This week, in honor our Rockin' the Railroad "Roadie for a Day" contest, I'm recalling some of my favorite backstage concert memories from the past 20 years.

In the late 90's, Godsmack emerged onto the national stage with a vengeance.  The first three singles they sent to radio were huge hits and it didn't take long before they were headlining their own theater tour.

At the time, we had a blind guy named Nick who worked at our radio station, the mighty KILO in Colorado Springs.  Nick was blind as a bat, but he had balls of steel.  That guy did everything from driving the station van, to boxing other blind guys and even standing outside an elementary school directing traffic as a blind crossing guard.

Whenever a concert came to town, we could send Nick out to raise hell with the crowd.  We'd have him give people haircuts for tickets.  I think he spray painted a listener's car in front of one of the shows.  At that time, a lot of the rocker chicks were really into Godsmack.  So we sent Nick to the Godsmack concert with a lovely dancer from the local gentlemen's club.

The dancer, whose name I can't recall, was a great escort for Nick.  She took care of him during the entire show, making sure he didn't fall down the stairs, or worse, get thrown in a moshpit.  Before the end of the night, Nick was convinced that she wanted to be his lady.

After the concert, the dancer somehow managed to sneak both Nick and herself backstage.  The guys from the band even invited Nick and his date to come hang out on their tour bus.  Once they got on the bus, they proceeded to ply blind Nick with Jager shots and weed.  Nick was having the time of his life.

Then, all of a sudden, the bus got strangely quiet.  The guys that had been partying in the front of the bus disappeared. So did Nick's date. Over an hour later, when Nick's date and a couple of the guys in the band returned to the front of the bus, they told him that they were giving her "the grand tour".

Of course, we questioned Nick's date about what took place during her hour long tour of Godsmack's bus.  She insisted that the guys in the band were just being gracious hosts.  Nick believed her.  In fact, later that night he told her that he loved her and wanted her to be his steady gal.  Sadly, she told Nick that she had just gotten out of a relationship and wasn't ready to rush into something serious.  Of course, she still wanted to be friends.

 

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