setlist as last night, with some tweaks. People are loving it, and the band is, too, except for maybe Rivers, whose very big and very brown eyes are all shifty the whole time. I feel so sorry for him. He looks way overwhelmed. He’s so small and so sweet and he wrote in the Weezine that he's really really lonely at school and he doesn’t have any friends there.
I’ll be your friend, Rivers, I promise!! I’ll love you!
But then there’s Matt! He’s the energy bomb, the one who gets us all excited by coming up to the edge of the stage and pointing at us and jumping and playing ferociously. He looks really cool and cute and happy. Later in the set, he squirts water on us—we desperately need it!
Like last night, “You Gave Your Love” makes everybody go out of their minds! While he’s playing, Matt is looking right into my eyes—MY eyes!—while I scream with the masses, “YOU GAVE YOUR LOVE TO ME SOFTLY!”
Sigh. I’m never going to forget this.
Pat is just jammin’ away on the drums—I can’t see him all that well, it looks like he’s got burgundy hair—but at some point I yell out, “Happy birthday to Pat next month!” because he turns 28 on the first.
They could play the same songs, over and over, and I could just die of happiness, but tonight they add “El Scorcho” to the set, with a long shriek from Matt to kick it off, and “Only in Dreams”, which is kind of a slow song but people still mosh to it. “Buddy Holly” is sped-up (more moshing). And as they drift into “Undone,” Rivers, Brian, and Matt are all talking at the same time, in low voices. I can’t understand any of it but they sure look cool.
To us, Brian looks far more than just cool. He’s absolutely dripping with sweat and charisma. I can’t take my eyes off him. Not only does he have the coolest, most unique style of anyone in the entire world (and he’s a Southern boy, from Knoxville, too! Who’d’ve thought!), but the way he plays the guitar, the way his hair is, the way he looks at the audience, the way he sings, the way he moves his mouth, the way he moves his skin-and-bones body—everything combines to make a more than amazingly SCORCHING guy.
Brian is just too fucking sexy to ignore.
Leslie and I can’t contain ourselves—we’re yelling stuff out to each other and at him, even though he can’t hear us above the music and the rest of the screams. It’s compact Beatlemania, nineties-style, but I bet those girls in the sixties wouldn’t dare say what we were saying!
One of the guys next to us is grinning during all of this and yells in my ear, “Can I join?”
We’re all wired; the show feels like we’re in a vortex of energy and noise, where time has stopped. In the thick of it, another of the guys exclaims, “I’m having a Joygasm!”
I think everyone there is. We are all so excited and happy and I don’t want it to ever end.
But, by the light of Leslie’s watch, it’s creeping closer to 11:30. So just like last night, the final song of this incredible weekend is “Surf Wax America”.
And then it’s over and the lights come up and Leslie and I go over to the merch table. I get the babydoll tee with the lambs, she gets my “If It’s Too Loud” shirt.
Even though it’s frigid we get bottles of water and head outside to cool off. We’re absolutely soaked through with sweat and half of it isn’t even ours! We go to her car and change our shirts right there (I put my sweater back on) and then we go hang out by the loading dock with some other people, waiting to see if the band will come out.
Karl goes by again but he looks so busy that I don’t want to bother him. We still yell out, “Karl Rocks!” and he takes a moment to wave and do a little dance for us!
Leslie goes back to use her carphone to check in with her parents. As I’m standing there, the Tremont people are trying to get us to clear out by saying that the band already left, even though the bus and all their equipment is still sitting by the loading dock (liars!). But we duck into the car to get warm and wait a little longer. I reapply my Sugar Plum Lipsmackers.
Only a minute passes and I glance in the sideview mirror to see a figure coming down the steps of the bus. “Omigod that’s Brian” I say and we frantically unlock the doors and dash over to him with my camera. We’re trying our best not not to freak out.
The earth explodes into a million pieces: I am meeting Brian Bell in person right at this very moment!
“The show was really awesome,” I say, looking up at him, his smile a-glowing, and I’m beaming, too.
We feel like such teenyboppers asking for an autograph and a picture. But he is so cool and down to earth and especially friendly and HOT!
“Thanks,” he replies, and laughs, taking my ticket to sign it. “What’s with all these autographs?” As if people don’t ask him for it all the time!?
