I have a pretty classic story about that gig. I was one of the first few people in line, and was outside the hall when the Roses were sound-checking. At a certain point the music stopped and Ian came out and walked right up to me and says, "mate, you need to tell the crowd that the gig is off. The PA is crap, and we can't do the show. We'll do the gig tomorrow night somewhere else." I'm just like "EXCUSE ME?" I figure it's Ian Brown talking, so I turn around and yell at the top of my lungs to the now growing line and am greeted with shouts of "fuck you" and "you've got to be fucking kidding me". I was with 3 other people that I had somehow started to talk and bond with, and we ended up taking refuge with the Roses. Somehow I followed them as people start freaking out and started getting confrontational. Some had traveled from Atlanta and other places, and they were pissed. I manage to end up on the tour bus and they told me they were staying at the Ritz in Dupont Circle. They signed all my CDs I had with me, and Ian commented about my "Stand Still" bootleg and asked me where I got it because he wanted one. They asked what there was to do in DC, so I just said "well, there's an English-style pub around the corner from your hotel called the Brickskeller". So they suggested that we meet up there. I met back up with my other new "friends" and the band went back to the hotel to chill out for a bit. We walked by the hotel and recognized a couple roadies, who said "go fetch the band". I remember calling up to Ian's room and he said they were just going to chill with a big bag of weed. So we got to hang with their roadies instead. It was such a surreal evening. The next night was the show at WUST, which was fantastic. Mani was the coolest.
