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Just before my senior year at ISU it was announced that during the fall semester the school would be putting on a production of Tommy, and that auditions would be held for the live band. To be honest, I wasn’t terribly familiar with The Who’s music at that point, but over the past few years I had gotten plenty of experience playing guitar at Theater of Ted. Were it not for Ted, I wouldn’t have had nearly as many opportunities to play material for an audience, and I certainly wouldn’t have had the confidence to audition for a band. I believe our Friend In Time Pete Guither, having overseen a bunch of my Ted performances, mentioned the coming auditions since he would be conducting and playing the keys. I sacked up, learned how to play Pinball Wizard and music from Super Mario 3, and ended up getting the spot as one of two guitarists in the band. I was single for most of that summer and was by myself in my apartment most of the time, so while I wasn’t working at Sears, playing Morrowind, or watching a disc a day of 24, I was getting very good at the music. By the end of the summer I was fully confident that I could be a valuable part of a rock band.
As soon as I had gotten the call confirming my place in the Tommy band, I was given instructions to grow my hair out for the part. Since I’ve never had the fullest or fastest-growing head of hair, my remaining option was to grow out my beard. For about 3 months.
Gross!
To try to compliment the increasingly homeless look that I was obtaining (I was not very successful with the ladies that summer, in case you were wondering), I started wearing bandannas to class, to rehearsal, and pretty much to everything else. As the time crept closer to opening night, much of the rest of the cast was growing out their hair and beards and also started wearing bandannas. It was big enough of a thing in the theatre department that it might as well have been the Autumn Of The Bandanna. The crew made the band look amazing. We had a huge moving band platform and a light tree that swung inward toward the audience when they wanted us to look even more awesome. I had the freedom to do pretty much whatever I wanted onstage as long as I was hitting the right notes, and I went nuts.
Oh, did I mention the time during our final dress rehearsal when I broke a string and managed to replace and tune it in my nine measures of rests? Because I did. Changing a string in under 25 seconds has to be some sort of record, and to this day I have no idea how I was able to pull it off. I think it’s akin to when a man summons incredible strength when he’s about to get crushed by a boulder or something.
And that’s how Illinois State allowed me to be a rock star for two weeks.
Yeeaaaaahh girl
