We had our little fiefdoms.

I don’t know how other bands did it, I’d seen a lot of acts, and I watched how they worked the stage, but I didn’t know how they did it among themselves, you know?

And I never asked because I didn’t want their thing to mess with our mojo.

Dave had his space. Tim his. Preach his. Me mine. And yeah, Josh behind Tim, he had his, he just didn’t know how to use it.

You watch footage, we interacted with eyes and smiles, nods of heads.

And we each ruled our little fiefdom.

It worked.

We weren’t running around the stage.

We weren’t each trying to reach out to every inch of the audience.

We also didn’t just stand at our mics and sing.

We engaged.

And that’s it.

What no one could put their finger on, but we knew.

Critics. Fans.

They couldn’t say what it was.

But that was it.

We didn’t need to run around, and we didn’t need to get up in each other’s space.

We were tight.

A team.

A squadron.

We did not come to you, you came to us, and you took what you got depending on where your seat was.

And it was our job, together and individually, to make you love it.

But tell me this, Tim’s doin’ one of his edgy, punk-like solos and Preacher McCade walks out from behind his mic and stands close to the edge of the stage, his side to the audience, his eyes glued to Tim, where do you look?

He’s not part of the audience.

He’s king, man.

And he doesn’t want you to look at him.

He’s also not showin’ you where to look.

He’s telling you where to look.

That’s command.

He gave that to Tim. To me. To Dave. And fuck him he says different, but watch the footage, it’ll tell you, even to Josh.

I did too. I gave that too.

We did that because it was our band.

And it was ours to give.

Right. We’re in Chicago and Bobby’s already done with us.

I mean, it’s his tour, and he starts to get boos when we only do one encore and his band comes out? And we’re doin’ fuckin’ encores as the lead-in act?

[Shakes head]

He should have worked that. He could have worked that. He could have fed off that.

It’s the opener who’s supposed to start to build the frenzy. It’s the headliner who brings it home. And if they gotta use the opener in part to do that, they do.

He could have included us in his set, played the big man. We did that all the time with openers who were up and coming and caught the crowd during their set.

We’re brothers-in-guitars, man.