I am determined my writing hopes and dreams are going to come true in 2015, and I decided the time is right to share a writing piece I have been shopping around to magazines for years, hoping to get it published. I have always shied away from self-publishing but would like to share it online now and maybe, just maybe, the right eyes will see it and bigger things may come forth from it. I won't know if I don't try! And since this New Year's Eve has been spent packing up my house, preparing for another big move in a few days, I may as well take a break from the chaos and devote some time to my creative craft.
This piece comes from the book I have been writing for years about growing up in a small town in Canada (Moncton) and trying to become a rock star...loosely titled 'Memoirs of a Moncton Metal Queen'. This is the first part of a long piece I edited from my manuscript to stand alone, called Backstage 101. Kind of a how-to guide...based on what I did and how I did it, to meet my rock and roll idols.
Enjoy....part two tomorrow....
Backstage 101
The
first time I went backstage at a concert was during the summer of 1985. I was
15 years old and the band was Platinum Blonde. My Durannie days were behind me
and I was leaning more and more towards the calling of hard rock and heavy
metal. As a member of the Platinum Blonde fan club, I was contacted and told I
would be able to receive special backstage access to meet the band when they
appeared in my town, Moncton. I couldn’t believe my good luck! I was absolutely
in love with the singer, Mark Holmes, and I had sketched a gorgeous picture of
him and bought him a single red rose. In my teenage mind I felt he would accept
these gifts and instantly fall in love with me. Of course, I was one of many,
many girls backstage that night with the same expectations! All of us had the
same passes stuck to our shirts, the same hope and love in our eyes, and the
same feeling of superiority to getting backstage while the rest of the crowd
just went home.
I knew
after that show, after that entrance to the magical world behind the scenes,
that just being in the audience was not going to be enough for me anymore. I
was determined to always get close to the band, to always feel every eye in the
crowd upon me with jealousy as I showed off my coveted backstage pass stuck
proudly to the front of my shirt or jeans. I knew other girls who already had
perfected the art of getting backstage, but they employed methods that were not
exactly my style. I was not a prude by any means but I carried enough feminism
within my persona to know that there was no way I was ever going to blow a
roadie to gain access to a backstage! No, I was smarter than that and knew I
could achieve what I wanted using my head.
Platinum
Blonde was easy….that was handed to me as a member of the fan club. But I
didn’t belong to all the fan clubs out there, so I had to think hard of how I
would unlock the secret door to get me up close and personal with all of my
idols.
A few
more concerts came and went where I was a mere audience member, chomping at the
bit and wracking my brains as to how I could get my hands on another backstage
pass!
Most of
the girls waiting to go backstage, were either the typical blow-a-roadie type
or radio station contest winners, or the lucky few who knew someone from within
the industry who gained them that sought after access. I
didn’t know anyone in the industry….but then a thought occurred to me. What if
I said I did know someone in the industry? Or better yet, what if I said I was
in the industry? Could I pull that off? Certainly not face to face. I was only
a teen, and anyone could see from looking at me with my teased hair and
stretchy acid washed jeans that I was not from the music industry! But I spoke
really well, I could definitely sound like a more mature individual and create
an air of authority from my voice alone. Thanks to my grammar-perfectionist
British mother who taught me the value of speaking properly and how far it
would take me in life, I now had the means to achieve my goal. I now knew
exactly how to get backstage even if it meant playing a dishonest game. I
thought to myself, if I was a famous musician and a teenage fan used her brain
to get backstage and meet me, even if it meant lying to my entourage to do it,
I would be impressed at her tenacity and brave effort. I wasn’t out to hurt
anyone with my deceptions, and surely a few well-placed lies to get backstage
were better than getting an STD from a gross roadie! I had made up my mind and
began thinking out my plan of action.
At first
it was much harder than it sounded. My first concert to try this on was in late
1987 for Glass Tiger and Red Rider. Glass Tiger were the opening act and fairly
new on the scene so I thought they should be an easy target to get close to. I
studied the liner notes of their album intensely before the day of the show and
found some names of people who worked for them, people who weren’t actually in
the band but people who would likely be with them on tour as road crew or
management. There were not many hotels in town where the band would possibly
stay, so going through the phone book, I made a list of all the best
potentials. The night before the show I started calling all the hotels to see
if I could determine where they were staying by process of elimination.
“Good
evening, Holiday Inn.”
“Hello,
I am wondering if Mr. Joe Nelson has confirmed his booking for tomorrow?” This
was said in my most authoritative tone of course.
“Just a
moment and I will check for you…”
“Thanks
so much.”
A brief
pause and then from each hotel the answer was generally, “I’m sorry, I don’t
seem to have a listing for that person. Could it be under another name?”
