Little did I know that the Afghan Whigs concert that I saw at Bogarts in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 25, 1999, would be their final public performance for more than a dozen years. Neither did the band, according to bassist John Curley during a conversation we had. After the tour ended for their album 1965, they went into the studio and in his words, “it just wasn’t happening.” This left a long void for the fans of the band, of which I was quite a big one. My ex-wife Lisa had introduced me to them almost right after we met, and after working my way through their albums Gentlemen and Black Love, I gradually started becoming quite fond of them.
Then their album 1965 was released in October of 1998. This album was beyond good; to me, it has been elevated to the stature of all-time classic. There isn’t a weak track on the album and it’s one of which I will simply never grow tired.
When the chance came to see them in 1999, Lisa and I snapped up a pair of tickets and off we went on that fall Wednesday night. I remember the opening act Howlin’ Maggie. I remember the excitement as they took the stage, bellowing out a cover of The Boys Are Back in Town, which had all the more meaning since they hail from Cincinnati. I remember track after track from the new album and virtually all of the songs I like from the earlier ones. I recall the band returning from their encore, with bassist John Curley and guitarist Rick McCollum assisting lead singer Greg Dulli to the microphone as if he were completely wasted. He wasn’t though; it was all theatrics. But mostly I remember waiting out back after the show for quite a while. We’ll get to that in a second.
I was recently able to find the setlist from that particular show, and assuming its accuracy, this is what I saw them perform that night:
The Boys Are Back in Town, Superstition/Going to Town/In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, Uptown Again, Come See About Me, Be Sweet, Neglekted/Do You Feel Like We Do/Nasty, King Only, If I Were Going, Debonair, Bad Girl/66/Little Red Corvette, I’ll Be Around, Somethin’ Hot, Crazy, Bulletproof/Baby Love, People Get Ready/Faded, Fountain and Fairfax/Hot for Teacher, Omerta/The Vampire Lanois/All You Need Is Love, Into the Groove/Rebirth of the Cool
As you can see, the incorporated a lot of R&B music into their songs. I also recall that they during the “yeah yeah yeah” chants of the audience during Omerta, Greg Dulli would sing “she loves you” and the audience would respond appropriately. It was one of the coolest shows I had ever seen.
Lisa and I waited behind the venue for the band as I had done in the past. (I am desperately trying to recall if it was just the two of us who attended, and I’m thinking one of her friends might have been there too, perhaps Amy Yri). Members of the band Howlin’ Maggie came out, including Harold Chichester, whom I had met before when he played with Royal Crescent Mom, and who had also played on Black Love as a guest musician. I had him sing inside the CD sleeve of that album. Josh Paxton, who was playing the keyboards for the Whigs and had appeared on their 1965 album, added ink to the back of that CD sleeve.
Gentlemen
Eventually John Curley and Rick McCollum came out as well and they both signed all three of my CD covers. Then we waited for the frontman himself, Greg Dulli. By the time he came out, there were very few people left waiting around. He was very friendly and happy to sign all of the CD covers as well. A girl that he greeted before me asked for a kiss and he obliged enthusiastically.
Black Love
Then he addressed me and jokingly asked if I was wanting a kiss as well. I replied, “no thank you, just an autograph if you would.” Greg addressed the snickering of a couple of other fans and said, “what? I’d kiss him. He’s a good looking man!” That’s a story I’ve continued to tell through the years…
1965
Flash forward until the summer of 2012… The Afghan Whigs had disbanded not long after my concert and in the interim, Greg Dulli had gone on to much success with The Twilight Singers. But recently, the original band members had played in some sessions to record a pair of cover songs, See and Don’t See and Lovecrimes. Soon it was announced that they would be appearing in Chicago at Lollapalooza… and then a concert in New York… and then eventually a full-scale tour. The Cincinnati date was announced to be Thursday, October 25, back at Bogart’s. I was ecstatic. But despite the thrill of seeing them live again, there was the gnawing fixation on the fact that I never did get a photo taken with them – particularly Greg Dulli – when I met them before. My aim was to rectify that.
I didn’t get off to a very good start when the tickets sold out in one day, and I hadn’t purchased one. I started scouring the ticket agencies, but then was told to hold off by my friend Stacey because she was good friends with their social media publicist Rynda, and she thought that she might be able to help me out.
For several months, I shelved the Afghan Whigs in the back of my mind, and nothing was seeming to come of the original offer. In addition, Heidi had decided that she shouldn’t go to the show because we were slated to see Morrissey the night before. So I few days before the show, I had no tickets, no prospects, and no one to go with. When Morrissey canceled, Heidi said she’d go along, but later recanted, thinking we probably wouldn’t get tickets anyway.
But then Stacey and Rynda came through… with amazingly beautiful flying colors. Rynda hooked me up to get on the guestlist and I was on my way. I left work on that Thursday, grabbed some Chick-fil-a and headed to Bogart’s. After I parked, I headed to the ticket window to ask if they had my name on the guestlist. The guy said that he had just gotten it and was getting the tickets together. I stood there waiting for 15 minutes, hoping that nothing had gone wrong. Finally, he handed me two tickets and two V.I.P. passes. What are the V.I.P. tickets, you ask?
Well, I made the mistake of asking the same thing, wondering exactly what they would get me. At that point, he realized that I wasn’t supposed to get them and asked for them back. Somehow I talked my way into keeping one of them (afterall, I had no real use for two tickets anyway). Then I went and lined up in the insanely long line. The show was scheduled to begin at 7:30pm, but by 8:15, the doors still hadn’t opened.
