Goosebumps

Sunday afternoon: listening to “Love Reign O’er Me” from The Who’s Quadrophenia and feeling the biggest bear-hug of my life. May, 2000: I’m standing stage right working microphone detail for the Boston Rock Opera benefit show For the Benefit of Mr. Dee. Gary Cherone (Extreme, Van Halen) has a showcase on “Love Reign O’er Me”, and I have a ringside seat. During rehearsals (I have a walk-on myself), I’m one of many good-naturedly ribbing Garry about the horror of hearing “More Than Words” on FM radio over and over and over again. Gary is one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever been around, and the nastiest he gets is to tell us, with a smile, “Yeah, but it’s nice to hear ‘More Than Words’ when I walk into the grocery store and know that my groceries have just been paid for.’” Touche. Cherone sings lead on “Love Reign O’er Me”, NAILING all the Daltry screams and generally making the song his own. It’s the kind of performance that will leave the hairs on your neck standing at attention for the rest of your days. And after this, he walks back to me, hands off his mic and gives me the biggest bear-hug I’ve ever gotten in my life, and says, “thanks, man.” Yeah, like I DID anything. And this is coming from the guy who tormented my aural experience of my last year in high school? I still feel that hug, and that moment, when it really solidified in my head that I had made it as a musician in Boston, and I now needed to look at my future and keep raising the bar. But oh, that plateau and what it meant and means to have gotten there.