I’m a huge Foo Fighters fan. My bestie and I were actually supposed to be at the opening show of their 25th Anniversary Big Red Van Tour on Easter Sunday night, seeing Dave Grohl and the boys rock out with us Phoenicians. Luckily, it will now be an early Christmas present in December and they didn’t have to cancel our tour stop.

Aside from the awesome tunes that Dave writes, he started an Instagram account of Dave’s True Stories during this dumpster fire. They are so great and so funny. I’m hoping he collects them for a book or keeps writing after everything is back to the new normal. But, it’s inspired me to put some of my own stories down on this blog, how I have in the past, but in particular, a few that fall into the rock ‘n’ roll category. Yes, there actually are some of those. So here goes nothing. This one’s for Dave.

I had an internship at a dot com my last semester of college at ASU. I was graduating with a B.A. in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in May 2000. My guidance counselor helped me get the internship at AccessArizona.com and it was paid which was really hard to come by so I was thrilled. I wouldn’t have to work an extra job – just that one. It wasn’t exactly front page, ambulance-chasing news like I wanted but lots of fun entertainment stuff that I dug. They gave me a lot of freedom to create fun new sections of the site like Downtown Amy Brown where I wrote a column reviewing the latest music venues and local bands around town. It was fun. And, after being there one month, I turned 22, so was still in my newbie legal drinking-mode. It was perfect for hitting the town on the regular.

In addition to running a few entertainment channels of the website, I was also gifted the “Webmistress” title for running the Edge’s website. Now, the Edge was all alt-rock radio station in Phoenix that sadly no longer exists. It was awesome in its hayday. We had a number of partnerships with local radio stations where in exchange for us running their websites, they’d give us free advertising for our website. Seemed like a good tradeoff, one would think. But man, those radio personalities could be a handful.

For example: I’d be driving to work to Downtown Phoenix from my condo in Mesa, so a bit of a drive. This was in 2000 so not as much traffic as we have now but still Rush Hour. I’d be listening to the morning show and they’d say things like “This will be on our website within the next 10 minutes so check it out!” Yeah, good times. I was more like their radio bitch a good chunk of the time but all-in-all, it was still a ton of fun especially at 22 years old. And, when I finally broke through the barrier of their too-cool-for-school attitudes, I became close with a number of the DJs and the promotion folks, letting me tag along to shows because they wanted to make sure they got photo slideshows of everything. So the “Webmistress” was finally part of the gang and not just some dumb college kid (who then graduated and got a full-time gig with AccessArizona, BTW).

That summer after I graduated, they had their big annual EdgeFest, a full afternoon and night of bands at what’s now Ak-Chin Pavilion. I think it was in June or July, so nice and hot. I usually avoid that music venue in the summer but I was the Webmistress and ready to rock out with my trusty digital camera. I don’t recall all of the line-up but I remember some of the highlights – Cypress Hill, Bush and Everclear.

Pistol Pete, one of the DJs, was my very favorite. I loved paling around with him – he was ton of fun and such a character. He had a ginormous crush on Gavin Rossdale, the frontman for Bush (and now ex-husband of Gwen Stefani). He told me leading up to the fest that his goal was to find him, have him sign a poster and was very hopeful for a big hug too.

That night, in between snapping photos of the other bands backstage and the sidestage where there were all the pre-show interviews, we walked by tour bus after tour bus yelling “GAVIN! WHERE ARE YOU, GAVIN??!!” like the couple of crazies we were. We weaved our way in and out of the buses, dodging bodyguards and security. We had official backstage passes so that was excuse enough for us to be super-coo-coos. Bush was the second to last band before Everclear would close out the night. And the band before them was on stage right then.

We struck out with the tour buses and decided to head inside to the green room. And sure enough, there was Gavin in the hallway, tall and hot as ever, talking to some fans. I’m pretty certain Pete nearly passed out when he saw him and he grabbed my arm and squeezed.

“Oh. My. GAWD, honey, it’s HIM!”

I got my camera at the ready and we walked as slowly as we could up to him, not being too neurotic, but picking up the pace as we saw that he was ending his coversation with the couple of fans and starting to walk away. I wasn’t going to miss out on Pete getting that autograph on his poster and most importantly, that hug. I also wanted to fangirl a bit and at least get my ticket stub signed.

I honestly don’t even remember the conversation we had – I just remember how nice and gratious he was, especially to Pete, who had turned three shades of red and did get that autograph and hug he had been dreaming of. I snapped multiple photos that I’m sure Pete printed and hung up everywhere he could. I remember one being in his office at the radio station.

They went on stage shortly after and we ran out front to watch, both of us grinning ear-to-ear. They were awesome – I hadn’t seen then perform before so it was a real treat. And, that we’d just met Gavin, made it even sweeter. They could have sung nursery rhymes. It didn’t matter – we’d achieved Pete’s goal and that was that.

We then went backstage and watched Everclear from Stage Left. It was beyond surreal to look out at the crowd when I was always used to being in the crowd. The sound of the fans and the loud music combo was overwhelming, not to mention the heat exhaustion and all the beer I’d had. It was one of the best nights of my life. I think I slept for a full 24 hours, once I got home at around 5 a.m. It’s tough partying like a rock star. The cliche is so fucking true. That was the first night of a few more memorable shows I was fortunate to be invited to. Pete was always so great to let me be his sidekick and I loved him for that.

Years later I saw Bush open for Nickelback. Yes, I’m a huge fan of Nickelcrack, as my bestie and I call them, and proud of it. And no, I don’t care that a pickle has more fans then they do. I still dig ’em.

When Bush took the stage at the Pepsi Arena in Denver, I couldn’t help but smile and remember that epic summer night. It would never fade, no matter the years or excessive drinking. It was locked away in my memory forever, as it should be, and came back in a rush as soon as they started playing Glycerine. Thanks, Gavin, for the sweet, sweet memory and Pete, for everything.