I know cool bands don’t cover “Stairway to Heaven.” In fact, I’ve never heard any band cover “Stairway” anywhere period, but that is the only song that James has ever insisted that the band learn. It is difficult to deny your teenage son the opportunity to play “Stairway,” especially when he volunteers to sing it. So, I don’t think playing it made me less cool, it is just that people who think I’m cool became more select. You can decide for yourself if you think this was cool at all.
Here is what happened. We had a gig at a local parish festival. We were given a time slot between 7:30 and 8:00 between two ethnic dance groups. We were to set up, play, and be cleared out in less than 30 minutes. Not gonna happen.
So I made a counter proposal. We move the start of the festival to 6:30, and we go on first. We’ll be cleared out by 7:30. The dance group that was going on first didn’t like this idea. It is always better to set up at your leisure and not have to wait for anyone. The other performers were like, “Who does he think he is changing the schedule?”
So we’re playing our set and around 7:00 the ethnic dance group, in full costume, starts to surround the stage. At about 7:10, their leader goes over to the sound guy and starts making a slashing sign across her throat and then motioning with her thumb over her shoulder. I don’t know how to read lips, and I don’t understand sign language, but I think she meant, “Get them off now. Pull the power if you have to.”
At the end of the song I make eye contact with the sound guy and put up one finger and nod my head. He nods that he understands we are going to do one more. Their leader doesn’t like this one bit. She wants us off now and starts doing the slash/thumb gestures double time.
The sound guys looks back to me hoping that given her reaction we will call it a day. But we had learned “Stairway.” I’d been practicing it for a month. James wanted to play this. And, his buddy Matt, also 13, was going to play the “Stairway” solo on saxophone.
So I looked right at her and played the opening arpeggio to “Stairway” and she completely flipped out. She knew what was happening. She started banging her fists on the side of the stage. I didn’t see her after that.
Later that summer, I ran into the sound guy at another function. He said that was the funniest thing he had seen all summer and the best cover of “Stairway” he’d heard in a really long time.