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ON THE ROAD WITH... FREAK DISTURBED ~ 7/24/04 HOUSE OF BLUES • CHICAGO, IL
This month’s tale actually begins back in early June when Godsmack played during a torrential downpour at the Tweeter Center along with Drowning Pool, Tantric, and SOiL.
His beer of choice was Lone Star, a blonde lager that’s as common down there as Miller Lite is up here in the Midwest. I’d had it before and was sure I could scrounge some up so I offered to get him a case for his debut show at the House of Blues as a gesture of good luck and he Fast forward to the Friday before the show when Moyer stops by the studios of 94.7 The Zone along with Donnegan and singer Dave Draiman for an interview. After we wrapped the on-air dialogue, he asked me if I’d found the case of beer, hurling me into a fit of anxiety because I had, of course, completely forgotten about it. Laughing, he told me not to worry about it, but as a man of my word I wouldn’t be forgetting about anything. I stared at my watch as the music from Smokey & the Bandit started playing in my head. I had thirty-four hours to secure a single case of Lone Star lager and I would get it done. Calls were immediately placed but they were all dead ends. Country bars and liquor distributors all came up empty, so I did what I should have done in the first place; I called the brewery. Texan Directory Assistance funneled my happy ass to San Antonio, where I finally hooked up with some dude named Cisco. Cisco turns out to be a Disturbed fan so things start rolling. A Fed-Ex package containing shirts, stickers, bottle openers, and anything else he could find with the Lone Star logo would be sent to my farm via Saturday delivery but he couldn’t ship me any beer. Back to square one. Enter Jimmy, a thirty-something Pabst Blue Ribbon drinker with an odd habit of hanging out at college bars up on the North side who knows a joint that serves up the Star but it wouldn’t be cheap. At $3.00 a bottle, the dump wouldn’t cut me a deal so the case of Texan swill would run me a rough $72.00 and it wasn’t even chilled. The price of honor doesn’t always come cheap. I lobbed the over-priced longnecks into the Jeep and bolted back down Lake Shore Drive towards the city but seeing as the doors to the show were already open, we had little time to spare. Tracy and I made our way down around the dumpsters and the homeless in the depths below the H.O.B. towards the tour buses where we handed off the suds along with the box of swag to one of their roadies, mission accomplished. The curtains opened as the band launched into “Bound”, “Voices”, and “Intoxicated” to get the show underway. Fourteen songs flew before the night ended with “Stupify” and everyone was ushered out to make room for Prince who was doing a surprise show there at midnight. Included in the encore were two new jams, one of them, sounding a bit like “Liberate”, was called “Hell”. The only flagrant miscue of the evening came during Dave’s introduction of John to the hometown crowd as being from Houston while Mr. Moyer hails from Austin. We were hanging out in the Foundations Room while things thinned out downstairs when John walked in holding an ice cold Lone Star. “You went above and beyond Bro,” he smiled as I cheered him with my beer in a plastic cup. “Just keeping a promise my friend,” I replied. “We have three more shows on this little run so I’m rationing a six-pack to each of them to hold me over.” “Right on,” I responded, “hope it goes well for you guys.” “Me too,” was all he could get out before he was swarmed with people. Tracy and I finished our beers, said our good-byes, and headed back towards the Jeep. Being far more sober than I was, she controlled the keys and I was trying to talk her into hitting Taylor Street on the way home for some grease. The argument, however, was falling on deaf ears since there’s little she hates more than Taylor Street beer farts. | ||
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Among the folks hanging out backstage were Disturbed guitarist Dan Donnegan with the band’s new bass face, John Moyer. I remembered him from his previous bands Soak and Union Underground, but didn’t really know much about him, so it was all small talk between us that revolved around Chicago, his home state of Texas, and drinking. 
gladly accepted.