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

While perhaps not topping Day Three, Day Four was another moving day for me and most of my fellow campers. It was not without certain issues, however.

Joe Walsh’s chartered plane broke down. Considering he’s busy touring and promoting a new Eagles record, there was some discussion that he might be a no-show. In any case, we heard he might not have time to jam with each of the bands in their studios.

Armed with this knowledge, my band (Roadside Prophets, named in honor of one of Chris’ old groups) decided to forego learning any Eagles, James Gang or Joe Walsh solo material. This turned out to be an egregious error, which would have been a complete bummer if it didn’t result in some memorable musical comedy.

First off, Walsh made it to Vegas nearly on schedule and was thus able to both perform “Funk 49,” “Rocky Mountain Way” and “Life in the Fast Lane” with a mix of counselors and campers, and participate in a hysterical Q&A. Regarding hotel-room destruction: “It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a chainsaw.”

Then, with time to burn, word went out that he would indeed perform with all of the bands – and not in the cozy confines of the individual studios but on the main stage in the MGM Grand Empire Ballroom with everyone in the camp watching.

My band – seven campers, plus Mark Slaughter – was totally blindsided. I pleaded with Slaughter to let us do another instrumental blues jam, rather than decimate a Walsh or Eagles song. But somehow a consensus developed that we should perform “Take It Easy,” because it is, in fact, easy, and because I knew the chords. Not thinking too clearly, I accepted the challenge of playing acoustic and, in the five minutes we had available, taught Yayo, Rich and Sheldon those chords.

We got on stage and Joe Walsh started with the proper intro, which I had completely forgotten about. “I forgot the intro,” I thought to myself. “What else could I have forgotten?”

Plenty.

As we went into the song, I was still yelling out chords to Yayo and playing my guitar halfway upside-down so that my fingers were visible. Now, I don’t know at what point I got away from what Walsh was playing, but get away I did. And there I was yelling out whatever I was yelling out, with Walsh looking at me quizzically as if to say, “Are you doing this on purpose?” I began laughing almost convulsively and couldn’t stop until Walsh called for a conveniently early ending.

I can now say that I effectively sabotaged an Eagles classic. So, I’ve got that going for me.

On a serious note, I spent lunch with Chris and talked to him frankly about my experience with my mother, who died of pancreatic cancer in 1998, and how impressed I was with his decision to attend Fantasy Camp, as worn out as he surely is after fighting cancer for more than two years now. This is a man who’s played drums since he was a kid, organized his life and career around his bands, and who is determined to go down drumming in lieu of swinging.

Returning to the business of making music after lunch, the band didn’t really have the time or inclination to confront the fact that we had two major players yet to visit us – singer and bassist Jack Bruce of Cream and drummer Nicko McBrain of Iron Maiden. We’d worked on Cream’s version of “Born Under a Bad Sign” the day before, and I’d managed to come up with a pretty cool swamp groove. It just needed arrangement, but with time short and Counselor Slaughter, Chris and Yayo pulled to the metal like a magnet, the rest of the band started working on Iron Maiden’s pummeling “Run to the Hills.”

With the drums entirely beyond my abilities, I sat that one out, hoping my associates would finish and return to “Bad Sign.” Unfortunately, while our efforts were still focused on Maiden, we got word that Jack Bruce would be with us momentarily. There was a murmur or two of just saying hello and leaving it at that.

Not one to throw in the towel, I got behind the kit and with guitarist Sheldon and bass player Stephen acting as my principle co-conspirators, launched into the beat. Not needing the slightest refresher course, Rich, Yayo and Chris just fell into it. It was as if we’d been playing together for weeks or months instead of just days.

In walked Jack Bruce, the true genius of Cream. He looked cool in a motorcycle jacket and shades but was just as nice as could be. After the obligatory greetings, he plugged in his fretless. Trying not to sound like a geeked-out 13-year-old boy, I told him that we prepared a very loose arrangement of “Born Under a Bad Sign,” and he said that “loose” was definitely the way to go. In fact, the only way to go, ever.

And then we laid it down: Slow, thick and witchy. Bruce opened his mouth and unleashed an incomprehensible amount of smoky, old soul. He was singing so far behind the beat, he accomplished a kind of undulating counter-groove. I was amazed that he could actually manage such a two-tiered performance between bass and voice.

I dropped my stick at one point but it felt natural, considering the lyrics: “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”

Then it was all over but the clapping.

Nicko McBrain turned up shortly thereafter, looking like a heavy metal Jack Palance, a bundle of good-natured, kinetic energy. Despite not really being an Iron Maiden fan, I was amazed with his performance of “Run to the Hills” – lightning-fast and perfectly executed. The band played great.

It was all I could do to not pogo.

