Sitting on the tour bus around midnight, at the end of that long day, Ricky (bass player & occasional back-up screamer for my band The Nixons) told me, “We just kept on playing after you fell off stage and disappeared. But I kept wondering…what if he’s dead down there. How long do we keep playing? Then you jumped back onstage”.
Earlier that day, at sound check at the lovely Patchogue Theater on Long Island, Michael (our sound man, tour manager and general fixer of all things) pulled me aside and said, “Zac look at this orchestra pit at the edge of the stage. That thing you do where you jump out into the audience…don’t do that tonight. That’s 8 feet down onto concrete.” This was the third to last stop on an amazing summer tour with Everclear & Fastball. And as fate would have it, during the end of our last song “1X1”, I stuck my boot out over that pit, slipped & fell backwards 8 feet down landing on my hand & hip. The ER doc told me later it was essentially the equivalent of a car crash.
Still kinda sore a few months later.
One broken finger, a few bruises and a surgery later…I’m able to reflect that all in all, I’m pretty lucky. Could’ve been worse.
All the cliches apply.
I had been joining Everclear during their set for their killer cover of “The Boys Are Back in Town”. I called Michael from the ER, told him to make sure Art (singer & badass for the band) knew that I wouldn’t be able to join them onstage tonight. He simply replied that everyone knew. However, Art told me the next day he had looked for me side stage before the Thin Lizzy cover & asked his monitor guy where I was. “Still at the ER I assume”.
That’s how Art found out. The next night when he brought me up, he told the story of the orchestra pit only this time it was 9 feet. The next night, 12. By the time we played a festival a few weeks later, Art claimed I’d fallen 14 feet down.
What’s that saying? Don’t let a lie get in the way of a good story…
My surgeon, Dr. Weikert (we had kids in school together, so I knew him to be a great dude & perhaps the best orthopedic hand doc in the country) told me post op, it was the worse break he’d seen. Knowing he’d worked on professional athletes here in Nashville, I asked how that could be possible. He simply replied, they were pads, gloves, protective gear.
Ahh, yeah.
He also thought it would be funny to have Nixons music piped in during the surgery. As I drifted off, “1X1” began to play. Last thing I remember, I told them all “This is the song we were playing when I fell”. They got a kick out of that.
I am, in fact, thankful it wasn’t worse. I’m also happy to report, I somehow scampered up & out of that 16 feet deep orchestra pit to finish the set. It was also lucky the last two gigs were NYC & Boston where my two sons each live. They jumped up for those gigs to cover guitar duties for the injured me.
Finally, I am thrilled to answer Ricky’s question.
Nope, not dead yet.
