I’m always more impressed with a musical legend’s attitude than their abilities. I’m pretty sure we can all name a musician or celebrity whose bad attitude or behavior has left a negative footnote in our memory of them. I think Bonnie Raitt fits the description of musical legend. Wednesday night I worked the her show at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester. She sounded pretty damn good for a 75 year old woman who’s been touring the world since she was a very young lady. She also can hold her own on the guitar. I was glad to hear how great she sounded because I’d be working her show at Bethel Woods two nights later. The only thing that sucked about the show was her management’s no cell phone policy that security is asked to enforce. This makes it a very busy night with 2,000 people in the room. It makes for an almost impossible task with 10,000 cellphone yielding patrons.
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Bonnie Raitt is a true musical icon. She has thirteen Grammys and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Her slide guitar work has been praised by BB King. She has managed to stay pretty relevant for several decades. I didn’t get to meet Bonnie on Wednesday, but she seemed nice and appreciative of her fans. The show ended smoothly and I received a few positive comments from some of the guests about my relentless pursuit of the cell phone policy violators. Yes…I may have made a few enemies, but that’s what I’m being paid to do. I’ve been on both sides of the flashlight. I know it sucks. Oh well.
Bethel Woods. Friday. A few of us gathered backstage, on the patio for our security briefing with Bonnie’s people and Bonnie happened to pop out for dinner- followed by her little dog, Bailey. She was friendly and had a short conversation with us. We changed our meeting location to give her some privacy. Just as I anticipated, there was that dreaded “no cell phone use” policy in effect. I hate it, but from what I was told, she had some new material that she didn’t want getting out on the interweb. After our meeting, a guy was walking into the backstage area. I held the door for him as I noticed an uncanny resemblance to another famous rocker. I asked, “How many people tell you that you look like David Crosby?” He said everybody. I replied, “I get it. People tell me I look like Billy Joel.” He introduced himself- Crook Stewart- David’s longtime tour manager. We had a short conversation and went our separate ways.
The show went well, and just like Wednesday, Jimmy Vaughn opened with a killer set with his band and Bonnie sounded great. I walked a lot- about 20,000 steps, and sure, it sucked and I made a few enemies, but we got the job done as best we could. No photos. No video. No cell phone use. I was polite. I tried to be understanding. I held my sign in front of a few phones. I may have yelled once or thrice after repeatedly asking people to put their phones away.
After the show, Bonnie had some guests meet her backstage. Her ex-husband, Michael O’keefe and her original touring bass player among others. When I brought her out, I mentioned that I worked her show at The Cap on Wednesday and she talked about her fondness of that venue. Now we just had to wait for her to make the rounds with her guests. We couldn’t leave until she was safely on her bus. Michael O’keefe was ready to go and I arranged for a ride back up to his car on one of our golf carts…sadly at that time, I didn’t realize who he was, but the irony of his role in one of my favorite movies is still kind of hilarious to me. Then I spoke with her former bass player and got his party back to their cars. As I walked back towards the building, I saw Bonnie and her manager and Bailey leave the dressing room and walk out towards the stage, so I ran in to escort her. She thanked me and she thanked the stage hands as we walked by them and the poked her head into the doors of the offices we passed to say thank you to everyone still present. I warned her of the approaching stairs and she remarked that there were a lot of stairs at The Capitol. She talked about how much she enjoyed being at Bethel and I told her we were happy to finally have her there. Then I said, “Guess where I’m driving home to after this?” She asked where and I told her Poughkeepsie. A big smile appeared and she just about yelled, “I love Poughkeepsie!” I was there from 1967 to 1969. She attended Oakwood School for Friends which is just a few minutes from my house.
When we got to her bus, she thanked me again and I thanked her and told her to come back soon, to which she replied, “Oh, I hope so!” She and Bailey made their way up to the steps and disappeared into her bus. I turned to walk back to the building and I heard a voice shout, “So long Billy!” I looked over to see Crook standing in the shadow of the tour bus with a big smile on his face. It took me half a second to catch on, but I quickly replied, “Take care David.”
I love my job. Even when it sucks.
I'm better on paper... 