speakerjones
my hat is all
I've been in concert production my whole adult life, so I've met a lot of celebrities, quite a few being personal heroes. When you're working, it's generally frowned upon to approach the artists unless you need to interact with them to do your job. I mixed a lot of monitors for bands, so that puts you kind of in the trenches together. You can quickly tell which artists are approachable and which aren't. I think I've told the story here before, but one of my most memorable moments was meeting Carlos Santana. I was doing sound at this benefit for deformed Chinese kids. It was at a yacht club in Greenwich, CT. Carlos and Robert Randolph were the entertainment. We had Carlos all set-up and sound checked, and he was just hanging out backstage, so I walked up and said "Thanks for all the great music", and he said "No, thank you, man!" and shook my hand. At that moment, up walks Paul Reed Smith with two new guitars. Carlos introduced me to Paul, and I took my leave.
Perhaps even more important to 8 y/o me was my first on-the-job celeb run-in. I was working as a stagehand, building the ring for a WWF match at the New Haven Coliseum (RIP). We broke for lunch and headed to catering. There were quite a few wrestlers already there, but at this point in my life, I really didn't know who too many of them were. The guy in front of me in the lunch line was a big guy, but wearing a sweater, slacks and loafers and carrying a briefcase, so I had him pegged as an exec rather than a wrestler. We sat down next to each other at the only available table. It wasn't until we sat down and I said hello, that I realized it was George "The Animal" Steel. We made some small talk, and I was just amazed at what an articulate, nice guy he was. Not a single turnbuckle on his plate either.
Perhaps even more important to 8 y/o me was my first on-the-job celeb run-in. I was working as a stagehand, building the ring for a WWF match at the New Haven Coliseum (RIP). We broke for lunch and headed to catering. There were quite a few wrestlers already there, but at this point in my life, I really didn't know who too many of them were. The guy in front of me in the lunch line was a big guy, but wearing a sweater, slacks and loafers and carrying a briefcase, so I had him pegged as an exec rather than a wrestler. We sat down next to each other at the only available table. It wasn't until we sat down and I said hello, that I realized it was George "The Animal" Steel. We made some small talk, and I was just amazed at what an articulate, nice guy he was. Not a single turnbuckle on his plate either.