In 1997, I flew to Fort Worth, Texas, from Chicago to see my first real concert. It was the Rolling Stones on their Bridges to Babylon Tour—a bloated juggernaut featuring “up-and-comers,” including the Dave Matthews Band, the Smashing Pumpkins, and something called Matchbox 20. I was only fifteen but was in a hardcore Stones/Bob Dylan phase. I thought myself a true gourmand, while my peers were swept up in Backstreet Boys and Hanson mania. The show was at the Texas Motor Speedway, an outdoor Mecca of beer and octane, on a hot November day.
After the Smashing Pumpkins limped offstage, berated by liquored-up Texans who were in no mood for openers, Matchbox 20 confidently took the stage. This was before the band’s debut Yourself Or Someone Like You went on to sell over fifteen million copies and before “3AM” became an MTV staple. They were sitting ducks. I don’t remember a thing about the Stones’ performance, but I do remember the hatred inflicted upon front man Rob Thomas and company. Cheap beer rained down on my head as overheated Stones fans threw cups, candy, hot dogs, and boxes of popcorn toward the stage, screaming all manner of obscenities at the fledgling band. This next part I swear is true, even through the fog of memory. Rob Thomas stopped the show, gripped the mic, and yelled, “Fuck you! We’re gonna be the biggest fucking band in the world!” In 2000, “Bent” hit number one, and Thomas had his revenge. I’m not sure if “Smooth” was an attempt to inflict further torture on the world that had wronged him, but since he declined to participate in this book, I’ll never know.
I became a concert junkie that day and spent the better part of my twenties traveling the country seeing shows. Coming of age in the festival era, and with the advent of social media, the disaster concerts, and behind-the-scenes debauchery, continues to have a perverse stranglehold on us. I started this project with the idea of calling it Rain or Shine, with the artists recalling their best and worst concerts. Early on, I realized that musicians had no trouble recalling their worst moments and recounted them with a mixture of honor and humor, like a grizzled war vet on open mic night. The best concerts all kind of blurred together: “Well, my family was there, so it was really special.” Or, “I had just gotten engaged, so I was really happy that night.” It was sweet, but not the reason you watched Mötley Crüe’s Behind the Music twenty times.
I reached out to my friend Mickey Melchiondo, aka Dean Ween, in 2014, about sharing nightmare gigs for the now revamped project, No Encore! He wrote his own chapter, which went mildly viral after he posted it on his blog, and I realized I was on to something. From there, I reached out to the craziest artists I could think of from across the globe for phoners, aiming to make this book as NC-17 as possible. A few artists wrote their own chapters, which has been noted in the text. I also courted artists whose stories I felt like I had never heard, who always fascinated me, or who never made splashy headlines. I wanted to showcase true lifers and those that have overcome addiction, poverty, flameout, and soldiered on. My goal has always been to make this book a celebration of perseverance, the burning desire that keeps artists coming back after experiences that would cause others to hang up their microphones or guitars for a life in music publicity, or, God forbid, music journalism.
So, let’s kick out the jams, blow some speakers, and party like we’re seventeen again. I love you all.
—Drew