Lou Reed, New Sensations, 1984

This show at 2Co’s Cabaret is on December 8th, the 24th anniversary of the shooting of John Lennon. That morning I mention to Debbie that I’ll have to remind Ed about the date, that maybe he’ll want to work up some kind of tribute. She fixes me with a gaze and says, “Like maybe his song John Lennon?” I can be so incredibly dense at times.

I call Debbie that afternoon from soundcheck at 2Co’s. She tells me a guy named Scott has called the house and explained that he and his girlfriend’s first date was a Hamell On Trial show in 1998. He further explains that he wants to propose to said girlfriend that night during the show, if it’s all right with Ed.

I relate this to Ed and he says “Are you serious? He wants to propose during MY show? Wouldn’t a Julio Iglesias or Engelbert Humperdink show be a more romantic venue for a proposal?” I explain to Ed that nobody other than he and I and my easy-listening-Lawrence-Welk-loving-sister remember who Engelbert Humperdink IS and that I’ll call the guy and check out the situation.

Scott calls the house again and speaks to Debbie twice more before Ed and I even make it home for dinner. He’s nervous. He’s freaking out. He’s a groom in the making. When I finally talk to him I tell him to get with me at the show that night, we’ll get it all together, but that Ed would be happy to facilitate the proposal.

Ed goes on just after 10 p.m. that night. About twenty minutes into the show, during the intro to I’m Gonna Watch You Sleep (Scott and his intended’s “our song”), Ed pauses and asks if anybody in the audience had their first date at a Hamell On Trial show. Scott and his girlfriend raise their hands and Ed invites them up onstage. He asks them a couple of questions to try to determine what possessed them to have their first date at a Hamell On Trial show and then asks Scott if he has any questions he’d like to ask.

Scott drops to one knee, pulls a ring box out of his pocket, (at this point, a woman in the front row, realizing what was coming next, gasped audibly) and says, simply, sweetly, “Angie, will you marry me?” Angie puts her hands to her mouth, says, “Yes!” They embrace, the audience cheers, it’s an incredibly touching moment.

Ed tells me later that he almost had tears in his eyes at that moment. I almost had tears in my eyes at that moment. Debbie and our friend Jen did have tears in their eyes at that moment. Though I have no way of proving it, I suspect there were other wet eyes in the crowd that night.

At virtually that same exact moment, 10:20 p.m., a crazed gunman was in the process of shooting Dimebag Darrell Abbott of Pantera and Damageplan and three other people to death at the Alrosa Villa, a club a scant eight miles from 2Co’s Cabaret.

Thank you Scott and Angie for providing all of us with a heartbreakingly warm memory to counteract the sad heartache of that December night.

“Somebody got themselves married and somebody died.”