October 28, 2006 "Those Who Are From the Sun Return To the Sun"

10/28/06 Diamond Ballroom - Oklahoma City, OK
Other bands: mewithoutYou, Piebald, Say Anything

Wade was my best pal in middle school and most of high school. Two oddballs we were that shared the same abstract sense of humor and an inability to focus despite our inherent smarts. Both of us were kicked out of our seventh-grade advanced placement program for poor performance and behavioral issues.

We'd draw the weirdest shit all over our homework assignments and then almost hyperventilate ourselves laughing over it until the teacher sent one of us to the other side of the classroom or out in the hall for drawing a legume-shaped car. In the cafeteria, we'd stack five hamburgers under one bun and eat it and roll apples and giant disintegrating brownie balls across the floor until Miss Davis, a rotund matriarch with a chip on her shoulder and a sour countenance not unlike the anus judge on The Wall, sent one of us to the principal's office.

Wade was my old middle school smokin' bud whenever I'd find a half-full pack of squares on the side of the road. I rode my bike to school all the time, which was a seven mile haul over back country roads and you wouldn't believe some of the things people threw out, including half full packs of perfectly good Camel Lights. We'd hike down to the river and light up like a couple o' cool dudes in high tops and jean jackets and Zack Morris hair.

Overnighters were a blast because we'd would rent the shittiest sci-fi movies of the day for Friday, and then indulge in tennis racket mayhem to Metallica and Nuclear Assault the following Saturday morning after sugar-frosted Diabetes Bombs.

Once my parents busted us with some ripped out pages of Letters to Penthouse that a kid named Joe Barnhouse gave me. Through this contraband, I discovered a thing such as a threesome did exist.

In high school, Wade was the first kid listening to Faith No More and Pearl Jam before either had become worn out and tired airwave fodder. So I became a fan too, mostly of FNM and not so much Pearl Jam because Pearl Jam didn't have enough metal guitars like FNM did. And their name sounded gay.

Graduation was literally the last day I ever saw Wade. I didn't hear from him again until just under a month before October 28, 2006, when he saw that we were playing Oklahoma city - the place he'd been living since high school - and said he'd come out to the show.

He never made it out, but I kept my eye open. I had a half-pack of road cigs, some porn and the Game Over album just in case. (Not really.)

The Diamond Ballroom sat off a gravel road on the outskirts of town, one part cowboy dance hall, one part airplane hangar. An enormous quonset hut-style construction that had likely looked the same since boot-scooters of the late 40s shuffled across the hardwood floors in rhinestone neckstrings while Patsy Cline knockoffs sang weepy Ray Price shuffle ballads.

Pictures lined the venue the length of a football field, signed and air-brushed faces of pomaded white men in embroidered suits and dainty country belles. This was the kind of place my Grandad might have place forty years earlier. Hell, he might have actually played this very joint.

Say Anything was giving some sort of pre-show exclusive meet and greet to a herd of fans who won the opportunity in a radio contest. There was a table with refreshments set up off to the side and I grabbed a handful with no thought.

I spent most of my time waiting backstage, drinking and smoking cigars and waiting for my old pal to show up. Onstage I kept looking out into the crowd to see if I could discern some sort of age-progressed version of him. But there were too many people and not enough lights.

He e-mailed me later that something had come up with one of his kids. I told him we'd probably be through again some time, but that was three and a half years ago and I still haven't seen him since high school.


Stranded in Hell, Ring Satan's bell! Bus 23! Never change!