However, after the show ended, there was a big crowd round his bus, and tons of people were just staring at Brian like he was a zoo exhibit...
Reminds me of the 2006 Brian encounter I previously posted about...my wife and I had gone to the concert the night before as well. We and a few friends were hanging out near the stage door after the show, and Brian walked out and went straight to the bus, which was parked right there. After a few minutes, the shade on the windshield went up, and lo and behold, there was Brian sitting in the front passenger seat, looking emotionless and, frankly, exhausted. I think he may have waved once or twice....but what I found kind of embarrassing were people standing in front of the bus and having their pictures taken....the phrase "museum exhibit" entered my mind several times...
Now...as for other encounters...my wife and I were going to be in Chicago while Brian and the band were playing in the area, and he happened to be doing a show at the House of Blues in Chicago while we were there, so of course we went. Our friend Christine e-mailed Jeff Foskett and managed to get him to set us up with "after-party" passes....it was basically a big meet'n'greet in the main auditorium. Brian didn't come out, but most of the band did. And I managed to meet all four of the Wondermints and had them all autograph the liner from my copy of
Wonderful World of Wondermints.
I think Probyn was the first one, and his signature includes a doodle of a rabbit. I complimented Probyn on his lead vocal on "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." He said that when he recorded the vocal, it was right around the time he and a longtime girlfriend had just split up, so he was singing it from the heart!
Mike D'Amico was next...I felt bad for asking him, because he was busy carrying an amp or something at the time, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity...I asked him if he'd mind signing something for me, and he immediately dropped the amp, came over, sat at the foot of the stage, and said "This is the first time I had a chance to sit down in SIX HOURS!" heh...I felt better then. Rob McCabe and I praised him for "Cellophane," and my wife joined us all with a chorus of "Good to have you back" (he skipped the tour the previous year to work on the Wondermints' album).
Darian came over and said, "This guy has THREE SONGS on our new album! He's getting creative on us!" I asked Darian to autograph the liner; he smiled and said, "Sure!" Then when he saw what it was, his eyes widened, and he said, "WOW! Thanks for buying this!" I've heard from more than one source close to him that 1) he's really honored when he sees that people like his music, and 2) although he loves performing Brian's music, he's very shy about his own music, which is one reason that a Wondermints concert had been a pretty rare thing...
Nick was last. He was having a drink; again, I felt guilty disturbing him because he was obviously doing his thing, but again, I didn't want to miss the opportunity. Just as friendly as anybody else, he signed the liner, using a stylized "N" that formed a square-root sign with "ick" under it followed by "= serf's up," followed by square-root-of-negative-one.
Afterwards, my wife and a few other friends talked to Probyn for a bit and got some interesting info (that's pretty much irrelevant now after what has happened since!), and....Probyn LOVES talking to fans, obviously! Heh...security was trying to usher us out, so Probyn said, "Let's just move five feet and see if we can get away with it." About fifteen minutes later, security comes by again and tries to usher us out. Probyn once more said, "Okay, let's move ANOTHER five feet!" Heh...that happened about four times!
And after we left and Probyn went to his Probyn business, we hung out by the entrance, and Jeff walked out...one of the guys in our little group practically pounced on Jeff..."Jeff, I have a single that you did way back when, and it's pretty much 'Little Deuce Coupe' done inside-out!" Jeff was clearly beyond exhausted (it was a pretty late show) and he just kind of, as politely as he could, said "Really? Wow, that's great!" and kept walking. The guy persisted. "Hey, Jeff, if I gave you my 'Guess I'm Dumb' single, could you have Brian autograph it for me?" Jeff kept walking, and with every ounce of his strength, replied, in a very exhausted voice, "go to the Carl Walk." "You think he'd--" "Go to the Carl Walk!" heh...
So....that's it for me....I've met Ricky, Brian, Al, Nelson, and the Wondermints. I had a close encounter with Paul Mertens once...my wife and I befriended Dan Addington about ten years ago (and we now live about a block away from him by a set of odd coincidences!), and Dan had invited us to a puppet show that he hosted at his art gallery. And...something I forgot about: Paul's wife was in charge of the show! Dan told me that he noticed that somebody in the crowd at his prior puppet show looked very familiar. He checked the guest registry and saw a familiar name, and he thought, "Ahhh, that's who that was!" but he still couldn't think of how he knew the guy. He was talking with the woman in charge of the puppet show, and she told Dan that her "husband is a big Brian Wilson fan." That's when it hit Dan. He went over to Paul and told Paul, "Every time you were in Chicago with Brian Wilson, I was there!" So...a year later, Mrs. Mertens did another puppet show at the gallery. One of the "acts" in the puppet show started with an announcer asking the crowd for a warm round of applause for some dude named "Popcorn," and here is a picture of what I saw next:
. Then Paul's wife came out operating a life-sized puppet, and it turned out it was a fictitious reunion of a husband-and-wife lounge singing team, and they sang a song that was similar to "Reach Out And Touch Somebody's Hand."