Not quite backstage - but close!
The show was over too fast! Afterward, I went to talk to Ruth one more time, and her brother was with her. He hands me a pass and says, "Want to go backstage?" Uh - well - sure, I guess so, why not? Are you kidding? His boss had left the pass that Dave had given him, and they offered it to me if I wanted to use it. So - sure!
He told me where to go, over at the side of the stage, so I headed over there, and a group of other people were waiting too. We were told to go to the east entrance, so down we all went to a different doorway, and waited there while the staff for the venue cleared everyone else out of the building. They checked a couple of times to be sure everyone waiting had a pass.
After the place had cleared out, the security people asked us all to move up into the stands so they could keep us all together. Soon they asked us to move into the next section so they could clean the section we were in. Then they asked us to move again, but this time we moved back behind the barricade into the hallway behind the stands. So this was closer!
There were about thirty of us, and we all stood around talking to each other. A few minutes later, George Packer, Styx's tour manager, came out, and first of all said, very nicely, that REO was gone, and anyone who had been given a pass by REO would have to leave. We all looked around at one another but of course no one volunteered to leave! Then George said that he needed to know exactly who had left the pass for each of us, and who we had spoken to, and one person did speak up and give what appeared to be a good answer. A woman behind me immediately said, "I'm with him!" But George smiled at her and shook his head. Nice try though! Someone else spoke up and said that Tommy had left him tickets, and George again smiled and said that Tommy had not left any tickets for anyone that night.
The rest of us just said oh well - busted! George was really very sweet to us and thanked us all for coming to the show, said they appreciated it and he hoped we had a good time. He stayed to talk to a couple of people for a few minutes, and said some of the guys in the band were seeing family, then they had to get on the road to the next show. Tell me about it - I knew I was going to have to make the same LONG drive to Maine myself the next day! He thanked everyone again, and we left. There could have been a lot of upset people, but he handled it very diplomatically and was extremely nice to everyone. I think this must be a job requirement now to work on this tour. Every single person I have ever come into contact with, or seen interact with the fans, from managers to crew members to band members, has been nothing but nice, polite and a pleasure to meet.
We had gotten kind of excited so it was a little disappointing not to get backstage, but you can't count on things like that. If you come to a show hoping to get a backstage pass, or a drumstick, or a guitar pick, and then you don't, you go home from an excellent concert feeling disappointed. What fun is that? My point of view is, go to the show expecting a fantastic concert and a totally entertaining evening. I promise you will get that from this show. Anything else you happen to go home with is icing on that cake. And that's my sermon, amen. And besides, I talked to Ruth the next day and she said I could keep the pass - cool!
And - I knew there were two more concerts on my schedule within the next five days. How could I be anything other than happy? Time to go home and get some sleep, then on to the next show!