Jon Stewart and Milo Aukerman Extol the Virtues of Joe Jackson January 18th, 1986

Jon Stewart and Milo Aukerman Extol the Virtues of Joe Jackson January 18th, 1986

The following is an excerpt from the book No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of the Legendary City Gardens by Amy Yates Wuelfing and Steven DiLodovico

Joe Jackson – January 18, 1986

Jon Stewart (City Gardens bartender/TV personality): Joe Jackson was my first night as an actual City Gardens bartender. I loved it. I wasn’t big on going out, but I loved to watch shows as a bartender more than I did as a spectator. It gave me something to do when I was watching it, instead of standing there with my hands in my pockets pretending I had friends there.

Randy Now: I don’t remember Jon Stewart at all. He was pretty quiet, I guess.

Anthony Pelluso: When Jon worked there, he was basically the same person you see now on TV—always cracking wise. He was not quiet at all. No way. He was a lot of fun to be around.

Jon Stewart: Deirdre was the hot chick all the guys were in love with.

Deirdre Humenik (City Gardens employee): I had a huge crush on Jon and still get teased about it. He was sarcastic, funny, cynical… he always made me laugh.

Jon Stewart: Did I learn any life lessons from bartending? It’s not that important to clean the bathroom. Nobody’s paying attention. People will mark up any wall space you give them. And when the band needs beer, the band needs beer.

Milo Aukerman (Descendents, vocalist): The nice thing is that City Gardens was host to a lot of mainstream artists or mainstream musicians as well. I remember having a day off and being in the environs, realizing, “Oh, well there’s probably something going on at City Gardens.” Sure enough, Joe Jackson was playing, and I said, “Okay, we’ll go see Joe Jackson.” It wasn’t our style of music, but it was a chance to go and be in the audience at City Gardens and see the stage from a different perspective. They were bringing in a lot of national and international acts. That allowed me to reflect on our band’s success and say, “We can fill City Gardens. That’s pretty cool.” I always felt good about that.

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