In 2003, we were living in NOVA and VT was playing Maryland in College Park.
Now, here’s one thing I need to get out front: I fucking hate Maryland.
I feel towards it like I feel about North Carolina.
The extremes are fine. The middle is abysmal.
I like the mountains in the west and the pastoral Eastern Shore, but the middle can suck it.
So, we’d never been to the University of Maryland campus (which was used as “Georgetown” in “St. Elmo’s Fire” because actual Georgetown University refused to let them film there), but we went because it was close and I hadn’t been to a game in a year or two – even an away game.
I met up with Jamie and Chowder and some other old chums who I hadn’t seen since probably the 1999 National Championship game in New Orleans, and this was actually the first time I’d seen Jamie since I got hired by DSS. A lot of the bitterness I had towards the way I felt he’d shunted me aside for his law school friends had since faded, and I realized much of that was due to the fact that my own career trajectory was finally looking up and I didn’t have to feel so insecure about where my life was going.
My wife was also pregnant with our first child at the time and it looked to be a really fun time.
We showed up at the pre-game party, which was an actual event organized by the Washington, DC area Hokie Club. They had tents and food and games and a very festive party atmosphere, with lots of Hokie fans milling around excitedly in enemy territory.
They even had live music by none other than Pat DiNizio of The Smithereens.
He was playing a solo acoustic show and I couldn’t believe how weird it was to be seeing this guy playing all alone by himself with a single acoustic guitar for people who were barely paying attention to him when he was in one of the biggest bands of the 1990s that EVERYONE in college listened to.
As he went through his litany of hit songs, including “Behind The Wall Of Sleep,” “A Girl Like You,” “Blood And Roses,” “Only A Memory,” “Blues Before And After,” and “House We Used To Live In,” I began to realize what an exceptional talent he was.
These songs were absolutely amazing and were an indelible part of my college experience and the life experience of tens of thousands of music fans who grew up in that era.
And here he was up on stage for the pre-game of a meaningless football game playing be himself in front of a bunch of drunk semi-adults who were more concerned about where they could get another draft Bud Lite than listening to the music that had once meant so much to so many.
I found it an incredibly sad scene.
When he died several years ago, I was equally sad and recalled that almost pitiful spectacle that I’d once witnessed.
But musicians have to work. They need a paycheck. And he didn’t seem to care.
As a footnote, Tech beat Maryland at Byrd Stadium that night, but only after we’d left in the Third Quarter as the Maryland fans were becoming such assholes towards the VT fans. I remember the stadium was a pile of shit and we were actually in the West End Zone on metal bleachers like the kind you see at a high school game.
Lane Stadium this was not.
As my wife and I walked towards our car, we heard yelling and screaming behind us. I barely had time to pull my pregnant wife off the footpath before a golf cart commandeered by four drunken and belligerent Maryland students flew past us, throwing beer cans and hurling invectives.
We quickly made our way to our car and fled back to the safety of the Old Dominion as rapidly as possible.
I fucking hate Maryland.
LINK
Song Of Ajax 