Josh Haymore's story: "Hanging out with Dave in West Palm Beach: Summer Tour 2009"
My old high school baseball coach, Trent Mongero, grew up with dave in the latter years of elementary school and middle school. Well, Dave was being interviewed one day on a New York radio show and they asked Dave if he kept up with anyone from his childhood and Dave said "no but one person I would like to get in touch with is Trent Mongero." It turns out, Dave saw Trent on America's Funniest Home Videos and said to his wife "HEY LOOK HONEY, its Trent Mongero. I wonder if he remembers me." So, a friend of Trents heard this radio interview and sent it to Trent. He called the radio station the next day and did an interview with them. The Radio station got Dave and Trent enough information to get together.
So they ended up getting each other’s numbers and had been calling and texting each other trying to figure out where a good concert would be to meet up. They decided on West Palm Beach and I got to make the trip down with him and a couple friends.
We get down to West Palm Beach on Thursday and the concert was Friday and Saturday. Friday morning we go down to the beach of our hotel and Dave and his family are down there. We went down and talked to him for a little bit but we left him alone for the remainder on the day because it was his daughters birthday.
That night, we had to meet Trent at the concert because he got to ride in the bus with the whole band over to the concert (so jealous). At the concert we got to go backstage with him and see his little office he had where he writes his set list; it was very simple. Dave asked Trent if he would like to request a song so Trent chose Typical Situation. We got to enjoy the concert with all access passes from the very front of the stage.
After the concert we met Dave and his wife, Ashley, back at the hotel bar where we really got to sit down and chat with him for hours. We talked about so many different from how the concerts work, how they know when a solo is fixing to come and stuff like that. He also shared a little more personal stuff about his life. He told us that he had been sober from smoking anything or drinking heavily for a couple years now because of his wife and kids. It was a very touching conversation. Dave said “I love my wife, she is by my side through everything and she is so strong willed.”
Saturday, we didn’t get to see Dave much until the hotel bar after the concert that night. On the beach that day however, we got to chat with Tim for a little bit (I had already met him a couple of times at his Tr3 concerts). We also got to hang out with Jeff Coffin, Rashawn Ross, and Mr. Beauford for a little bit.
After another amazing concert that night, we hung out with Dave again only for a short time at the hotel bar because he was with his sister. We got him to sign some CDs, tickets, and took some pictures, then let him do his thing. We said our good byes and I shook his hand and Dave said “I saw you at the front of the stage; I tried to wink at you during Boyd’s solo I think it was, but I didn’t know if you saw me or not.” That was the best part of the whole weekend!!!
Click below to listen to radio interview with Dave about Trent
