September 2008 will forever remain dear to me, it was the month that I had helped to organise a trip involving nearly a dozen Wedding Present fans to follow the band the length of the West Coast on their North American tour to promote the "El Rey" album.
Due to band connections we were added to the guest list at all but one show, with me and the lovely Steph appointed the group leaders.
After months of planning the 17th of September finally rolled around and I was dispatched to LAX to excitedly pick most of them up.
The pick up was long and tedious, but the job was done and everyone piled into the van and were suitably impressed, especially Kirk as it was a nice Jambo colour.
I crammed them all into the smallish "Kirkham Towers" and after a night of drinks, gift exchanges and chatting we finally hit the sack and got some much needed sleep.
SAN DIEGO, CA.
We rose early the next day, picked up my long time friend Lori and hit the road to San Diego. Ian must have taken about 45 shots of various Interstate 5 freeway signs, I never found out if any of them worked or not.
After arriving in SD, we checked into the hotel and soon met up with the other two members of our travelling group.
We were now a complete group with Marc, Phil, Harry, Keg, Peter, Cait, Ian, Steph, Kirk, Kellie and myself all on board and we set off to the Shakespeare Pub for a quick lunch and a couple of pints, then I dragged them off on a day tour, we visited Coronado Island and took in the beach, where women could be seen visibly fleeing as we wandered around aimlessly.
When it was time for the gig we quickly found the venue and hunted down the band who were eating at a Subway across from the venue (No expense spared then).
We chatted for while and then moved to The Casbah where we discovered that one or two of our group had forgot to bring Id's with them and were refused entry. Also in the meantime Phil and Keg had wandered off and nobody could find them, Peter was stressing out big time over the latter.
While they dealt with this I drove the two un-named pair (Ian and Marc) back to the hotel to get their ID.
Once back in the venue, a pint or two seemed to calm everyone down and they settled in to check out Earlimart the support band for the west coast leg of the tour.
We were pleasantly surprised, they were very good which is a welcome change for US WP gigs. I had the added bonus of hanging out with the lovely Ariana from the band at the merchandise table, result.
The gig was tremendous, the band played a great set even though the venue was only about half full. We hung around, had a couple of drink with the band and helped them load up their van.
On a side note I sold exactly 6 t-shirts, four to Barmy Army members and one to Kellie. Good job I wasn't on commission.
LOS ANGELES, CA.
The next day we had a mosey around Balboa Park in SD, then drove straight back to Simi Valley. Some checked into a nearby hotel, we all went our separate ways to get ready and met up again around 6pm at the hotel.
By now we had added my mates Neil, Mossy, his son Keith and my son Liam to our ranks for the night.
After a quick burger we headed off to the historic Troubadour, this was the venue the Brits had been most looking forward to visiting.
I watched Earlimart and then headed into the bar to man the merchandise table before heading upstairs to sit with Liam and Kellie. I squeezed past the other occupants of the VIP balcony and took my seat next to Kellie. The place was obviously dark, but the bloke sitting next to Liam looked familiar, in fact he was the double of Keanu Reeves.
I turned to Kellie and whispered "Is that Ke...?"
"Yeah" she interrupted, "it's Keanu Reeves"
"Nice" I thought.
The gig was great as usual, I would periodically check out Keanu though and thought it was strange that while he didn't seem to know some of the more famous songs, he seemed familiar with more obscure ones like "Flying Saucer".
I'm not exactly a fan of his, but he was certainly into the show and seemed nice enough, anyone who likes TWP is alright by me anyway.
I got up during the last song in order to retake my spot at the merchandise table, as I did so I said to Keanu "If you come to the merchandise table I'll sort you out with a couple of cd's"
"Oh thanks" he replied.
I cleared this up with David and went about selling merchandise. We certainly did more business than San Diego, which wasn't too hard to be honest.
Eventually my new celebrity friend showed up.
"Hi" he said "so what do you recommend?"
I picked out Bizarro and Seamonsters.
"These are the two classic albums"
Then I passed him El Rey.
"Of course you're going to need the new one"
Then I selected Take Fountain
"And you really should have the last one as well"
"Wow thanks, how much do I owe you?"
"Oh nothing mate, they're on the house"
He looked a bit embarrassed,
"Oh no I couldn't do that, it wouldn't be right"
He did seem really genuine and I didn't want him to feel uncomfortable
"Okay, I'll give them you for half price, $20 for all four"
"Wow, thanks, are you sure?"
"Yeah"
With that he dug into his pocket and pulled out a handful of cash.
Now you may be thinking "Flash twat" and that I was referring to a thick wad of $100 bills, but you'd be wrong. Keanu pulled out a handful of screwed up bills mainly singles and fives, with a couple of twenty's in there. I was impressed that he carried his money in the same messy manner that I do, Kellie has bollocked me in the past for this, since then if she complains about it I just say "If it's good enough for Keanu Reeves, it's good enough for me"
Anyway David arrived at the table and I introduced him to Keanu, who was all over him chatting like a fan and raving about the show. The Wedding Present might not be the most famous band in the world but it was nice to see one of the most famous actors in the world singing their praises, if only for one night.
David later asked "How come you didn't just give him those cd's?"
"Well he seemed a bit embarrassed to get then for free, so I charged him half"
Then I added "But let me ask you this, did he give you any of his DVDs for free?"
"Nope" came the reply
"Well then, I rest my case"
In all a great night was had by all even Keanu Reeves who despite being a huge star was true gent, very courteous and extremely patient in posing for pictures with the barmy army. He definitely went up in my estimation (and a few other Brits) that night.
To be continued.....
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