Back in 1985, just after moving to Austin for my freshman year at The University of Texas, I started going to as many concerts as I could. Most of the big shows were at the Frank Erwin Center on the UT Campus. After going to a few concerts there, we discovered that all the bands usually stayed at The Four Seasons hotel down off of Cesar Chavez.
After the concerts, we started hanging out behind the Erwin Center, where the buses and trucks were parked, to see if we could get a glimpse of the musicians coming and going.
When the band, Rush, played a show there on the, “Hold your Fire” tour in the mid 80’s we saw Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson get into a regular passenger van, non tinted windows so we ran and jumped into my car and pulled out right behind them, we just followed them…I remember pulling up to a light and looking over at Geddy and Alex and just freaking out that they were right next to us, lol. This was one of the early bands that I had listened to and Geddy was one of my major influences as a bass player.
Anyway, they ended up at The Four Seasons hotel, so we parked quickly and ran to the entrance and caught them coming out of the van. Geddy and Alex both signed my tour program. Alex seemed much nicer at the time, Geddy seemed a bit suspicious of us all. Neal was nowhere to be found, which I found out much later, was the way it always was. After reading a few of his books, he was probably on his tour bus heading to San Antonio or Houston to the next show before we even left the parking lot.
So, from then on, after any concert at the Erwin Center, we would just go straight to The Four Seasons hotel and wait…
That’s how I got autograph’s from:
Steven Tyler and Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith. One of the funny things about seeing these celebrities, is they are usually much shorter in person than you expect. Steven Tyler was a little guy, probably only 5′ 6″ or so..anyway, when his limo pulled up, he got out and jumped on the trunck of the car and started yellin’, “I love this town!”. He was super cool, and signed my tour program. This was on their comeback tour, Done with Mirrors, so I think they were excited to be packing arenas again and making some cash. The other guys in the band had gone into the hotel before I got their autographs.
There was one guy though, Tom Hamilton, the bass player, that pulled up in his own car, a Lincoln Town car, with his wife I think, and a few bags of groceries. Apparently, he made a quick run to H.E.B. for some snacks..lol. He was really nice and signed my tour program then headed on inside the lobby. I found out later that Aerosmith was staying at the hotel for a few weeks and flying out to their gigs around Texas out of Austin.
Sting was another one that stopped to chat for a minute when his van pulled up. He was pretty nice and the guys in his band were great, they signed my tour program. An interesting fact is that Daryl Jones was playing bass for Sting on that tour, this was in 1986 and was one of the guys I met that night, and only recently, did I realize that he is the same guy that has been playing for the Rolling Stones for 25 years. He’s become one of my favorite players in recent years and I just pieced all of that together.
The guys from Van Halen, during the 5150 tour with Sammy Hagar, also were staying at The Four Seasons on their tour. I didn’t get autographs from the Van Halen guys, they just pulled up in 2 different limos and jumped out real fast and ran right by us into the lobby. The thing, again, that struck me was how short they were, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar, each ran right in front of me and it was like some little kids running by, lol. Eddie Van Halen got out of the limo behind that one, arm in arm with Valerie Bertinelli. They didn’t stop to say hi.