By the fifth and final day of Rock Camp, I was burnt out, exhausted from blogging when I should have been sleeping and the underlying stress of even Rock Camp’s most exhilarating moments. My hands were sore from playing the drums. My lips were chapped from the desert air. And it took a lot of energy to hold back the tears that were constantly threatening to well up in my eyes.

I had tried pretty successfully to keep the issue of Chris’ waning life-force at arm’s length in order to keep things upbeat. But as the excitement of having played with Roger Daltrey, Jack Bruce and the other big stars receded, it was all I could think about, and for good reason. Despite foregoing his prescribed dose of morphine during the daylight hours—inviting what must have been excruciating pain so he could remain lucid for practice and performances—Chris had been slipping in and out of consciousness between songs with what seemed like increasing frequency. Having seen the same behavior in my mother in the days before she passed away from pancreatic cancer, I had to acknowledge that this really would be Chris’ last Rock Camp. And here it was coming to an end.

This was the context in which Sunday unfolded.

The camper bands were scheduled to record one song in the afternoon and to perform two or three that evening at the House of Blues. Arriving at an unfamiliar practice room with just 45 minutes to perfect our counselor-band composition, “You Could Be My Fantasy,” for the first part of this scenario, I was horrified to find only one drum kit in the room and Chris nowhere in sight.

He appeared some minutes later—wheelchaired in as usual by his sister Leighanne—looking so spent that our counselor, Mark Slaughter, asked me to take the kit first. As the band ran through the original and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” I was miles away from playing well, missing obvious beats and no longer feeling comfortable with the arrangements. With time running out, I traded places with Chris so that he could rehearse each song once. He played a little better than me but was obviously hanging by a thread.

Out of rehearsal time, we made our way to another MGM Grand rehearsal room, which had been outfitted for multi-track recording. With each band given just one live take and a short space of time in which to do it, we set up quickly and began to play. Unbelievably, Chris perked up and played extremely well, as did I. But just as the song was coming to an end, the band came unglued—my fault for not cueing off Chris, as was our custom.

And that was it. Here’s your record. Thank you very little. Or so we thought.

Stepping up as a really caring advocate for the group, Slaughter demanded we get another take. And then the strangest thing happened. We performed the song great from start to finish, with Chris putting in such a stellar performance you would never have guessed his true condition. I was totally in awe of his professionalism.

After a nice long break, we rendezvoused at the House of Blues and played the waiting game as friends and relatives of the campers entered along with total strangers who just wanted to see this curious-sounding show, billed as the 10th Annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp’s “Campalooza.”

Scheduled second, we assembled off stage-right and the whole group—Chris, singer Amanda, bassist Stephen, guitarists Yayo, Sheldon and Rich—was relaxed. That wasn’t exactly a good thing for Chris, of course. He was drifting so deeply that for a few minutes I thought I might end up having to play the drums alone.

But as soon as the initial group of counselors began sound-checking, he rallied and began warming up with gentle shakes and stretches. Then, after taking stock of his gear, he hooked me up, as usual, with a pair of Vic Firth “Extreme” drumsticks, plus a backup stick in case I had another “Born Under a Bad Sign” moment.

As the seconds ticked off, I conferred with Chris and his sister about the best way for him to get to the far side of the stage in order to maintain our usual configuration with him on my left. When I suggested that we just wheel him behind the back curtain and around to his kit, he got a little testy with me.

“I am walking onto that stage,” he declared, a man still able to will things into being.

And so, Chris Gailfoil’s band, Roadside Prophets, all walked onto stage at the appointed hour and prepared to play our little dirt-road ditty, a kind of Aerosmith-Tom Petty construct with sassy, straightforward lyrics that Amanda penned under Mark Slaughter’s tutelage. It wasn’t the greatest thing ever written but considering what we’d gone through to get it together, it may as well have been the “1812 Overture.”

And just as we had in the recording studio, we nailed it. Most of the time, it seemed to kind of play itself. Looking over at Chris I saw molars in his smile for the very first time. And as the cymbals faded out, and Slaughter acknowledged the grim reality of Chris’ long struggle with cancer to the crowd, we got nothing but love back.

Then we did “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” For all Yayo’s excellent guitar licks and Slaughter’s well-intentioned tambourine-conducting, it was something far less than the miraculous ending I had hoped for, with the drums in and out of sync and lost opportunities in every measure. I was all smiles walking off the stage, yet I couldn’t help beating myself up about it internally: If only I’d been a better drummer, I could have carried Chris through it and kept the band tight.

Bypassing the camera crew shooting the camp’s publicity reel, I walked out the stage door and headed straight for the bar. As I waited to get the bartender’s attention, I noticed a young guy—a Marine, 22, just back from Iraq, it turned out—staring at me, absolutely transfixed by my presence.

“Were you in the last band?” he said.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied cautiously.

“You did ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’?” he asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” I said.

“You guys were great!”

And instantly, I knew he was right.

Having regained my composure, I went back to visit Chris, who was parked in his wheelchair like “the Godfather,” ready to dole out a benediction to the next band.

“Well, what did you think?” I asked him.

“It was fantastic,” he said. “The original more so than ‘Sweet Child,’ I think.”

We talked a bit more about things musical, both of us knowing that it would probably be our last face-to-face conversation. And then I remembered that I still had his drumsticks.

“Where’s your stick-bag?” I asked him.

“What?”

“Where’s your stick-bag?” I repeated holding up the three Vic Firths he’d given me earlier. “I want to put these back before I forget.”

“Those are yours now,” he said, putting his hand on my arm. “Keep practicing.”

The rest of the evening played out just as it was meant to.

Bandmates and fellow campers dropped the last vestiges of their guard and opened up to me about all the things they didn’t like about camp: Counselors who were arrogant or unapproachable; campers who’d let their egos sprint well past their abilities or just hogged the mic at the late-night camp jams; the occasional scheduling mix-ups and communication breakdowns.

I was thrilled with the chance to see legendary Yes drummer Alan White lead his campers into a rousing “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” then burst out laughing, charming fellow that he is, when they very nearly train-wrecked the song going into the solo. There were other amazing moments, especially Jack Bruce popping up again to play “White Room.” I felt privileged to soak it all in.

I was lucky from the start, of course, to have been placed with a constantly available and totally down-to-earth counselor. And I was equally lucky to find myself playing with six really nice people: Stephen Horn, a “pocket” bassist with great timing and a passion for dynamics; Rich Seidel, a quick learner who never let his six months’ experience on the guitar hamstring the band; Amanda Marsh, an aspiring country singer who let the rest of us take her into entirely uncharted territory and was never too proud to ask me for help with an unknown melody; Sheldon Cohn, whose warmth outshined even his ability to perfect a windmill-strum for Roger Daltrey; Yayo Sanchez, our 14-year-old guitar hero who turned every mistake into a reason for non-judgmental laughter; and of course, Chris Gailfoil, who doled out towering lessons in percussion, persistence and positivity every single day.

I saw him later that night, during the last song, the finale of the five-day experience—a glorious rendition of Queen’s “We Are the Champions.” The counselors’ all-star band had taken over the stage by this point, but dozens of campers had invaded their show-boating turf to sing along. Playing journalist again, I wasn’t one of them, opting instead to watch the spectacle from the floor.

And there was Chris, marshaling his strength for one final performance, standing—a feat in and of itself—at the microphone with Slaughter and one of the other campers. I looked up at him and our eyes locked as he added his voice to the refrain:

We are the champions, my friend.
And we’ll keep on fighting till the end.
We are the champions.
We are the champions.

No longer able to restrain the tears, I held my new drumsticks aloft and sang it with him.

–Liam Gowing