Diary of a Musician

March, 17th, 1970

Today I was awoken by the sound of my manager screaming in my ear. "Get up, Aaron! We have to go!" As I opened my eyes, the sun was shining through the window. The light was so painful. I pulled the covers up over my head and then Michael pulled the covers off of me. The only problem was, I was wrapped up in the covers. So when he pulled the covers off, I flew off the bed. "I'm up... I'm up..." i moaned. When I got out of the shower, the redhead was gone. I put on some jeans and an old t-shirt and went down to the lobby with the rest of the band. "Psst! Aaron!" Robert whispered as I stood next to him, waiting for the car to come pick us up. "What?" I said indifferently. "Sounded like you got lucky last night. Woohoo!" Robert yelled. I winced at the booming sound that was Robert's voice. "Let's play a game." I said "It's called the quiet game. We all stay as quiet as possible and whoever talks first, loses." I whispered. John and Jimmy laughed as Robert yelled "No way, man! That sounds boring as hell!" I winced again. I punched Robert's shoulder and told him to shut up. Robert asked John and Jimmy what was wrong with me. "He's hungover, Robert. You drink enough, you know what that's like." Jimmy said to Robert. "Oh, I sure do." Robert said slyly. I knew he was up to something, I wasn't going to worry about it though. We all squeezed into the back seat of the car and went to the airport. On the plane I sat in the back attempting to sleep off the hangover. Jimmy walked over to me holding a cup of coffee. "Here. This should help." Jimmy said softly, knowing that I most certainly did not want to hear any loud voices. I nodded and took the coffee. Jimmy sat down and said "So, the redhead, Right?" I nodded with a smile and took another sip of coffee. We continued chatting about the girls we'd taken to our rooms the night before. Jimmy had taken a tall brunette up to his room. She was very skinny, but then again so was he. We were all pretty skinny but, Robert and i  were the only ones with some muscle. John and Jimmy were just plain skinny. Jimmy asked a few questions about the redhead and I asked a few about the brunette. Jimmy got up to get some more coffee for me and by the time he came back, I was passed out. He took the coffee and went up with the rest of the band. Chicago was a lot like New York and Philadelphia. It was wet, dark, and crowded. I heard they had some of the best food in Chicago. Jimmy was a bit of a picky eater but the rest of us weren't. We stopped at a place called "Gino's East" and got some pizza. It was really good food but, people kept staring and pointing at us while we ate. I didn't realize why until a blonde girl came over and said to Robert "Will you sign a picture for me? I love you and Society! You guys are the greatest!" Of course Robert had no problem signing a picture for this pretty girl. In fact, we all signed it. The people in Chicago spoke differently than the ones in New York and the ones in Philadelphia. We left to get ready for the show and it's a good thing we left early because traffic was absolutely horrible! It took about thirty minutes to go 1km. We got to the show on time. When we went up onto the stage John again was nowhere to be seen. I at least had some idea of what he'd do this time. When Robert played the first beats John yelled "Hello, Chicago!" and the crowd went wild. The lights came on but John still wasn't on stage. "Do you guys know the words to this song?" John asked and the crowd screamed even louder. "Sing it!" John exclaimed. The crowd started singing the song. They knew it word-for-word. It was amazing. At that moment John came running onto the stage with a cape. He pretended to fly around like superman. Then he stopped "flying" and began singing. Every girl in the audience screamed at the top of their lungs. I'm sure a few fainted too. By the end of the show, and three encores later, the whole audience was cheering "Encore! Encore! Encore!" We played one more encore before we left stage. We left feeling so, euphoric. It was better than the show at Madison Square Garden. It was just amazing. We went to a small bar and chatted for a while. "That was so great!" Jimmy declared. Robert was really fired-up. He ran up onto the stage where there was a drum set. He just started banging away on the drums. He broke a stick and two heads. We of course had to pay for that but, it was cheaper than a TV. We pulled him off the stage and went back to the hotel.