I have been lax, I admit it. It’s been almost two weeks since Casey and I became rockstars, and none of you knows about it…
Two pieces of background. Remember when I wrote about Iron & Wine earlier this year? And then I mentioned something about I&W; and Calexico in October?
So back in October, Casey, Val and I were at the Decemberists show at the Newport here in Columbus, and in between sets, Casey starts talking about the fact that Iron & Wine are going on tour with Calexico in support of the IN THE REINS seven-song EP. Great news — but they’re not coming through Columbus. But, Casey says, here’s the interesting thing: Howard’s managing the whole tour.
Howard, of course, was the road manager for Iron & Wine and was the reason we got backstage in July — because Howard is Steve’s cousin, and Steve is Casey’s buddy from the Attorney General’s office, and Steve is our pal. And Casey tells me that he’s learned through Steve that we will probably be able to get the same kind of deal for the new tour. But we’ll have to road trip.
Road trip?
Closest show is in Detroit, he says. And then comes the master plan: we (Steve, Casey, and myself) drive to Detroit for the Saturday night show. We hang out with the band; we crash in a hotel. Sunday, we get up, catch a train to Chicago, see the show AGAIN in Chicago on Sunday night, hang out with the band, and crash in another hotel. Monday, we get up, train back to Detroit/Toledo, pick up our car, and drive back to Columbus as triumphant rockstars.
This is a great plan.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it ultimately happened. Through a combination of factors (like, say, Casey not informing his wife of the plan until about two minutes beforehand), we were limited only to the Detroit leg of the tour — and then Steve had to back out altogether. But, he promised us, I’ve sent off emails, and Howard will still hook you guys up! So Casey and I piled in the PT on Saturday afternoon and drove north — first to Toledo, stopping to say hi to his family, and then on to the Motor City. No guarantee of getting backstage with the band, no idea if Howard remembered us (he never wrote back to Steve before we left, so…), no idea if there were even tickets waiting for us at the door. What do we do if we have no tickets? I ask. Worse: what if we have no tickets and the show’s sold out?
As it turned out, none of these fears materialized. When we arrived at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Detroit, Casey’s name was on “the list” — for four tickets! In a triumphant display of magnanimity, he gave the extra two to a couple of kids waiting in line, because the show did ultimately end up selling out, and they would have been outta luck. And then we head in to the merch table, ask for Howard. The girl behind the counter says “Are you… Peter?” Casey nods, slowly. She says “Okay, yeah, Howard’s not here, but he wanted me to let him know when you got here.”
We are so in at this point.
So we head to the bar, grab a couple of beers, hang out. And sure enough, here comes Howard, in a dayglo orange vest and earflapped hat, and of course he remembers us, and of course he’s going to make sure we get to hang out, and of course he’ll get us backstage for the show. And then he zips off to get the show started, and so Casey and I lounge at the bar, secure in the knowledge that we are Awesome and are imbued with the power of Rock. Or at least, the power of Iron & Wine-style Folk Rock.
We had heard “special local guests at each stop on this tour” before the show, and had entertained the notion that we might be in for a Jack White or somesuch spectacular surprise, but the bands were apparently worn out, and so the opener was one of the I&W; guitarists doing some solo acoustic instrumental stuff. Calexico followed — and wow, were they good — along with Mexican tenor Salvador Duran. And then Howard pops back up again and says, “follow me.”
Which is how Casey and I found ourselves watching our second Iron & Wine show from backstage. A pretty good set, too — a lot of stuff from WOMAN KING, the band’s EP from earlier this year, so that was nice. And then: the band pauses between songs, and Sam Beam leans into the mic and says, “We’d like to take this opportunity to ask Mike to come up on stage with us.” And turns and looks in our direction.
Mike?
We’re looking at each other, shrugging. There’s a couple behind us, man and woman, and Casey asks, “Either one of you Mike?” Heads shake. And still, the band is asking for “Mike”. And then the guy behind us says, “Well, hell, I’ll be Mike,” and runs up the stairs and out on stage. And still the band is motioning come on, come on in our direction. So Casey looks at me and says, “Guess I’m Mike, too,” and off he goes, and the crowd starts cheering, thinking “Mike” has finally come up on stage to help the band out of the Rock Pickle they’ve gotten themselves into.
I am at this point laughing myself silly.
So Casey finally got to be a Rockstar — he’s behind the percussionists, playing castanets or maracas or something, looking for all the world like he totally belongs there. I’m shooting pictures and laughing hysterically, the band is chugging right along on a little burner of a piece, and then it’s over, and there’s cheering and nearly some crying and wow that was AWESOME.
Casey comes back down and Calexico goes on to join Iron & Wine on stage for a performance of almost the entire IN THE REINS disc, but for me, the concert was over at that point. We’ve been hanging out with the band in the “band room” backstage, having their free food and drink shoved in our faces by Howard (who apparently can’t convince his own musicians to partake of it), and chatting up members of both groups in between songs, and I can’t believe that we’ve somehow landed here, like astronauts on a strange alien world, that somehow, this is all a dream concocted by my feverish and delusional mind, that I’ll wake up sweating in bed with just the ghost of cheering in my ears, faded and echoing, a lingering memory of the time my buddy and I were almost Rockstars.