As they came around to distribute alcohol wristbands, I finally asked a worker if the V.I.P. would get me in. She said no, not yet, but to go up to the head of the line and wait with a few others who had V.I.P. passes. As I chatted with these folks, I realized that they had purchased theirs from a ticket agent and they only allowed them to go in early and get into the balcony area. One older gentleman who was waiting looked a bit out of place, and turned out to be Greg Dulli’s father. Eventually one of the worker’s said that the pass would get me backstage after the show.
Being the first one into the venue when the doors finally opened around 8:30, I was able to walk directly to the front of the arena and stake my claim behind the stage barrier, almost directly in the center of the stage. As long as I didn’t have to pee, I’d keep this spot for the rest of the night.
Claiming my spot at the front of the venue
The opening act was a band called Wussy, and they finally came on at about 9:15. I hadn’t heard of them before, but they were pretty good. It’s always a minor trial to sit through an opening band, particularly when you don’t know the songs, but the fact that the female lead vocalist was a bit of a looker made it even more palatable. Although I didn’t recognize him at the time, John Curley joined Wussy for one song, honoring the fact that he and the drummer Joe Klug had both been in a band together called Staggering Statistics.
Wussy
John Erhardt, Chuck Cleaver, Joe Klug, Lisa Walker, Mark Messerly
It was slightly past 10:30 when the Afghan Whigs took the stage. They had added new touring members Cully Symington, Rick Nelson, and Dave Rosser, to the original line-up, but I kept my eyes on the originals, marveling that these were the same three guys had written and performed 1965. The setlist seemed very similar to what I could recall from the last show I had seen, with an emphasis on the tracks of 1965. They sounded outstanding and it was quite a thrill to seem them so ridiculously close. John Curley’s young daughter and her babysitter had obtained a press pass and stood right in front of me on the other side of the barrier taking pictures of her father’s band. The set list was as follows:
Crime Scene Part One, I’m Her Slave, Uptown Again, What Jail Is Like, Conjure Me, When We Two Parted/Over My Dead Body, Gentlemen, Crazy, Best of My Love/66, My Enemy, Retarded, See and Don’t See, Lovecrimes/Wicked Games, Going to Town, Who Do You Love?/Fountain and Fairfax, Faded… Encore: Miles Iz Ded, Into the Floor
The Afghan Whigs take the stage
Greg Dulli, Cully Symington, and John Curley
Rick McCollum, Dave Rosser, Greg Dulli, and John Curley under the purple lights
The glow of the Whigs
Things slow down as Greg takes the keyboards, with the accompaniment of John Curley and Rick Nelson
The end of the show seemed a bit anti-climactic, as the audience was expecting a second encore, and since it was their hometown of Cincinnati, I thought they might get it. But then the lights came up.
Encore
This was my cue to finally empty my bladder, and find out where I could go with my V.I.P. pass. I ended up standing in line behind John Curley’s wife and daughters as we waited for security to let us in. Once they did, I instantly felt a bit out of place, as everyone back there seemed to actually either know or be related to the band. John Curley offered me a beer and I took it, so that made me feel a little better.
It was rather cool to be in the ‘real’ backstage area, complete with carpeting, couches, a stocked refrigerator, snacks, and the like. I saw all three of the touring musicians, and Rick McCollum lounging on the couches. Greg Dulli’s parents were there and they were escorted somewhere else to meet up with him. I noticed that Rick was working his way out of the room, so I grabbed a quick photo with him. He took off and I never saw him again. One down, two to go.
With guitarist Rick McCollum
I tried to stay out of the way of John Curley as he spent time with his family, but at one point I thought he was leaving so I asked for our photo. He got distracted, but eventually he came back to me and said we should take that photo now. It was fun to chat with him, tell him about the fact that I was there for his their last show in 1999, hear what he’d been up to around Cincinnati in the intervening years, and suggest that they open their next show at Bogarts (which will be on New Years Eve) with The Boys Are Back in Town again. He said that he would. I likely won’t be there for the show, but I’m going to find out if it happens!
Bassist John Curley with his daughters
Drinks with John Curley
Getting a photo with Greg Dulli was the number one goal of the night, and thus far he hadn’t made a backstage appearance in the Green Room. I asked John if he generally showed up backstage, and he said that sometimes he does, but since his family was there, he might be with them. But where?
I lingered around backstage, talking to some friends of Greg’s who were also waiting to meet him, for about a half hour. Eventually we worked our way back to the original scene of the crime where I had met him before – outside near the tour bus. That’s where he was.
By this time it was about 1:15am, and I was fading fast. I also had early morning plans for my next journey. But there was no way I was leaving there without getting my photo op, or that tour bus left with him on it. After about fifteen minutes of standing out there (in the thankfully warm air), I saw Greg get off the bus and head over to the parking lot. There were just a few fans standing around at this point, and not one of them followed. But of course, I did.
I heard the band’s manager (I assume) ask Greg where he was going, and he said that someone he was with couldn’t drive, so he was going to drive them. By that time, I was standing right behind him and asked if he would mind posing for a picture before he took off. He was just as kind and friendly as he had been 13 years earlier and willingly agreed. I passed my camera off to the manager dude, and got my picture with Greg Dulli.
Frontman, vocalist, guitarist, genius Greg Dulli
Fortunately, my story didn’t have an anti-climactic end to it. But I was exhausted, so I quickly thanked him and told him how great the show was (and threw in that I had been at their last Bogarts show), and then walked back to my car. As Greg had said at the end of the concert, “it was a beautiful night.”
2012 will continue with even more celebrity encounters…
I’ve always been creeped out by the album cover of Gentlemen. Great tune, tho.
Eric Hubble
November 24th, 2012