Lucero played at Walter’s last Thursday. I bought tickets to the show two months in advance and was looking forward to it for weeks. My favorite band playing at my favorite place? Fuck yes. I was at Amy’s the evening of the show so I packed some ice cream and Aaron picked me up. He wanted to sell records at the show like he usually does at the cool shows but he needed to ask Chavez permission. We pull up to Walter’s a few hours before anyone got there; it was just Roy eating tacos the bar, Lucas cleaning up, Terry walking around with sound equipment, and the members of Lucero and Black Joe Lewis’ band eating food off paper plates while Chavez was cleaning up. Aaron and I sat down at the bar and it felt like we were reenacting the set of Cheers. I handed Roy some ice cream while he talked to Aaron and me about nothing important enough to remember. I called a girl that bartends with him “Ginger” and he laughed and told me he’d buy me a beer when I turn 21.
Honestly, I couldn’t handle what was going on. I was sitting on a barstool at my favorite venue, a place that I’d been going to since I was 13, a place where my picture was displayed on the wall behind the bar, and my favorite band was sitting next to me eating chicken and rice. Behind my cool, calm exterior was a combination of a scaredy-cat and one of those girls who is obsessed with Andy Samberg and on a trip to New York sees him and flips out. Aaron ended up asking Chavez if we could sell records inside during the show and he told us no. Aaron asked him if we could do it in the parking lot and he said sure. We went back to Aaron’s to look for a table we could bring up to Walter’s and put his goods on display.
There wasn’t a table we could use anywhere. Not a folding table, not a ping-pong table, not even a TV tray. I tried to think if there was a folding table back at Amy’s Ice Creams we could use but I couldn’t remember. I call up the shop and one of the managers picks up. I say into the phone, “Hi this is Peter Lee I was wondering if there was a folding table at the shop thanks?” Just like that; not a pause or period or comma because I was so nervous. The manager on the other end of the phone suspiciously asked why. Then I told her about all the stuff going on that night and she told me I had to call the other manager, Airon. I call up Jaron, a different and less intimidating manager, and got his voicemail. I call JD, a higher up and less intimidating manager, and got his voicemail. I finally call up Airon only to get his voicemail. Aaron called Airon and asked him if we could use the table and simply said, “Sure.” Awesome. It only took 5 phone calls to borrow a folding table that nobody would even notice was missing. Once we got the OK, Aaron started organizing the records for sale and Illene got home and we all headed to Amy’s to pick up the folding table; the only people working that night were Tim and Darcy. Not coincidentally, they are the only two people in the store who weren’t going to the Lucero show. There was going to be more than ten employees or former employees of Amy’s Ice Creams at Walter’s that night.
Aaron and I show up at Walter’s and set up our newly acquired folding table in front of a van and trailer right on front of the bar. There was a line of people, most who I’d never seen before, going from the front door of Walter’s to down around the corner. It was obvious that everyone was not going to make it in if they didn’t buy a ticket. The capacity is only 135 and there were well over 200 people standing in line. Out of 6 years of going to that place, I’d never seen a line so long. I pulled up a lawn chair to the table and sat down. The bartender I called Ginger came up to me and I asked her if she’d ever seen a line so long or a show so big here. She told me she might but can’t remember. Either way, she wasn’t working that night, she was just there for the show.
I was slouching in my lawnchair with my feet propped up on the table, my sneakers resting next to a box of 7″s. This girl who looked exactly like Paris Hilton came up to me. You could tell she’d never been to Walter’s before because people who look like Paris Hilton do not go to Walter’s ever. She was flipping through the 7″s but it was pretty clear she did not own a record player. She asked me, “So…what are these?” I informed her they were records. Then she said, “Oh…what are they for?” This question was too dumb for me to not answer with a smartass remark so I said “For people to enjoy.” It doesn’t take a genius to realize that she thought I was either traveling with the band or work at Walter’s and wanted me to pull some strings to get her in. She turned away to talk to her friend for a few minutes and then I leaned back in my chair and stared at the sky. A few seconds later, Illene pulled at my sleeve and asked, “Where’d Paris Hilton go?” and I replied “Oh she thought that I could get her into the show, she probably left.” I turned to my left only to see Paris Hilton and her friend standing only a few feet in front of me and they probably heard what Illene and I just said. Ha, I didn’t mean to be an asshole but oh well. They both left and we never saw them again.
