Shaking Hands with the Frontman of the Rock Fan’s Rock Band
“Thank you Chicago, this is our last song. We’ll be over at the merch tent if you want to say hi.”
That’s what Patrick Stickles said before Titus Andronicus ripped through a cover of The Replacement’s “Bastards of Young.” I did very much want to say hi.
As I watched people come up and talk to Patrick, some taking pictures, some reminiscing about where they’d met before, I thought about what I wanted to say.
In the past when I’ve interacted with someone for the first time who I’ve admired I have put not one, but both feet in my mouth, like when chef Alon Shaya asked what recipes I’d made from his cookbook and I listed off 18 of them in order without breathing. Other times I’m just weird, like when I recently told comedian Matt Cobos after a show that I liked one of his jokes then awkwardly shook his left hand with my left hand because we were standing kinda next to each other and then said, “That was weird, sorry” and then shook his hand correctly and then immediately escaped.
This time I wanted to be honest, and true, a bit more brief, and a lot less awkward.
So, when it was my turn I extended my right hand, looked Patrick in the eye, and said, “Thank you for everything.” He shook my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “You’re very welcome.” Honest, true, and brief.
This is not a celebrity-meeting story—if you wanted to, I’m pretty sure you can shake Patrick’s hand at the merch table after most shows because he is just that kind of person. It’s a story about that “everything.”
Every time I turned a loud song up louder to sing along and feel some catharsis. Every time I smashed on the drums along with the music, pushing myself past my limits to keep tempo. Every lyric that made me feel specifically not alone, every guitar line that made life feel limitless, and every live show where I was renewed.
For me, Patrick has given voice, lyrically and musically, to so many of my thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences through giving voice to his own, and I think the cool thing about being a lover of music is that the “everything” doesn’t need to be defined or delineated to be felt, to be understood. Anyone with someone else’s music scratched into their souls gets it, especially if they admire the person behind the music.
I know Patrick gets it too because I saw him standing at the side of the stage watching Doug Martsch of Built to Spill play guitar later that night, and because I watched him lead the crowd in cheers for Franz Nicolay of The Hold Steady, who had recently testified against the chumps at Live Nation and Ticketmaster before Congress.
It feels pretty cool that I got to honor all the times I’ve blasted “Troubleman Unlimited” by thanking the Troubleman himself. Titus Andronicus Forever.
Gratitude feels good, you should go out of your way to thank someone today. Thank you, too, for reading this far! As a reward, here’s a watercolor I painted of Patrick. jed@kindandfunny.com.
