I'll be bringing the whole family to the show in Philly... TFF was the first band I totally geeked out over, sponging up every single for the B-sides (riding my bike to the record store way farther away than I was allowed to go), going back into their days as Graduate... all of it. Never lost my love for them over the years, sang along to those songs in the car with my dearly departed dad, took some lumps during the falling out of the 90's, rejoiced over the reunion... and finally saw them live for the first time on the Happy Ending tour. Then again in the front row at the House of Blues in Atlantic City a few years later with my new wife; a small, intimate, kick-ass show. That enough would have been a great ending to the story. But alas...
Skip ahead and I've got two school-age kids that have grown up with TFF as a huge part of their personal soundtracks as well. In 2017 I came home from work one day and told my wife "hey, I got us some tickets for the U2 Joshua Tree show" and my daughter, then 7, says "OOH, am I going?!?" I said "oh, babe... I didn't even think of that because this is an outdoor stadium show and is going to be a really long and hot day outside... but someday someone is going to ask you what your first concert was, and it's my job to make sure you've got an awesome answer for that. So, if you could see anyone live, who would it be?" And of course she blurts out, without hesitation, "TEARS FOR FEARS!"
Proudly, I said "YESSSS... the next time they tour, we are totally there." And wouldn't you know it? A day or two later their tour with Hall & Oates was announced, and I was able to grab us floor seats up in Newark, about 15 rows from the stage. So we go, my little girl with her TFF t-shirt with their faces on it (an important detail)... and of course she is by far the youngest person there (even I was on the younger side in my early 40's the the time, ha!), save two teenage girls I noticed a few rows ahead of us. When the band came on and the people around us started noticing that she knew the words to every song, getting more and more excited every time a new song started and she immediately knew it, people started really all getting into it—allowing me to put her on my shoulders, everyone around us just having a blast with her. And I'll tell you what... at the end of Head Over Heels? My daughter and I looking at each other and singing "funny how... tiiiiiiiime fliiiiiiiiiiiiies...."? The memory still crushes me. What a moment.
So the show ends, it was late for her, we were far from home and she didn't really know any H&O at the time (I know, my bad), so I decided we'd beat the crowd and head out. However, I noticed those teenage girls a few rows up had actually taken some video of my daughter and I singing, etc., and now they were climbing over the rows clearly trying to come back and talk to us. I noticed this and they kinda waved at me, so I waited for them to get to us. When they did, they started talking to my daughter: "wow, you KNOW all of these songs?!" "Yeah! I sing them with my daddy!" "Oh my gosh, that is so cool! Is this your daddy?" "Yep!" Then they pointed to her shirt. "Well, that's MY daddy right there on your shirt!"
Then they looked at me and I went "wait, what?" And she says "yeah, Curt Smith is my dad." Then to my daughter: "would you like to come backstage and meet him?" She looked up at me and said "would that be OK, daddy?" "Um, yeah, I think that'd be OK." So Curt's daughters escort us over to the side where I meet Curt's wife, and everyone was super awesome and so great with my little girl. Because my daughter was so tiny they escorted us backstage ahead of the queuing meet and greet line, let her grab some candy from craft services when her eyes almost bugged out of her head seeing the spread, and then bam - a door opens and Curt's daughters were already in there showing him the video they had taken.
He was super gracious, got right down on his knees and was talking to my daughter, who was uncharacteristically sort of bashful and shell-shocked at this point—told her how much he loved her shirt (and that he liked my Prince shirt, too - ha!), and then offered to sign her backstage pass. He then wanted to guess how to spell her name, spelled it wrong, and she got all sassy with him: "that's not how you spell it!" "OH, I'm so sorry! How do you spell it?!" =) And after all of that, I got to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and thank him for all of the music and memories over the years. It was simply perfect. Short, sweet, and sincere.
Then we were shown how to slip out the back, which we did. But this all happened so quickly right after the show and before the rest of the meet and greet (which appeared to only be with Curt) was starting, that we opened the door and walked right into Roland, who was placing his stage clothes into a flight case. He kinda looked at me like "uh oh..." but all I did was reach down to my daughter and say, "that's Mr. Roland too, if you'd also like to say hi to him", at which point he looked down and noticed her with a warm "oh hello little darling", a nice handshake for her, a smile and nod between he and I, and we were off.
It wasn't until were were up by the concession stand that my daughter sort of absorbed what we had done and how well it had gone, and she started jumping around in excitement. When I texted my wife (who had a performance of her own that night) the picture below with no explanation... all I got back was "WTF?!?!?!?!??!"
Epilogue: the next summer when my little guy was 6, we did end up taking the whole family to U2 on the Experience Tour. And he wouldn't stop asking about when HE was going to meet the band. I actually did tweet U2 with an abridged story and ask, but knew that was a hail mary.
