Do you ever feel like some people are meant to be in your life? I do. By the time I finally met Brian, I felt like we were the best of friends. I had heard of him, could pick out his face anywhere, and spoke about him for hundreds of times and days on end before I actually met him face to face.
Brian, simply put, is the (literal) face of my group of friends. He’s our mascot & our totem. As musicphobes & festival attendees, he is our badge of pride.
While admiring the gorgeous fall-enhanced aspens at Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, one of our friendly camping neighbors asked my buddy Rob, innocently enough, who the guy on our totem, Brian, was. In a plain voice, Rob said, “he’s this guy we know” and left it at that. As I overheard this, I couldn’t disagree- I do think that statement is partially true. But at the core, when it comes to Brian, what a long strange trip it’s been. He’s traveled across the US and has attended 3 festivals over the past 4 months. The tale of Brian and the summer of 2015 go hand in hand. It’s an epic tale that needs to be told. So, consider yourself lucky. Grab your comfiest chair & crack open your favorite microbrew. You’re about to be let in on one of the biggest inside jokes. You’re about to bask in the glory of learning WHO Brian is and WHY he has become, all that he has become.
I found Brian’s face on a rainy day in early June, crunched in between some guitars in the back of the Epilogues’s van (they are, btw, a kick ass Denver based band you should check out.) His huge blown up face sported a mustache, a beard, square glasses and a blank smile. He had a yardstick taped to the backside of him. When I first laid eyes on him, I knew that we were meant to meet…..eventually. (This is a total lie, I just thought it was super weird and as a vow to my weirdness and my #yearofweird, I thought hey, I’ll ask the band about this guy.) It was a longshot to ask the unthinkable considering I had JUST met them, but we were all chugging a beer in their van so I thought, why not. I said “hey, guys, do you think Brian wants to go to Bonnaroo?” Now by asking if Brian wants to go, I was implying the actual cut out of Brian’s face, not the actual man behind it. I had never met Brian, and I didn’t think that the request to borrow the totem of his face was strange. But, in hindsight, it was. It was super fucking weird. if only I knew what I was getting myself into. They grudgingly said, “sure, but take good care of him because we want him back.”
Now all of you festival-heads who’ve attended large scale festivals (especially electronic-heavy ones) know that a great or shitty time can be avoided or ensured by a simple, well thought out totem pole. Totems that are lightweight, unique & easy to detect from others guarantee that even the rowdiest of crews can meet up and more importantly FIND each other in pivotal moments, despite dead cell phones, massive audiences & extreme weather conditions. As simple of a concept as it is, it took my crew a while to embrace the idea of the totem. Yet, when you’re surrounded by tens of thousands of people, the totem takes on a life of its own. It transforms into something greater than a random picture or a flag. It becomes your emblem & you wear that shit with pride. It’s your pride. It’s your logo. And with a face as unique as Brian’s, it was impossible for us to not become attached to him.
When I first brought Brian’s face to our group of cars to pack up for the drive out to Tennessee, they thought I was certifiably on crazy pills. “So we’re going to make a totem of a guy’s face we’ve never met?” They asked. “Yes,” I exclaimed. “Isn’t it so awesome?” None of them shared in my excitement, and they shot me some dirty looks. Begrudgingly they packed him.
Once we got set up our camp at the fest, Brian started to grow on others. It became this game we’d play. Thousands of people would ask us who he was, and depending on our moods we’d give varying stories. Sometimes, we’d reply, “Brian.” They’d then cheer for “Brian” asking no more. If we had the time, we’d get into it. Everyone would take pictures of his face, knowing perfectly well that we didn’t know who he was. But it was fun to imagine. We’d say he was lost somewhere in Centeroo. We’d say he was a boyfriend we left back in Denver. Or a brother. An outgoing group of British guys took possession of him & wouldn’t put him down for all of Rudimental’s set. We gave him a butterfly flash tattoo on his right eye. We even found his doppelgangers! (See photo below)
The look on most of the crowd’s faces were priceless. They thought we were nuts but they bought into the crazy. Our inside joke was spreading like a fire and we weren’t about to put out the flame. (Below is the Roo Crew + Brian)
Shit really escalated when we attended Westword Music Showcase in Denver, a week after ur return from Bonnaroo. True to our crew’s form, we brought Brian along, who was the only totem represented at the festival. He received a call out on the loudspeakers and a picture in Westword.com. Everyone cheered for him all day. He was, at this point, a true member of our crew. Everyone loved Brian.
Beyond the music, I went to Westword with one goal in mind: I NEEDED to give Brian back to his rightful owners, the Epilogues, who were conveniently on the festival lineup that day. (See below for a group shot of the fest with Brian creepin’ in the top.)
As I tried to pry Brian away from my friend’s kung-foo grips, I realized that they were having intense separation anxiety. How could we let Brian go? While I sympathized with them, a promise is a promise. The band wanted him back and I had a deep fear that the real Brian was at Westword, watching his face get literally tossed around deep in the crowd. What was I to do?
Well, I did all that I could which was play it cool as I let the stars align. As we waited for Flume, the headliner, to begin his set, Brian allowed us to feel like the prettiest people at the ball. Then, out of nowhere, a lady ran up to us and exclaimed “That’s my husband!!” Several of us dropped our jaws at that point. Shit was getting real. I had a cold sweat. After chatting with her, she mentioned that the REAL Brian, her husband, had watched us carry his face around all day, with pride, but felt it was funnier to watch it happen from behind the scenes than to approach us about it. We NEEDED to find out his story, and meet the poor guy. We had see if the story we had created for him in our minds, on countless occasions, was as epic as the story of who he was in real life.
We were so ready to meet the man of the hour- the man behind our fearless festival totem. Halfway into Flume, the REAL Brian approached us, and embraced with the totem version of himself. (See below for Brian, the real Brian, and his lovely wife.)
We had so many questions for him, all of which he answered patiently & politely. To us, he was a celebrity. Our admiration for him grew but deep down, I was terrified. How would he react to the fact that we used his face as the symbol of our group at Bonnaroo without permission? That there were hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures of his face circulating around the entire U.S. and maybe even world? More importantly, that I had avoided the epilogues like the plague that day because we had plans to continue to use him and under no condition could we part ways with him and give him back.
His response, is why I still have faith in people in this world. It’s why I believe that people are inherently good and just want to be in on the joke. As each one of us individually gave him and his wife a hug, the stories of his time at Bonnaroo poured out of us. The best part? HE WAS PUMPED. He laughed, and voiced his primary concern: if he had fun at Bonnaroo, experienced lots of good music & good times. We said yes, yes & yes! He said that as long as we were there to experience the true essence of live music, he was content with being our totem forevermore.
And that, my friends, is why Brian made a triumphant return to the festival scene this past weekend at Telluride Blues & Brews. He JAMMED to the Revivalists (a phenomenal up & coming rock & roll blues inspired beast of a band from NoLA) at an unbelievable late night Fais Dos Dos, enjoyed TWO covers of Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang (ZZ Top followed by the Monophonics), and inspired another crew to write us fond love notes left at our campsite addressed us to “Team Brian.” Even the artists wanted to know who this guy was, as the keyboardist for Anders Osborne (a guitarist & singer/songwriter who pours his soul out on the stage) mouthed to us mid-set, “who is that guy?!” only to tell us that he had been dying to know all weekend.
And just like that, Brian has cemented his place into our group of friends, and into the festival circuit. Let this go down as one of the most epic inside jokes out there. And Brian, thank you for being the inspiration and a really cool dude. Your legacy has only just begun. (Below is the crew with Brian from Telluride Blues & Brews.)
