By Dave

(As published on www.suitelorraine.com)

In early 1998, I settled a lawsuit (finally) after having been broad sided by a drunk driver nearly two years before.  The proceeds went to paying off a bunch of bills, setting up a college account for my son, and with the couple thousands dollars in ‘mad money’ that remained, I treated myself to a trip to Las Vegas.

The day tickets went on sale for the CSN stop at Caesar’s Palace, I was on the phone with the ticket office at exactly the time it opened.  I managed to come away with an ‘elbows on the stage’ seat right in front of Stills, at which I eventually ended up with my bucket of Coronas perched on the stage at Stephen’s feet (it sure looked to me like he wanted them as much as I did).  Anyway, after the show, I hooked up with some online folks for a bizarre trip around the town, the most noteworthy result of that particular excursion being that I came away with an e-mail address for Graham Nash.

Not wanting to simply inflict myself on someone I admired and respected, I waited to send a note, wanting to have something more substantial to discuss than a rather lame “Gee, I love your stuff.”  Surprisingly, an opportunity for contact came up shortly thereafter.

As I sat in my recliner, half asleep, with a celebrity golf tournament from Hawaii on the TV in the background, I sat bolt upright in my chair as Graham Nash lined up a chip shot, which he managed to skull through the green into the nothingness beyond.  Then they showed him once more, hitting an approach shot from some fairway that he also skittered into an uninhabitable place.  From there the telecast broke to a commercial that featured, incredibly, Graham Nash yet again, practice swinging a $400 driver in much the same manner as I’d just witnessed live.

Off I went to the trusty PC and hammered off an urgent e-mail to the address I’d been hanging onto since Vegas.  A quick two-line note was the result, saying something like “Gee, I love your stuff (you just knew that line would come into play).  And by the way, you’re picking your head up on your downswing.  You even did it in the TV commercial when there wasn’t even a ball there.  Try watching the clubbed hit the ball.  Best Regards…”

No sooner had the send button clicked my pearls of golf wisdom off into cyberspace, the thought entered my mind that receiving an unsolicited message from some moron I didn’t know telling me elementary stuff about the game of golf might not be at all endearing, even if the my online moniker wouldn’t soon be forgotten.  However, the deed was done, and I comforted myself in the knowledge that if Graham thought I was a moron, at least I was a relatively anonymous one.

Several days later, a much nicer return note than I’d anticipated showed up, thanking me for the tip and telling me that I’d actually been of some help.  Occasional messages back and forth followed, not too often to be a pain in the neck, but often enough (I’d thought, anyway) so that my name would be recognizable when things from me appeared in his mail, and that maybe what I’d sent wouldn’t get systematically trashed.

This pattern continued for most of 1998, until my son (10 at the time) got word that he’d won a contest sponsored by a major book publishing house, and that his prize was a trip to LA along with a guest roll on a Nickelodeon kids’ program.  Checking dates and making plans for the trip, it looked at first glance as if our dates in California would fit in with a March 1999 CSN show in Thousand Oaks, not at all far from where we were staying.

Armed with this info, back to the PC I went, explaining to Graham that my son and I were headed west, that it looked like we’d be there for the show, that my son was getting old enough now to be influenced more by his friends’ musical tastes than his father’s, and that I’d be extremely grateful if Graham could point me at someone I could approach to beg for backstage passes to the Thousand Oaks show.  Once again, a very nice note came back in return, with Graham saying he had absolutely no clue who I should contact, so he’d see about handling backstage passes personally.  This was fabulous!  So naturally, something had to go wrong!

And it did.  Not two days later, word came from the TV folks that our trip dates had been changed, and now there’d be a couple of weeks between our trip there and the show I’d hoped to get my son and I into.  So then came another note to Graham, explaining the change in dates, how I felt like an idiot writing this, but was there any chance of him giving us a rain check on the backstage passes for the next time CSN was in the northeast?  And yes, at this point I’m figuring I’m being a royal pain in the neck.

Another very nice return note showed up, saying I should wait a couple months and get in touch again, since a tour was in the works for late summer 1999.  After several more postponements, the tour was finally cast in concrete on calendars, and the bonus for all fans was the inclusion of Neil Young in the mix.  I logged onto the Ticketmaster website the day tickets for the tour went on sale and scoffed up three floor seats for the Hartford stop on the tour, having decided to bring my niece along to the show.

Tickets in hand, I e-mailed Graham yet again, hoping to set the backstage pass deal up for the Hartford tour stop, and heard… absolutely nothing in reply.  Figuring I’d been blown off, I consoled myself (and my son) with the knowledge that we’d see a great show, at the very least.

Months passed.  My niece’s ticket got passed along to her as a Christmas present, and the millennium turned.  In mid-January 2000, an unsolicited note showed up that indicated the 2000’s might actually be better than the 1900’s.  The passes would be waiting at the Hartford will-call window on the day of the show!

This put me back into ‘begging mode’, since I’d only asked for two passes, and my niece had been added to the mix.  The only thing to do was offer a bribe, since it would have been extremely bad form to leave my niece waiting in a rapidly emptying venue as my son and I ventured backstage after the show wrapped up.  Back to e-mail I went, offering Graham a dozen golf balls (brand of his choice – big of me, huh?) in exchange for the third backstage pass.  Again, a positive response… and we were set to rock & roll.

So, on April 12, we were off to Hartford on a nice smooth three hour (each way) excursion to the show.  Having already seen the guys in Philadelphia only a few weeks earlier, I had more than a clue as to how great the show was going to be, but managed to keep my mouth shut (well, mostly, anyway) as we played a tape (courtesy of our own website hostess Lorraine) of the CSN Hartford tour stop from a couple of years before.