–Liam Gowing

At the end of Day Three, I was simply not in the right frame of mind to objectively contextualize the major events of the day. So I took a day to mull over the the astounding fact that my band had played “Pinball Wizard” with Roger Daltrey on lead vocals and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” with Slash on lead guitar.

I will attempt to speak truthfully about these experiences without communicating what might appear to be ludicrous hyperbole.

First, a little backstory:

The morning of Day Two, I sat down to breakfast with camp counselor Mark Hudson (producer-songwriter for Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne and Ringo Starr) and David Fishof, founder and CEO of the Rock Camp organization. They were both going on effusively about the wondrous effects of the camp, telling me about campers who’d written them to say that Rock ‘N’ Roll Fantasy Camp had transformed their lives, saved their marriages or otherwise wrought something wondrous. “That’s the real payoff,” Fishof concluded.

“Yeah, that and the money,” I said, thinking of the $9500 entry fee.

Nonplussed by my comment, Fishof and Hudson stuck to their guns, stressing that Rock Camp was a labor of love with costs mostly funneled towards logistics (renting out a giant chunk of the MGM Grand, for one) and profits largely vested in smiles, hugs and Hallmark cards.

Well, Day Three was the first day I began to truly believe them. Call it predictable, but performing with Roger Daltrey and Slash were moments I will likely recall in my final moments on planet earth.

It was an excellent day from the get-go. Under the exacting but good-natured eye of Bruce Kulick (guitarist of Kiss during the makeup-free years of the ’80s and ’90s), who was pinch-hitting for Mark Slaughter (taking a leave of absence to attend a meeting on the East Coast), my band managed to inject some semblance of order into GN’R’s “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and put a nice sheen on our arrangement of The Who’s “Pinball Wizard.”

We couldn’t help but bond in the deep mystical ways known only to musicians, army buddies and other disaster survivors. And our non-mystical sweat really paid off.

When Daltrey finally arrived, after a torturous 15-minute countdown, we were ready. As I kicked off “Pinball” with Pete Townshend’s gorgeous intro of cascading minor and augmented chords, Daltrey looked over at me with something approaching shock. “Kid, you’re nailing it,” was the message behind his blue eyes. And when lead guitarist Sheldon hit the opening electric chord with a Townshend-trademarked “windmill” strum, followed by some very John Entwistle-esque bass work from our own Stephen, it was obvious that this volcano of a vocalist — the man responsible for the greatest scream in rock ‘n’ roll history — was feeling a little piece of the magic he and his own mates had conjured in stadiums around the world.

With a friendly arm around our own lead singer, Amanda, Daltrey then gave us a fully committed vocal performance of “Pinball,” the signature track from the Who’s 1969 “Tommy” album, widely regarded as the world’s first major rock opera. The energy was tremendous the whole way through: Our most worrisome moment, the dramatic “da-da-dum” ending went off just right with no static between dual drummers Chris and Yayo.

“That was really good, guys!” the infamously perfectionist Daltrey told us as the last chord faded. “And that’s not an easy song to play!”

Now, no one fell to the floor, writhing in ecstasy. No one got hired to join the next Who tour or invited over to Rog’s place for tea. But the camaraderie at the photo session afterward was real, as was Daltrey’s sympathy for Chris’ condition. “We’re all in the same boat, mate,” he replied, a little affected after getting the dreadful unexpurgated explanation of Chris’ journey from diagnosis of liver cancer to hospice. “‘There but for the grace of God go I.’”

After performing and bonding with Roger Daltrey, I, for one, was actually a little blasé about meeting Slash. This was probably as much a coping mechanism as a case of acute anxiety wouldn’t have helped me get through “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” But if I was fairly relaxed in the moments leading up to our little summit, I was even more so once he arrived.

Slash, as it turns out, hadn’t played the song since leaving Guns N’ Roses and had to confer with our trio of guitarists, Yayo, Sheldon and Rich, to map out the exact constellation of arpeggiated notes that inaugurates the song. After an aborted first effort that left all of us–Slash included–in stitches, he got it together.

There I was, a novice drummer watching Mr. Saul “Slash” Hudson begin to recreate a hefty patch of my junior high tapestry with one of the biggest power ballads ever recorded.

And his solo was everything one could hope for.

Was the experience perfect? Not even close. One of Rock Camp’s video folks decided to park himself directly in front of my kit for a better view, and I had to expend a couple empty beats poking him in the kidneys with my drumstick so I could reestablish eye contact (or in this case, Aviator-sunglasses-contact) with Slash. This was no mere stargazing. He was no longer Slash the icon. He was the guitarist in my band. As one of the drummers, I needed to see him in order to pick up on the visual cues. For the guitarists in particular it was something like ecstasy. And apparently Slash enjoyed it as well because he stuck around for a little instrumental blues jam, which presented an amazing opportunity for Slash and our teenage Slash-in-training, Yayo, to trade solos.

