Cameron Crowe

But really, we were all kind of young together.

And rock was young.

There wasn't video assists and all the bells and whistles and dancers and stuff.

It was really just a naked stage and people playing songs together.

The power of the songs was the power of the concert.

And what I thought as a young guy led into some of these dressing rooms to glimpse how bands prepared for a show or how they struggled to figure out, you know, who was right in an argument about how to play a song.

I started to see a dynamic that was so human that it was kind of beyond what I'd been able to see as a high school student, for example, when my mom had skipped me

two grades and later three.

I didn't have a lot of friends, but somehow... Because you were much younger than your fellow students, your classmates.

But then, you know, somebody like Chris Christopherson...

deigns to give me an interview and tries to sneak me into a bar where I'm underage.

And then when we get caught, he says, well, I'll sit out here in this big red leatherette chair and I'll do my interview with you as fans and people stream by.

He treated me like an adult.

and talk to me about the power of movies and music and all this stuff that ended up speaking to me so strongly later.

But as a young guy, you're kind of in this position where, you know, this person is allowing me to ask them whatever I want to about music that I love.

It was a blissful time, and I still love writing about it.

I'm just laughing because so much of it was just where I lived.

We lived in San Diego, and San Diego is not a primary market.

San Diego usually happens at the end of a tour after a band or an artist has been in, you know, San Francisco, L.A., New York.

Big reviews they had to worry about.