1. Part 1. Pre-Concert Happenings.
2. Part 2. The Concert.
3. Part 3. After the show.

Part 3. After the show

After the show several of us went up to the table where they were selling Dogstar CD's and talked to a guy who was sitting there. We found out from this man that Dogstar has no real manager at present. But this guy works for Dogstar. This man, amazingly, gave a whole group of us backstage passes. Passes in hand, we were told to enter a room to our right. We filed in with great expectations. The room was large with many tables and chairs and only a few people in it. Soon the opening act appeared. This was promising.

We wait. And wait. Wondering where the Dog stars are. The situation seems a bit odd, to say the least. Finally one of the guys who works for the Backbeat club comes by and asks us who we are. We show him our passes. He says, something like, "Well, if you were wanting to see Dogstar, you are in the wrong place. They are in the Jungle Room." "Where's that?" we say. He points the way and we trek out toward the Jungle Room.

Three of my friends show their passes and enter the Jungle Room, and so do I. But, as I look around after me, something happens--no one else is allowed to enter. We turn to complain, but it does no good. And it's no wonder. The Jungle Room is pretty small and already packed. We look around. There seems to be a odd tension in the air. I really have no idea what caused that tension, but tension is hanging there thicker than the haze of smoke palpable in the air. Oddly, Rob and Bret are standing alone up against the wall by the door to the outside--the Jungle Room opens to the rear of the club where the vans and the limo are parked.

My friend and I walk up to Bret and Rob. My friend gets to talk to Bret briefly before they pull away out the door. We turn back to the room. I wander amidst the crowd toward the center of the room. Another friend points out Keanu sitting on a couch across the way. He seems to be rather uncomfortable sitting there, as if he's poised, just about ready to take flight.

We have just now been watching Keanu, and Bret and Rob, from closer than this, for over an hour, but that was up on stage. It seems rude to stand in this room and stare at Keanu. So I just glance over at him every now and then.

I realize in retrospect that I must have been in a daze, because my powers of perception seem to have failed me. Everything I remember is a bit blurry. Who would ever have expected to be back here? I think Keanu has changed into a white T-shirt--I have the impression of light color around him, but I really couldn't tell you for sure what he was wearing. The only thing I saw was his face. And, yes, next to Ke, almost enveloped by this big soft couch is his mother. She is wearing a white straight-skirted dress (I think) and sits with her feet stretched out before her. She looks fragile, and, to me quite tired. In fact, I'd say her eyelids were drooping. She is sitting there quietly.

There seems little hope of approaching Keanu where he sits--at least approaching him there is not anything I could contemplate doing--so I wander off over toward that rear door to talk to another friend. Just then, I sense some movement in back of me. I turn and see a dark haired figure walking determinedly toward the door. He'll be walking right past me. His face is composed--not a smile, not a scowl, just neutral. Yet the man seems intent on passing through the room without being hindered. It takes me a while--much too long a while--to recognize that this is Keanu. Yeah, I must have been in a daze. He goes on out the door.

In just a minute or two, I see Keanu re-enter. He's definitely a man on a mission. Thinking about it later, I figure Ke must have gone outside to find Bret and Rob and tell the drivers he wants to leave right away. Suddenly my friend stops Keanu. I don't remember hearing what she said. But she has stopped him and asked him for an autograph. Keanu is using the red pen she borrowed from me to autograph her Dogstar CD. I'm standing right by her as he scrawls his signature.

Keanu turns to hurry off--back toward that couch and his tired mom, I suppose. I stop him, reach out for his hand, for a brief clasp. His hand is warm and soft--that I remember. I have no trouble talking to him. That much I know now--in a better situation one could talk to him very easily. "May I give you something?" I say. I'd had it in my head to give him a little token, rather than to ask for an autograph. My notion of giving him something was always bound up with a little dream of speaking with for him for a minute or two. Even then I was unprepared. I didn't have the token ready to give him--not at all. And the way I approached him--it was in an almost leisurely fashion, clearly asking for some time. And time is something Keanu did not, at that moment, have. His eyes were very clear and dark and sparkling as I looked into his face. He looked briefly around the room, as if deciding. I gave him a chance to decide. "Um, no," he said. And if he did not exactly smile, I felt the kindness in his eyes. I heard it in his voice. I really believe that he thought that it would have been rude to take something from me--whatever it might be--and just run off. And his priority was to get out of there. Maybe to get his mom out of there. Hell, I kind of wanted to get out of there myself. So I said, "okay," and smiled and he went on his resolute way.

Later on I felt badly. But not because Keanu had said, "No." Oh no. I felt bad because I had been so close to perhaps really speaking with Keanu, but the circumstances were against it. I had felt the tension in that room. I could see he was on a mission to leave. I felt, later, like the most blessed thing for me would have been to leave him alone. But, I'm no saint, so I approached him. And I am glad I got to shake his hand and speak with him. But I wish, also, I would just have said to him, "great concert."

Right after my encounter with Keanu, we were shooed out of the room. We went around the back and saw that, yes indeed, Dogstar was leaving. Rob stood outside a blue van. My friend got his autograph and asked him when a new CD might be coming. He said something like, "It will be a while." I said to Rob, "I really liked the new songs. They were great." He just beamed at that. Rob looked great in his light stubble. He has such a sunny smile. Really, I thought, what group has three such great-looking and personable guys in it? "Are you coming to the Northwest? Seattle or Portland?" I asked. "That's in the plans," he said. "Great, you have lots of fans there," I said and stepped aside to let him depart.

The last thing I saw was the briefest of glimpses of Keanu getting inside the limo. I don't know if Bret was inside with him or where that man had gotten to.

So back we went to our friend's house to talk about our experiences. To review the excitement of those that got backstage to what seemed like Dogstar Heaven, and the disappointment of those for whom the way was barred, but who hope sometime their time will come.

Reflecting on the way home, I thought about what Keanu had said of himself "It's a wave. It's a particle." He was saying that there are contradictions within him. Now I had felt a dual aspect of his persona in his films and when I saw him in person last December and now again on stage playing with Dogstar. But I felt that duality terribly strongly when I came face to face with him, when I spoke to him and he to me, when I looked into his eyes, shook his hand, and felt the actual puffs of his breath as he spoke. I felt like: "Wow, he's an ordinary guy. A person with flaws and troubles, sometimes unsure, right now a bit frazzled. But sweet, kind, approachable. He'd be fun to talk to, given the right circumstances." And at the very same time, I felt like: "This guy is every bit as extraordinary, beautiful, and special, as deep and deserving of admiration as anyone in the world--as anyone I can imagine." There was not one whit of disappointment in meeting him up close, let me tell you.

Ke is that everyman, your brother, your son, your boyfriend, your friend. And Ke is as close to the ideal as you are likely to see walking around. It's weird, weird, weird. He's a particle. He's a wave.

It was only on the plane flying home that I took the red pen out of my purse and suddenly realized, hey, that's the pen that Keanu used to autograph my friend's CD. She gave it back to me. I've got to laugh at this little unexpected memento of one extraordinary experience so close to Dogstar Heaven.