There I stood on the stage, microphone in hand, electric guitars buzzing around me and a girl in the audience reduced to tears.
My own personal Elvis moment soon was dashed after realizing the weeping girl was my 3-year-old daughter, who, I learned later, was not a fan of the sounds coming from the stage.
“You were too loud, Daddy,” she said after the brief show — a reunion of my high school band after a 25-year hiatus.
So much for reunions and truth in journalism.
Weeks ago I wrote a column for this paper about how circumstances prevented me from joining my old band’s reunion.
My wife and I had a baby in June, and we have two other children 5 or younger.
The thought of stranding my sleepless bride with this teeming horde seemed, well, unfair.
So I wrote a newspaper column telling the world I was giving up my rock ‘n’ roll fantasy for family obligations.
Don’t believe everything you read.
The deal changed after a few pleading phone calls from my former band mates and the OK from my wife.
I would take my 3-year-old with me to Seattle, where her grandpa could watch over her while I revisited my hedonistic youth.
And let me tell you, sometimes you can go back again. Even if the recordings say otherwise.
The band was called Liquid Generation. I was the lead singer. We played garage neopsychedelic rock and like to say we were grungy before it was cool.
The quintet played a smattering of shows, released a rarely purchased single and appeared on a few compilations with other obscure groups.
This was the mid-1980s, when Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna ruled the airwaves. Our music had fuzzy sounding guitars and singing that was more like crazy yelling punctuated with screams to introduce guitar solos.
I was young. My shredded vocal cords would recover.
But at age 42, prolonged shouting doesn’t happen often, except when ranting at referees.
I agreed to join the group for a record-release party in honor of a new compilation featuring bands who had appeared on Green Monkey Records, an independent Seattle label in the 1980s and 1990s. The compilation, “It Crawled From the Basement: The Green Monkey Records Anthology,” featured my band’s single.
My sudden reversal of commitment meant I had to quickly learn how to sing again like a teenager.
For three weeks, I worked my voice into shape, screaming songs on the way into work.
An Internet website advised the best way to limber up vocal cords is to blow motorboat noises with your lips. Try doing that in public for long periods of time. Your kids will love it.
By the time I flew to Seattle, two days before the performance, band members had rented a rehearsal space near Safeco Field in Seattle popular with heavy metal groups.
I hadn’t seen the fellows for a quarter of a century. Faces sported more wrinkles, hair was shorter and grayer, and beer bottles had been replaced with water bottles.
The lead guitarist had not played a guitar for three years. The drummer’s kit had gathered dust in storage. I had developed a nasty habit of blowing motorboat sounds whenever the conversation paused.
After brief greetings, the band launched into trying to relearn eight songs for the set. Hands cramped, backs ached and my voice quickly became a croak that even blowing bubbles couldn’t fix.
Strangers from bands in the rehearsal space were overheard saying: “Want to see what you’ll look like in 25 years?”
“Check out Room No. 8.”
After two days of rehearsals, a set list formed and songs fell into place.
The band, with members aged 40 to 60, mustered up some of that old magic to open the show.
For 30 minutes on a balmy afternoon in August, we were rockers again. The real thing. Not a video game. And we even made the girls weep.
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
Mike Littwin’s column will return Wednesday.