I would
immediately sigh and shuffle some papers and then say, “Yes, it is hard to know
who’s actually checking in, they are with a large group…”(I would add this just
in case I did get the right hotel so it made me sound like I knew what I was
talking about without actually saying the name of the band because I felt that
anyone truly in the industry calling a hotel to get in touch with someone on
the crew, or the band themselves, would never throw the band’s name around
loosely for privacy and importance reasons.)
“…let me
see, (more paper shuffling) ah…why not try under the name Rick Chilton? Or also
Robert Davidson? Anything?”
I never
gave more than two or three names to a hotel because I didn’t want to seem too
eager or give away my fact-finding mission.The hotel front desk agent then
usually said, “Sorry, I have no groups expected tomorrow and no one under those
names is showing up in my system.”
“Well, I
could possibly have the wrong hotel down on my accommodation listings, sorry to
have bothered you, I will have to call management and see if I have the wrong
information. Thanks for your time.”
And that
was the end of the call. I repeated this pattern down my entire hotel list
until I found what I was looking for.
When I
struck gold, the response from the hotel would be different. Jackpot!
“Yes, I
have Mr. Chilton actually checking in tomorrow with his group booking. Would
you like to leave a message for him?”
Without
even missing a beat I would say, “Yes, definitely, can you let him know Kathy
from Warner (or whoever the band’s record company happened to be) will be by to
have him sign some papers around 3pm?”
The
hotel would start repeating my message back to me when I would quickly
interject and say, “…oh just a moment…scratch that message. I am going to see
him at breakfast first, I forgot I had a morning meeting where he is supposed
to be. If he isn’t there, I will just pop over to the hotel after or try
calling him after check in. But I am pretty sure I will be seeing him prior to
him checking in. So never mind….sorry, I have so many things on the go here my
agenda is just a mess!”
The
hotel would never suspect a thing, they simply heard me as a busy record
executive and that was the end of the call. I had my information, now I could
do what I wanted with it. I knew where they would be staying, I knew the
correct name of someone involved with them on the road…now I had to put that information
to the best use.
Sometimes
I would take a friend or two, usually the boys from my band I was the singer
in, and we would go down to the hotel to try and meet the band in the lobby, or
if we could get past security, we would wander the various floors of the hotel
looking for any possible band members or personnel. But going to the hotels was
not really my thing. I wanted free tickets to the show and to be granted a
backstage pass. Often I would tell my friends where the band was confirmed to
be staying and send them off to get up to their own mischief at the hotel. I
preferred making all my arrangements via telephone. Most of my friends could
not imagine having the balls to talk to someone official on the phone or have
the kind of confidence I had to sway an employee of the band into believing I
was who I said I was. But when hiding behind the mask of a telephone receiver,
I could turn it on with ease and make things happen.
It
became a challenge, a game. I loved the thrill of tracking down the band,
gaining free entry to their show and getting the bonus of meeting them too. I
would sulk and be annoyed when I couldn’t make it happen, which did occur
sometimes. But as I progressed and honed my skill, I found success with it time
and time again.
Once
armed with the initial information from the hotel, I would go one of two ways
with the next leg of the quest. I could either contact the band personnel that
I had found at the hotel or if I was crafty enough, at the venue for the show.
Trying
to get in touch with someone from the crew through the venue’s box office was
no easy task. Employees of the venue were well used to fans trying to access
the band and most of these workers seemed to love spotting the hopeful devoted
followers of the bands and using their positions of power to stop them in their
tracks. I loathed people like this and loved it when I could get past them.
“Hello,
Moncton Coliseum box office, how can I help you?”
“Hi,
this is Kathy from Warner in Toronto, can you patch me through to production?”
“Excuse
me, who did you say you are?”
“Kathy
from Warner…look I am in a bit of a rush here and I need to touch base with
Roger in production for tonight’s show…can you patch me through or do you have
a direct line?” I made sure to sound edgy and dismissive to being questioned by
a mere venue receptionist. This generally worked in my favour, and by sounding
the part, they would either patch me through or give me a direct number to the
backstage area! I always got such a rush from this.
However,
it didn’t always work.
“I’m
sorry, I don’t have a number to give out. I could take a message for you?”
“No, I
am in transit and need to get in touch with him right away, never mind I will
try him at the hotel.” Sometimes this would help nudge the box office staff to
help me, sometimes not. But if I was shut down by one person from the venue, I
wouldn’t hesitate in trying again a little later and hopefully get a different
operator who could be taken in by my story a little easier.
