How To Meet Your Favorite Rock Stars
July 2, 2003
I was eleven when I got my first Motley Crue album and it seems like, ever since then, I've had a major fascination with "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll." When I was twelve, I had my walls covered, strictly with Motley Crue posters and I devoted art projects at school to re-creating Motley Crue logos. I was thirteen when the Crue came to my town (Toronto at the time) on the Girls, Girls, Girls tour and, the day before the concert at Maple Leaf Gardens, I saw on the news that the band was in town and had gotten into some sort of trouble. It immediately occurred to me that they must be staying in a hotel, since the concert wasn't until the next day. I decided to figure out what hotel they were at. I figured that the band members wouldn't check in under their own names (assumed or given) and guessed that they would check in under the name of their manager. A check of every album sleeve revealed only one name for their manager and no separate names for a tour manager. The name was Doc McGee and, as soon as I knew that, I began to call every hotel in the Yellow Pages, starting from the very top of the list. My Mom was in the kitchen, where I sat on the phone, and she was complaining that I was tying up the phone line for so long. My father was watching a football game in the living room, but noticed that he had never seen his son so motivated and committed to accomplish anything, so he told my Mom to back off and let me continue my mission. I sat there calling hotels for, literally, hours. It turned out to be a number at the bottom of the pages-long list that patched me through. This guy answered the phone and I asked if he was Doc McGee. He told me that he was Doc's brother, Scott and before he could say anything else I blurted out, "As in Motlely Crue!?!". Slightly frustrated, Scott asked me how I got the number. I explained to him what I had done, I truly sounded like a little girl on the phone being that I hadn't even hit puberty yet. When I got done telling Scott what I did, he told me that the Crue had taken a bus to Ottawa for that night's show and that he was impressed by my initiative. About the Maple Leaf Gardens show, he asked, "How'd you like it if I put your name on the list for a couple backstage passes and tickets- I can get you in the fifth row". There's no explaining how stoked I was at that point, that was October 24, 1987.
My Dad wouldn't normally have been so proud to take me to a heavy metal concert but, for the passion of my efforts that got us there, he really was and that made me feel great. When we got there, we waited in line with all of these photographers and reporters for our passes, it was awesome. Sure enough, I was on the list and we got everything Scott had promised. The concert was rad, I especially liked the beginning of the drum solo with the cool drum kit, when Tommy Lee's beats were timed with Nikki Sixx's gulps of Jack Daniel's. Nikki drank like fuckin half of the bottle and poured the other half on the crowd, it was so rad.
After the encore, the arena emptied quickly, but I wasn't going anywhere. My Dad and I had to wait for a while to be allowed backstage but when we were Nikki Sixx was one of the first people I saw. Maybe they told him there was an extra stoked kid that he should talk to, because it seemed like he came straight to me. I talked to him for a minute, got a couple of autographs and my Dad took a picture of us. Then I saw Tommy Lee and he seemed as stoked as I was, he hung out with me for a while, even after signing autographs and taking a photo. It was the best. We hung out with Scott McGee too, my Dad and I were actually the last people to leave, Vince Niel walked out of a private room and right past, without a word, right before we left.
The next day I got sent home from school to change my Motley Crue concert shirt, I was proud of that. I was proud of everything about meeting Motley Crue. There wasn't anything I really wanted to ask or say to them, but meeting them changed my life forever. It sounds gay, but meeting Motley Crue taught me that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. It doesn't matter what you want, it simply matters how fuckin bad you want it and that you never stop going for it until you have it.
