Partying With The Band

I used to work at a hotel in a small suburban middle-upper class area outside of LA when we had some band staying with us for a week. They were playing at the Hollywood bowl, for those of you who don’t know is a rather historic venue that has some of the greatest performances ever to happen in LA, so I knew they were some sort of big deal but no one really knew who they were at the hotel.

I worked the front desk and every night when they would come in for the night I wouldn’t charge them for stuff from the snack shop, it was a small hotel so front desk handled payment for the snacks in our “mini mart” and was friendly with them, should be mentioned none of these guys spoke great English manager included but they knew me by name by the end of their stay.

On their last night it happened to be one of my best friends birthdays and I had bought her a nice bottle of alcohol for her as a gift and she and my best friend were coming to meet me for when I got off work to go celebrate. I had to work until 11 and my friends arrived at about 10:30 to just chill in the lobby. The band comes in with some guitars from being out and I tell them to play her a song for her birthday and they jam out a really sweet birthday song for her and they notice the alcohol and say we all need to take birthday shots, myself included while still working.

The hotel between 10-11pm, depending on the day of the week can be kind of slow and usually just has a few people checking in from late business flights so I partake in the shots and end up having to help a few guests while drunk. Then night audit arrives and I get off the clock and the lead singer and manager are still hanging out with my friends drinking and playing some of their new music they were working on in studio that day and the manager turns to me and says something to the extent of, “Max, you took amazing care of us, shared your alcohol with us on your friend’s birthday, we are going to take you out tonight to celebrate.”

Next thing we know we are getting in their shuttle car thing and take off towards LA, the manager pulls out his black card and asks where a good place for us to go and how he’d handle it. We all agree upon going to the standard to party, he calls the number on the back and says, ” I’ve got 5 people on our way to the standard, have a table ready for us and hangs up.” At the time, aside from myself who is dressed realitivley nicely, suit from work, the lead singer is in shorts and a short sleeve and sandles, not to mention he is a bit older of a guy to be going to this place. We pull up and walk right to the front of a velvet rope line and the manager says, “we have a table” but they look at the singer and the bouncer says, ” he can’t come in wearing that” they turn to us saying we can’t get in and I say did you show them your black card, he turns around showing it and we immediately get let in and rushed to a private elevator lift straight to the club open patio level and we exit through the bar with them handing each of us a free round of drinks.

We stay and drink a lot more until the party stops at 2:30, fucking early last call in LA, and they pick up the tab and we leave. The guys are hungry so we go to Jerry’s deli, another well known staple in LA for after clubbing open 24 hours diner, and we order a ton of food, during all this, we realize the manager is in love with the birthday girl and he pleads with her to come with them to their next stop in aspen to which she continuously rejects, we all get back to the hotel around 4:30am and say our goodbyes.

I later do my research on the band after receiving a friend request from the singer and discover the band was the Gipsy Kings.