Once I
was given a direct line to the backstage area, I would be sure and add it to my
growing list of venue numbers, contact information, etc. I kept detailed
notebooks with all my information for later reference. It got to the point
eventually where I could just look up the venue, call the backstage line and
know exactly who I wanted to speak to. Arenas generally used the same
production lines for any event so once I gained possession of a backstage
number, it was like a gold ticket to hold onto. I readily shared these numbers
with friends who wanted to try and meet a band of their taste but no one else
seemed to be able to pull off the tricks that I could.
Now once
I decided to contact the person who’s name I had found, either at the hotel or
at the venue, I had to figure out what I was going to say. Saying I was Kathy
from Warner was not exactly going to work with someone who would know
immediately if there actually was a Kathy from Warner! It was one thing to
throw an important sounding name around to get past the gatekeeper….but once I
was inside, I would have to come up with something better to get me to the end
prize.
For my
first time, at the Glass Tiger show, I had no luck with the venue but had a
great conversation with Rick Chilton on the phone in his hotel room. I went the
honest route and told him I was very sorry to have bothered him but had looked
up his name from the liner notes of the band’s album and hoped he would be the
best person to talk to about tickets and backstage passes since my friends and
I were huge fans. Luckily for me, he was really nice and immediately asked me
my name and how many friends were with me. He told me to check the will-call
window at the box office that night for tickets and passes and was happy to
help me out. Wow, that was so easy! But it was not always this way. When I
tried the honest fan-approach with a road crew member from Supertramp in early
1988, he bluntly told me the band was not having a backstage and tickets could
be purchased from the box office! That annoyed me enough to scout out a
different road member’s name and although he was correct about no backstage
passes being given out, I did get two free tickets to that show.
I had
similar things happen with the Iron Maiden and Guns n’ Roses show in 1988. I
was given a huge runaround, and although we knew where they were staying, and
found their tour buses, I was not crafty enough at that point to get any
further with them. Even the fact that my friends and I had camped out overnight
in front of the venue did not impress the Iron Maiden road manager I spoke to.
Moncton was truly my training ground for my coming years of free concerts and
backstage passes. I perfected my skills and kept a lot of notes but in the
beginning, I mostly scored with only the Canadian acts. The bigger,
international ones seemed to be wary of my tactics and felt too important to
listen to anything I had to say as a fan.
The last
really big fan-based backstage I conquered in Moncton was in the Spring of 1989
with Metallica. They were huge at the time and my boyfriend Chris was a devoted
fan, so although I liked them, I wanted to impress him and give him a night to
remember. How many girlfriends could do something like that? First of all,
before Metallica were even confirmed to be playing in Moncton, I had contacted
their management company in the States to see what the chances of them playing
in Moncton would be for their upcoming tour. I was told it was a possibility
but nothing had been confirmed yet. I asked if it would help if I could give
them a large petition of names who wanted Metallica in Moncton and they said
definitely. So Chris and I got busy creating a massive petition called “Bring
Metallica to Moncton!” and not only did we get hundreds of people to sign it,
we also spent hours fabricating names to pad the petition in many shades of ink
and varying degrees of handwriting. When I contacted the record company a month
later to tell them we had this huge petition of over 10,000 names I was told
they had already confirmed Moncton as a stop on their tour and then put me in
touch with the local rep for the record company. They told me he would give me
tickets and backstage passes to the show so I could present my petition to the
band! This was amazing news! However, I had a lot of friends who wanted to come
backstage and I decided to push the envelope on this one and be greedy. Greed
does not always pay off, but for this concert it sure did.
Once
concert day arrived and we had our secure passes and tickets from the local
rep, I used the information from the liner notes of Metallica’s latest album to
track down one of their road crew members and discover which hotel they were
in. Since we already had a guaranteed “in”, anything else we could get would be
a bonus. When I reached the sleepy sounding bass tech in his hotel room and
gave my usual fan-based story, I was fortunate that he was a really nice guy
who was willing to hand out tickets and passes to my friends and I! He was
impressed at the work I had done to track him down and pleased that I hadn’t
used the information to bother the band and said he looked forward to meeting
me. Usually anyone I contacted was never this friendly so it was a pleasant
surprise. Of course I didn’t mention the petition to him and the fact that we
already had tickets and passes! I was not often a greedy girl when it came to
concerts but I made an exception with Metallica. A little greed was okay,
especially when it was going to make a lot of my fellow fans so happy and so
very impressed with me! I have always been a total attention whore so this
position suited me well.
The
Metallica concert was a night to remember, everyone involved had a great time
and I made a long time connection with the bass tech and he went on to always
give my friends and I access to Metallica shows all over Canada and in the
States too. I owe him a great deal of thanks. So thank you Zach Harmon,
wherever you may now roam!
….end of
part 1!