We make small talk. “What high school did you go to in Knoxville?” I ask. “My best friend lives there.” He tells me the name, and it flies out of my head instantly. I’m too engrossed in his enormous brown eyes, swirling in starstruck/lovestruck fogginess. I can’t remember the name of Katie’s high school, either.
He laughs at me. “You don’t know what school your best friend goes to?”
We get a picture with him. HE PUTS HIS ARM AROUND US!!
We let Brian move along to some other fans and this guy holding the Weezer music book*** tells us that he got all four of their signatures and the rest of the band is inside. “Thanks!” we shout behind us as we rush back into Tremont.
I see Matt first and try to nonchalantly sashay over to him. He’s smoking, and Leslie wants to know what kind it is “so we can always smoke the same kind.” He’s talking to some girls and we don’t want to interrupt, so we just stand there, wondering what to do.
And then, behind Matt, I see him.
“There’s Rivers!” I whisper to Leslie.
“Where?”
“Right there in front of you!”
“Where??”
“Right there!!!”
She finally notices. We sidle over, joining a small group gathered around him. A fan asks Rivers if he’s in the Weezer Fanclub.
“No,” he says. “I need to be. But my mom is.”
The fan guy asks, “Which song has the most meaning for you?”
A small smile. “Oh, they’re all meaningful.”
Then we finally catch his attention and I ask, “Rivers, how’s your leg?”
He looks directly at me. “It’s doing very well.”
We take a picture with him, too! He doesn’t put his arm around us like Brian, but he seems so shy anyway that I can understand why he would be kind of afraid to.
But I did brush my hand against his—a little by accident, a little on purpose.
Brian comes up again, and Fan Guy is still around, asking those good questions. He asks Brian about his other band, Space Twins. He tells us “we’ve got a 7” out there and we’re getting ready to do more.”
Fan Guy shows Brian his fanclub card. “That’s the best $10 I’ve ever spent!”
I see that Fan Guy is =w= #2100. Not to be outdone at this fan thing—I am, after all, =w= #0629—I whip out my card and put it in Brian’s hands.
He’s holding it! He now knows my name!
He chuckles. “That’s a good picture of you,” he says, smiling, and hands it back.
“Thanks,” I say. But on the inside, I am jumping up and down and screaming. THAT’S A GOOD PICTURE OF YOU. I’m absolutely floating.
It’s the highlight of my existence.
As we walk out the door, I glance one last time at Matt—he’s still talking to that girl. It’s okay. I’ll get a chance another time.
Back in the car, I start shaking with spasms I can’t control. I think my veins have been replaced by electric currents! Leslie and I speed back to her house, sharing a triumphant, post-climactic cigarette or two, blasting more REM, screaming out the windows.
And as we’re trying to fall asleep in her room, we whisper in the dark about needing a word to describe the enormity of what we just experienced. The only and best thing we can come up with is simply, “Weezer.”
As in, “Tonight was SO WEEZER!”
It’s been the best weekend of my entire life. To be surrounded by Weezer fans, Weezer music, and Weezer themselves is more than a dream come true. To experience this night with the perfect friend for the occasion is something I’ll never forget.
And to be able to actually meet half the band—Rivers, shy and awkward and cute, and Brian, friendly and warm and drop-dead sexy—it’s like the stars were aligned on this night and I was given a real gift, shining and powerful and giving me strength.
So Weezer, indeed.
*Tremont Music Hall, RIP. Tremont opened in 1995, closed in 2015, and was demolished in 2017. I only went there twice: this time, and then in 2005 to a punk show, where my friend Matt (who was on tour with Strike Anywhere) let me run the lights for a few minutes while he went to get a drink. Going back, eight years after such a momentous night with Weezer, and then getting to feel like a part of the show (if only for a few minutes) made this place pretty special to me. The loss of a lot of these small clubs is tragic; I and so many others got to be right up close to not just the music, but the heart and blood of what it means to be a fan. Things are different now.
**The Battlestar Galactica theme was their entrance music. Not nerdy at all.
***The sheet music book for the Blue Album. Us fans had been coveting this for months–Karl didn’t even know it had come out yet.
Check back here in mid-August for Part Four, which picks up after the show and carries through the fall of 2010. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox before it’s released to the public!