Dede Davis lives in Charlotte, NC, USA. At the age of 33 she has been a fan for 8-1/2 yrs and seen the guys 65 times!
Sept. 26, 1989-Roanoke, VA, USA: Having heard "Scotty's Lament", "Over There", & "Something to Say" on the local commercial alternative radio, my sister, her boyfriend (now husband), and I decided to go see the Connells play at the Roanoke Civic Center, a smallish auditorium. My sister and her boyfriend paid for my ticket, since it was the day before my birthday. The opening act was the now-defunct Waxing Poetics, a band from Norfolk, VA, who were very good and who I saw opening for the Connells several times after that. The Connells were touring in support of "Fun & Games" which had come out recently. It was a really good show, with Doug breaking into bits of old rock songs, Tom Jones songs, and recent dance tunes. Some fraternity boys in the audience had brought a couple of sombrero type hats and, throughout the show, would toss them up on stage. Doug would oblige by throwing them back. One landed near my sister's boyfriend and he kept it instead of throwing it back. After the show, we went around to the loading area to see if we could meet the band. There were a few boys waiting to get their t-shirts signed. Mike Connell came out and spoke to the boys (apparently having met them earlier) and signed their shirts. When we presented ours to be signed, he said "I didn't know there were this many people back here! Y'all come inside." So all of us followed him into the backstage area of the Civic Center, where we got the rest of the band to sign our shirts, dodged roadies who were trying to load out, & ducked cans of beer being thrown by George to other bandmembers. My sister's boyfriend had the band sign the hat instead of his t-shirt (now we see why he hadn't thrown it back!) George drew a weird little man saying "Hats off, punkers!" The hat is now enshrined on the wall of gameroom in my sister's house.
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