Posing for photographs afterwards, I have to admit there was precious little of the warm fuzziness I’d experienced with Daltrey. Clearly, Slash is a man of few words so I was content to let the music be our only point of real contact. Things changed subtly when one of the Rock Camp corporals yelled out, “He’s a journalist, Slash! He writes for the LA Times!”

“The enemy, Slash! He’s the enemy!” another yelled.

Deaf to the lampoons, Slash turned to me, a grin spreading across his face and said, “Really? You write for the L.A. Times? Which section?”

“The Guide,” I replied.
That’s cool, man,” he said. “I get your paper every day.”

–Liam Gowing

I’m actually beginning to settle into Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp.

Released from the horrible coil of Frank Beard’s shuffle beat, I actually had a nice day behind the kit and based out several decent beats in spite of myself. As for yesterday’s concerns about the double-drummer scenario, I’ve decided to leave all that baggage behind. As I see it, if cancer-stricken Chris can handle to stress of our polyrhythmic racket—on top of chemotherapy and who knows what else—so can I.

Anyway, under the efficient if autocratic rule of Counselor Slaughter, our little ad hoc band actually wrote, arranged and rehearsed an original composition and then performed it for Motley Crue singer Vince Neil and the bevy of cameras, publicists and assorted hanger-ons that followed him from rehearsal room to rehearsal room like the train of a wedding gown. It was a trip to meet him. He actually seemed nervous to meet us, which was totally bizarre. Perhaps someone tipped him off to the fact that Chris was terminally ill—such news will throw anyone for a loop—but regardless, Neil seemed sweet and rather shy, as if he were embarrassed by all the hubbub he was causing. Not so motley.

After that little mid-afternoon meet-and-greet, it was back to work. Going through the other big names who’d be swinging through for a potential cameo with the band—Joe Walsh, Slash, Jack Bruce, Roger Daltrey—we focused our brown noses on Daltrey and Slash and decided to learn one Who and one Guns N’ Roses song. The GN’R selection was easy; everyone wanted to do “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” But picking out a Who song was a knock-down drag-out. We listened to—or discussed—“My Generation,” “I Can’t Explain,” “Substitute,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” “the Real Me,” “Pinball Wizard,” and even “Baba O’Reilly.” I was vehemently against the last choice. Sacrilege! We haven’t earned the right to play—much less butcher—that classic rock colossus in front of the larynx that made it famous.

I kept pushing “My Generation” and “I Can’t Explain.” Easy hit-it-and-quit-it numbers that would keep things light. But after much ado, we settled on “Pinball Wizard,” simply because I knew the guitar part. In fact, I knew it so well Slaughter and company suggested I just play guitar at the show—a much easier prospect than trying to follow in Keith Moon’s footsteps—so I agreed. I’ll be swapping roles with our foremost guitarist Yayo, who was itching to play drums anyway.

Word is Daltrey’s coming by tomorrow, which as the little orphan sang, is only a day away…

–Liam Gowing

Well, here I am in Las Vegas, attending the tenth annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp. I’m writing it up for a forthcoming Action Man column. It’s been a tough first day…

Things really couldn’t have worked out more bizarrely: I told the Rock Camp folks that I was a fan of the classics (the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks, Stevie Wonder, etc.) and that I was raised on the new wave/alternative/indie rock continuum (connect the dots between Split Enz and Of Montreal and you’ve got most of the picture), but even with Alan White, the Yes alumnus who played drums on “Instant Karma” in the mix, they assigned ’90s glam-metal man Mark Slaughter as my camp counselor. A little curveball but no biggie.

Moreover, I told Rock Camp that I could sing and play guitar, bass and keyboards pretty well and that I could, in a pinch, keep an okay (i.e., kinda crummy) beat on drums. So yep, you guessed it… they assigned me drums. Now I knew all this coming here and was even excited about the prospect (Wow, drumming for Mark Slaughter… that’s sure to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience), even when I was told to come ready to play ZZ Top’s “Tush” –a shuffle beat no less! But I was still a little taken aback to find out the context in which I would be performing this function.

I found out today that I would be one of two drummers playing simultaneously. Yikes. As hard as it is to keep a steady rhythm going, it’s much harder to do so in perfect sync with another human being! But that doesn’t even begin to explain the challenge inherent in my situation. That challenge comes with the fact that the other drummer–Chris, a total sweetheart–is dying of cancer. Playing drums for Mark Slaughter at RnR Fantasy Camp may be a fun goof and an interesting writing assignment for me but it’s this man’s final gesture!

Which brings me to an oddly unsettling realization: If I really bring it on the drums (and show him up), I’ll ruin what may be his last hurrah on planet earth. And if I really screw up on the drums (the far more likely outcome), I’ll ruin what may be his last hurrah on planet earth.

Umm, okay… more on this tomorrow.

–Liam Gowing