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Cheap Trick Story
My second story, the Cheap Trick concert.
On April 11th, 2025, we had Cheap Trick in concert at the McAllen performing Arts Center. I can't believe how many people I saw at the concert. it was like a high school reunion. I was going to be that guy wearing my Cheap Trick T-shirt. A shirt given to me by my friend Brent, when we saw Cheap Trick in concert, in Austin, Texas, in 2016. I’ve gotten many compliments wearing that shirt. I even got a few during a Guns N Roses concert. A classic vintage style cheap trick T-shirt. I wore it a few times a month before the concert, knowing they were coming. I thought it would be washed, hanging in my closet., and ready for me to wear. The day of the concert I opened my closet expecting to see it, but I didn’t see it. I do not do the laundry. What the hell I thought and looked through all my shirts again. Again, it wasn’t there. I was dumbfounded. I ended up wearing a black T-shirt that said “Cult”. That's all it said, Cult. I am a huge fan of the rock band The Cult, but this was not a shirt of the band. However, when people saw the shirt I was wearing,, they would tell me, “I love the cult”. Exactly why I bought it. Exactly why I wear it. As of today, i still cannot find my cheap trick T-shirt. I was hoping they would have that same T-shirt at the concert, and luckily, they did.
I saw my dad as soon as I got to the concert. After I said hi to all my friends, my father wanted me to go with him backstage to maybe meet the band. The timing could not have been more perfect. As soon as we got backstage, the lead singer, Robin Zander, came out where I could meet him. Like Lou Gramm, my dad had given him a copy of my book, Lettuce Entertain You, Incorporated, and a letter I wrote him. And like Lou Gramm, he read the letter and thanked me for giving him a copy of the book. He then signed a few posters, a few guitars, and his manager gave us a bunch of T-shirts. Including the one I lost and was hoping to get. I actually got three of them, plus a couple of others. We started talking and I told them a story of the first song I learned how to play on the drums. it was a song by cheap trick. southern girls. he was taken aback and told me that it was not an easy song to learn how to play as your first song. It wasn’t. But it drew me in. it was hypnotic. I hit the high hat as hard as I could, over, over, and over. Harder, harder, and harder, with my right hand. Next came the beat of the bass drum with my foot. And finally, I hit the snare drum with my left hand. That's it I was a natural born drummer. Robin told me, that night, they were going to play that song. You can’t imagine how thrilled, happy, and ecstatic I was when before they played that song he said, “this song goes out to Jay Are, then they played the song, Southern Girls. I was all smiles.
And that Cheap Trick t shirt I could not find? I got it during a Cheap Trick and Foreigner concert I went to in Austin TX. I went with my friends Brent and Chase. Brent bought me the shirt.