Fast-forward 7 months and a lot has changed in my life. I started seeing a girl named Rose at the tail end of the 1996 summer and she ended up being the one I lost my virginity to (late bloomer). Jack had also moved out of the townhouse because he had somewhere to live for free. The guy that was sleeping on our couch, Chip, took over Jack’s room. Once Jack’s free stay ended he persuaded me to get another place with him across town where rent was cheaper. That second residence with Jack lasted all of about 4 or 5 months before we moved out. It wasn’t exactly our choice but everything turned out alright. What happened was about a month after we moved in we had a new apartment manager and she decided to move into the apartment that shared a wall with ours. Not ideal for a couple of 19 year old males who like to party. After several warnings and an illegal run in with the cops the final straw came when our buddy Joe backed into my downstairs neighbor’s car in the middle of the night. Joe was drunk and therefore fled the scene. These people could barely speak English but went up to the manager’s place and proceeded to complain. We were to be evicted but luckily for us the assistant manager of the place was the mom of someone we knew by association. She also happened to be the manager of the apartments right down the street. She loved us and not only prevented us from technically getting evicted but put us in a place down the road with no upstairs neighbor, a drug dealer next door, and a huge field outside the back sliding glass door. She said we could be as loud as we wanted to and nobody would mess with us. She was right. I also started working at a place called Autobahn Autocare Center. It was essentially the same job I had at Super Lube but it paid more because now I had the title of “Supervisor.” Right about this time Rose and I also broke up because she decided to move with her family to Corvallis, Oregon.
As far as the concert I don’t remember too many details. I remember Weezer opened for No Doubt and that was the real reason I wanted to go to the show. They were still touring for Pinkerton and had these creepy trees on the stage. They played many songs from the Blue Album and Pinkerton because those were the only albums they had to choose from at the time. No Doubt was touring for the album Tragic Kingdom and played all the hits from the album. I feel lucky to have seen them again at this point in the time before Gwen Stefani became a mega-star.
