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My Five for Fighting Experience

Date: November 6th, 2000

Here is my story. It is my first semester of College and I’m attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, Ma. I had two roommates which I had the great fortune of sharing musical tastes with. For weeks we planned to attend a small Five for Fighting show at a venue in Cambridge, Ma called Kendall Cafe. We gathered all of our friends who also wanted to go and since it was snowing we hopped on the subway as far as we could then walk the rest of the way to the venue.

We arrive at the venue and walk inside the small, but really nice warm room to be immediately stopped by the bouncer. He asked for ID’s and since none of us were yet 21 we could not go in. Now mind you, this show was not advertised as 21 and up so we were not expecting this. We decided that since we took the trek out there we might as well stay and listen even from the freezing cold outdoors. So it’s 30 degrees Fahrenheit, snowing and getting very dark out in a neighborhood we don’t know so what do my roommates and friends do? They climb a tree so they can see inside. John Ondrasik, singer songwriter of Five for Fighting, sees my friends jumping and climbing and in the microphone asks the bouncer what happened. The bouncer explains and John got sad.

After his hour and change length set he packed up his gear and disappeared.

Five minutes later John comes outside with Gregg Wattenberg, another member of Five for Fighting, and his guitar. They walk over to us and John says “I heard you guys couldn’t get in, what song you want to hear?” We all looked at each other and said “Superman!” John’s eyes opened wide and he said “Only if you guys sing with us.”

Now, little did he know but I had a voice recorder in my pocket and silently hit record. This was the most amazing experience ever. Singing in the freezing cold with friends, to a song that is absolutely incredible WITH the person who wrote the song…and I get it on tape.

John was very nice and even after playing he hung around and spoke with us for a while before heading back inside. The only word to describe that experience is ‘amazing’. Interestingly enough the tour that John and Gregg were doing was called ‘The Gloves off Tour’ and they both left their gloves on for this one.

With the happy story of course must come a sad one. It is now eight years later and I have no clue where that tape went. But fortunately I still have the memory in my head.

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