Ellie Vee: We were the opening band on this show and we were surprised how amped the crowd was at 7:00. So thanks to all of you that were there early for us! It meant a lot.
Ethan: The Charms played first tonight and we came out to a glowing introduction by Little Steven (in one of a series of outlandish Halloween costumes). They pulled the curtain up and for 25 minutes we tore it up. The crowd was going bananas (and that includes the guys that were dressed up as bananas for Halloween) and the huge Hard Rock
Live stage gave me room to make sure everyone was on their feet. When the expanded-fleet of Garage Girls-a-Go-Go came out for “My Friends”, from Strange Magic (coming out in November), it was a pure celebration. For our closer, Mark and Prince Frederick provided the dynamic and taut rhythm section, “The Wolf”, Joe took his guitar solo to the next stratosphere and Ethan left a pint of blood on the Farfisa organ. A beautiful farewell.
Ellie Vee: I wish we could have played longer. Mostly because the crowd was awesome but also because Frederick was on a stick-breaking tear and I think he could have destroyed at least 2 more if we’d played another song!
Ethan: We closed the set to a roaring ovation and then got to watchgarage-rock legend Roky Erickson from the 13th Floor Elevators, aspecial guest for the Halloween ball. It was emotional to see theRomantics and Shadows of Knight for the last time of the tour…we’vebecome familiar with their sets and friends with them as well. Over thelast week, there’s been some “all-star jams” wth members of all of ourbands sitting in with the other bands. I can assure you that we willsee them all again.
Ellie Vee: I can’t believe this is the last time I’ll hear ‘All of My Nights” live. We asked Jimmy from the Shadows why it wasn’t called “All of my Knights” and he confirmed our suspicion that ‘Nights’ was just a typo on the cd artwork. I’ve decided that song is what they call an “ear worm” (a song you can’t get out of your head…other songs in that category are “Who Let the Dogs Out” and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” by Kylie Minogue). On the plane back from Florida to Boston where we live, Joe, Ethan, and I confessed to each other that ‘All of my Nights’ was playing over and over in our heads. An image that’ll also be stuck in my mind for a while is Steven in his light blue baby costume and bonnet!
Ethan: After the Shadows of Knight close the show we start to get ready to pack up for the next city, but tonight we sat glued to the side of the stage and were in for the special honor of watching Cheap Trick close the show. They were, of course, incredible but we had the privilege of the best seats in the house and Rick Nielson and Robin Zander came right over to where we were sitting. And if that wasn’t enough, I found myself on-stage, front and center, during the big encore of “Gloria” with everyone from the show on-stage. It was an unforgettable moment and unforgettable night and tour. Luckily, the Charms will be out for next month’s leg with more excitement in store.
Ellie Vee: Tara a go-go, Joe, and I sat on the steps leading up to stage right during Cheap Trick’s set. The Charms have a long history of going to Cheap Trick shows and writing their tour manager to get tickets and backstage passes and we got to meet them once in Boston. Opening for them has been a long time dream of ours and it was a lot to take in. I kept looking at Tom, Robin, and Rick’s feet and thinking “god, I was just on that same stage”. Rick came over every time he put on a neguitar to pose for pictures so I got a lot of good closeups. At one point, he came over to us and handed his guitar to Andy from the Chesterfield Kings.
The guitar tech came over promptly to take it from
Andy. They did one of my favorite songs, “Voices”, which I have sung a number of times with my good pal John Powhida, Rudds front man and fellow Cheap Trick fan. I started to get teary eyed during ‘Voices’ but stopped myself because I had a lot of liquid eyeliner on and I didn’t want to look like Alice Cooper for the finale when we were all supposed to go on stage to sing ‘Gloria” with Cheap Trick and Jimmy on lead vocal.
When the finale happened, Little Steven came out with the 5 necked guitar! Wally from the Romantics and I were stage right, wondering if we should join the madness. Wally went first and as I was going on stage, Jimmy grabbed me and pulled me right in the middle of the whole thing. I think my main contribution was singing “Gloria” in the chorus twice. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Frederick joined the go go dancers for a few moves. We took a lot of pictures that we’ll put on our site, thecharms.net. See you next month with the NY Dolls!!
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