BlitzBlog

He was piss-face drunk, and he was right smack in front of me, filling
my video camera screen. Holding a beer, wobbling slightly. It was
almost 3am.

“You like the 'Bros' too, man? I didn't know you
were into the Allmans!” He continued, ” I know Derek Trucks, man! We're
buds. I've gotten him a ton of rugs.”

Drugs?

Did he say drugs?

Or rugs?

Yes,
you see this unsteady soul in my face was my co-worker, Scott, from the
rug company where we're both employed. We were in a local hotel suite,
partying like madmen, at a small get-together for a dozen or so of my
closest co-worker friends that my pal Tom and I throw after the big
Company Holiday Party ends at 11pm.

So Scott is going on about
how he's friends with Derek and a bunch of other guys from the Allman
Brothers Band. And that 3 months hence, at the annual 12-night gig at
New York's Beacon theater, he's gonna score us some backstage passes
and I'll be his guest and it'll be awesome.

Now I've been going
to at least one night of the ABB's March Beacon gig for about
20-something years. I've sat in the back of the balcony and been down
in the 5th row. I've trekked in in the snow, on rare warm winter
evenings, with a dozen friends, or scored scalps for my single self.
The one constant has always been that the shows have been outrageously
great. So the promise of seeing, and even meeting the band, had me
licking my chops.

3 months go by, and Scott's promise goes
unfulfilled. Scott lives in Florida and isn't coming to the show this
year. I am bummed, and begin good-naturedly busting Scott's butt about
being full of crap, and that he really was just a drunken lout,
boasting on bullshit. I send him an mpeg file of his earlier video
boast, with a text crawl at the bottom of the frame advising the viewer
not to believe a word this drunken lout is saying.

He insists he'll come through next time.

In
November, the Derek Trucks band is going to playing at a great club not
too far from my house. Scott and a friend are heading up from Florida,
and Scott has put me and a guest on the VIP list. He asks me to throw a
4×6 rug that he's ordered for Oteil (the bassist) to stand on, into my
trunk to bring to the show. When my friend Rich and I arrive, we're
passed in “on the List” for free, and we wait for Scott and his friend,
who arrive in short order. I go back out to my car with Scott to
retrieve the rug, whereupon he goes to deliver it backstage. I return
to the bar.

After the show, Scott tries to get us onto the tour
bus parked behind the club, but they won't let him on. It's late and
snowing, so we leave. Later on, I realize that I've never actually seen
Scott with Derek Trucks, and that it's entirely possible that he does
not actually know Derek. I raise this line of doubt to Scott, who keeps
insisting that, yes, indeed, he and DT are totally tight.

I say, “Yeah right.”

The
next March rolls around, and, in all fairness to Scott, I have to bag
out of his offer, as my son's Bar Mitzvah is smack in the middle of the
Beacon run, and it's no time for me to go carousing. Scott tells me his
tales of revelry after the shows with his pal Derek, but I feign doubt.

Scott
spent every opportunity over the next year, promising me the night of
my dreams, standing 10 feet from Gregg and the band, come March '06. I
play hard-to-get, always insisting he really doesn't know Derek Trucks.

So about a month ago, Scott calls me and reminds me that this is The Year.

I say, “Yeah right.”

Last
week, Scott calls to tighten up the purported schedule, saying he's got
2 spots open for either Monday or Tuesday night. I grab Monday and make
arrangements for Rich to meet me in front of the Beacon on Monday
night. We're standing there waiting for Scott to pop out of a cab. I
say to Rich, “I'm gonna tell Scott we bought scalps, just in case he
didn't come through.” When Scott shows up a few minutes later, he
chortles, and tells me I'm gonna eat my words. We head to a local bar
for a pre-show brew, and Scott is all-aglow with anticipation. He's
giving me the ol' raised eyebrows with the ” Hey? Hey- I came through
for ya finally? Right? Your gonna have to stop busting my chops,
right?” I say, “We're not inside yet.” But at least I smile when I say
it.

We head to the Beacon, and go to the stage entrance on 74th
Steet. Scott shows some I.D. and we're each handed a VIP pass to stick
on ourselves somewhere in plain sight. We head inside, through a door,
up some dank stairs, and next thing I know, we're standing on the
freakin' stage of the Beacon Theater. I'm 2 feet from Butch Trucks'
drum set, looking at the same view Warren Haynes and Gregg Allman will
be seeing in about 30 minutes. I see the theater filling up, the scrim
of curtain hanging above with the big ABB logo projected on it, the
sound and lighting boards, amps and equipment with some very famous
names stenciled on their sides. I almost mistake Warren Haynes' guitar
roadie for Warren they look so much alike. He's tuning Warren's guitar
and talking to a few others in the crew.

Rich, Scott and I
mill about, going to the big warm up room under the stage. I'm a bit
disappointed to see it's pretty bare. Just some table and folding
chairs. The walls are virtually devoid of anyyhting beyond switches and
plumbing. I was hoping to see layers of peeling posters that reveal the
Ancient History that has taken place here. I want to see posters for
Big Brother and the Holding Company. James Brown. Muddy Waters. Peter
Frampton. Earth Wind and Fire. The Kinks. The Animals. David Johannsen
and the New York Dolls.

But no, there's no palpable sense of
what has gone before here. Just a room with some other hangers-on like
us, BSing and smoking. (There's no alcohol allowed backstage since
Gregg has gone all sober. Damn. We'll have to drink in the lobby with
the rest of the unwashed masses.)

It's almost time to begin,
so we head back up to the stage, where we're corraled behind some white
tape lines on the floor. Basically we're behind and to the side of the
drum risers. The band, for the most part, will have their backs to us,
but we can stand here and dance all we want. No cell phones, no
photography, but the view is still great and the band will be 5 feet in
front of us. I'm guessing the sound will not be as good as out front
(and I was right) but it's still not bad, as basically, we're so close
we can hear the guys singing and playing directly, without the amps.

I
smile at Rich and Scott. I look past them and I see, in order, Oteil,
Derek, and Butch heading our way. They look at us and smile. I clap in
anticipation and whoop, “Have a great show guys!” (or something equally
lame) and the house goes dark. The band takes their places by the dim
red and blue light of their equipment, and I can feel the crowd start
to swell with excitement. Then…

Ba-da-da-da-DAH!

The
first notes of Statesboro Blues EXPLODES in front of us, and the whole
place screams! I look over at Scott, both of us with huge shit-eating
grins on our faces. I put my hand on his shoulder, lean in close to his
ear, and yell, “NOW I BELIEVE YOU!” We laugh and do the man-hug thing,
and for the next 3 hours I get to see, up close, VERY close, one of the
greatest Blues/Soul/Rock/Jazz bands that ever lived perform as they
always do.

One of the perks of the VIP pass is that we have
free-run of the theater. We can stand wherever we please. We go into
the audience, where for a while I wind up with my elbows on the stage,
smack in front of Gregg's reknown Hammond B3. I wander in the crowd,
never more than 20 feet from the stage (except for the few forays to
the lobby for a drink). I spend some time back stage BSing and dancing
with other lucky souls and by midnight, when the show ends, after 3
hours of music, my feet are barking, my back is aching, and I wish it
could go on for another 3 hours.

This evening's concert was
the 35th anniversary of the famous Fillmore East concerts, and the set
list has followed the double-album to the letter. It was a magic
evening and, Scott, old bud, I'm telling you now, keep my night open
for next year!