Arriving at the Hartford Civic Center about two and a half hours before show time, I headed expectantly to the will call window and found that… the backstage passes weren’t there!  OK, so I had been told to wait until 6:30 to pick up the tickets, but since my best-laid plans almost universally tend to hit snags, the three of  us headed for dinner with my stomach still somewhere down around my ankles, figuring that we were basically screwed.  And of course, things only got worse at Wendy's when my son managed to dump the better part of his Biggie orange soda all over his lap.  As an aside, orange soda on tan jeans does not an attractive combination make.

Grateful for the uncommon foresight I’d shown in buying my son’s tour T-shirt about three sizes too big, we got him cleaned up as best we could, then pulled the shirt down to what looked like knee length, and headed back to find that the passes had finally been delivered.  The night might actually work out after all!

Taking the stage shortly after 8:00 p.m., the guys proceeded to simply blow us all away for almost four solid hours.  A notable occurrence took place as Stephen launched into the Suite, with my son watching some incredible finger work by Stills through his binoculars, his jaw dropping open wider and wider as the song progressed.  I finally told him that when someone that played his music could do something like that.

I’d start listening to bands like LimpBizkit right along with him.  All he could do was gape and nod.

Late in the show, Neil launched into the 20 minute version of Down By The River that he simply wowed everyone with throughout the tour.  As the song opened, my son (who’d been standing and singing along for over 3 hours by now) collapsed into his seat, definitely running out of gas.  He said “How much longer?”, as his eyes were drooping down to about the length of his T-shirt.  I explained that there were only a few songs left, but that this one would go quite a while.  With a yawn and a “Wake me when it’s over”, he was out like a light on my shoulder.

So now I’m thinking ‘Great… we’ve got these passes, and we’re gonna be officially screwed when we have to scrape my not-so-little guy up with a spatula and cart him around the building.’  Again, providence took over as the song ended and my son regained consciousness, yelled “Let’s rock & roll!” and sang every word of the rest of the show along with everybody else.  Rockin’ in the Free World turned into something I think we’ll both remember for a long, long time.

Long May You Run (and they did that night) ended, the stage cleared, and we joined the group waiting to be escorted backstage to meet who ever had left the passes for us.  We were escorted into a TV green room type of set-up, complete with drinks, finger foods, and padded chairs circling conference room or cafeteria style tables.  No sooner had I gotten each of us a drink when a young fellow walked into the room and calls out “Is there a Dave Champagne here?”

Obediently raising my hand, I was greeted with a “Hello… Graham wants to see you right away.”  So now I’m figuring that either I’m really important, or someone wants to get us in and out of there pretty quickly.  But either way, we were off, giving only minimal attention to all the folks still in the room, waving and calling out, asking to be adopted.  It looked to me like we had the best of the arrangement, with everyone else there all waiting for Croz in a larger area and only the three of us there to see Graham.

Anyway, we were ushered further back, into the bowels of the building.  My son was suitably impressed when I told him that this was the way the pro wrestlers come out when they’re in town.  A few steps further and we emerged into an area with 4 separate curtained-off areas, one for each guy, and instantly there was Graham, pumping my hand and saying, “Well, it’s only been a couple of years talking online.  There really is a Dave Champagne.”  Not to be outdone, my niece came right back with “There really is a Graham Nash.  We all thought Dave was just bullshitting us all this time.”  A priceless icebreaker, and one for which I’ll always be grateful – definitely worth the cost of her ticket… LOL.

What followed was a really nice 10 minutes, only a few seconds of which involved music.  I felt obligated to tell Graham that he was as good as his word when, at the press conference announcing the tour, he’d said they wanted to knock people on their asses.  Well, they’d certainly knocked me on mine.  The rest of our time together, after introductions of my son and my niece, was spent in golf talk, of all things.  As good as my word, I passed along the dozen golf balls that procured my niece’s pass, and we stood there talking about stances and ball position and weight distribution amid all the ruckus around us like a couple of possessed fanatics.

As this was going on, I glanced over at my niece, whose eyes had just gotten as wide as silver dollars as someone I couldn’t see entered the general area.  Still talking with Graham, it only dimly registered when he acknowledged the new guest with a quick “Hi Jackson.”  Only able to see from behind, it was still readily apparent (hell, nobody else has hair like that) that now we’ve got Jackson freaking  Browne there with us, too.

Saying good-byes, shaking hands, thinking the evening is just about complete except for the long haul home, and making our exit, my niece and I were talking on our way out how wild it was that Jackson Browne was there, and my son chimes in with an extremely loud “Who the heck is Jackson Browne?”  From right behind us comes a voice:  “Is someone talking about me?”

The night was too perfect.  I couldn’t resist.  Spinning around and grabbing his hand, I proceeded to blather on about the night, almost 25 years ago now, that I’d seen him at Saratoga.  Of course I just had to add that it was the only night I could recall that a woman had ever attacked me affectionately in public (I’ve heard he seems to have that effect on women).  As we’re chuckling about that, my son pounded me on the back and said urgently “Dad… you’re making a fool out of yourself.”  Browne now dissolves into full-blown laughter.  Hey, so what, I was entitled.

A final impression: the time was so great, the show was so good, and Nash and Browne were such regular guys, I didn’t even remember to take photos or get autographs from either of them. Figures, right? But I rode a pretty good natural high all the way home, one that lasted through all the overnight road construction on our route and stayed… well, pretty much until right now, as a matter of fact.