A few minutes after the skinny blonde and her sidekick left, I saw Ben Nichols walk out the front door of the bar. “Holy shit!” I thought to myself. He had a cigarette in his left hand and a lighter in his right. He scanned the parking lot, looking at the people but more importantly, looking for a place to sit down and smoke. He looks to his left and sees some plastic patio furniture and some chairs around it completely vacant. He looks to his right and sees me, Aaron, Illene, and a folding table with some records on it set up in front of his band’s van and trailer. “Please don’t sit next to me, please don’t sit next to me” was repeating in my head like a nervous schoolgirl sitting at lunch when she sees the boy she’s in love with walking towards her table. Well he ended up sitting a mere 1 foot away from me. I didn’t know what to say. He seemed happy but too nervous to say anything. I turned towards him and before I could wave my hand at him he says “Oh hey man.” I nervously said “Hey” and tugged at the bill of my hunting cap. For more than 5 minutes, I sat in dead silence while the lead singer of my favorite band sat a foot away from me. I was hoping he didn’t recognize me from a few hours earlier when I was sitting at the bar. I decided to just play it cool and not say anything. I’ll just try and make it seem like I had no idea who he was and was just there to sell records. I’d rather him think that than see me as the bumbling jittery fanboy I am. Three girls that I work with ended up walking towards him. “Fuck yes!” I thought, they were here to break the silence and save me from this awkward moment. They all surrounded him and gushed about how much they liked his music and yadda yadda yadda. One of the girls said to him, “I want to show you something but I gotta warn you, it’s kinda gay…” and she lifted up the side of her shirt to show him the lyrics tattooed on her ribs from his song “She Wakes When She Dreams.” His eyes widened and he said “Wow…that’s really good…” Then another one of the girls was talking to him about how they all work at Amy’s Ice Creams and how they play Lucero albums at work all the time. He said “Oh wow, thanks…” Then she said, “Oh wait, that guy! Him!” and she pointed her finger at me. “FUCK” I thought to myself. This could not be good. “That guy, Peter Lee, he made us all Lucero CD’s! We listen to them all the time! He made us all CD’s!” I looked at them, nervously grinned, and waved my hand.
Thanks for blowing my cover.
…
After the show, Aaron and Illene and I returned to our record table. We see the band loading all their equipment back into the van when the guitarist from Lucero, Bryan, walked up to the table while going to the trailer. He still had his flight-case in his hand when he asked “How long have you guys been out here?” Aaron told him all night. “Dammit!” he said while he rushed to the trailer to put his things up. He walked back to our table and started flipping through the 7″s. Todd, the pedal steel player, came up to the table and started flipping through the 12″s. Bryan shoved him a little and said, “Go on home, boy! You don’t know anything about this music!” Then I jokingly informed him we were selling records, not calendars, and Aaron punched me in the arm. Todd ended up standing next to me while Bryan flipped through the records. “Hey, we’re still loading here,” said one of the guys in Lucero to Bryan. I cleared out a space on the fender of the trailer and asked Todd if he wanted a seat and he said, “No thanks, I’ve been sitting down all night.” He walked back into the bar and Bryan continued to look through records. Another band member reminded him that they still had stuff to load. At this point, the only people hanging around Walter’s were us, people in bands, and people who worked there. Ben was changing into a new pair of jeans behind the trailer door. Bryan bought a New Bruises/Stolen Bikes Ride Faster 7″ and a Discount 7″. He stayed behind for two hours with us and talked about punk rock, growing up, family, careers, vegetarianism, touring, and trying to quit drinking soda.
That night blew my mind.
