Music can dig, you know? It can take a shovel to your chest and just start digging until it hits something. That night, singing that, just reaffirmed that I wanted to put out an album of my own songs.
BILLY: I was standing backstage watching Daisy and Eddie when she started singing “When You Fly Low.” She was good. Better than…Better than I’d realized.
KAREN: Billy was staring at her.
DAISY: When I was done, the audience was hooting and hollering and I felt like I’d gone out there and done the very best with what I had. I felt like I’d really turned it around and put on a good show for them.
BILLY: After she finished the song, I heard her saying goodbye to the audience and I thought, We could do “Honeycomb” now. Just me and her.
GRAHAM: I was surprised to see Billy going out there.
DAISY: I used my usual line, “That’s it for me tonight! It’s time for The Six! Everybody get your hands together.” But in the middle of me talking, Billy walked out onto the stage.
Billy really shined onstage. Some people, you bathe them in those lights and they disappear. But some people, they glow. Billy was like that. I mean, offstage, no. Offstage, he was sullen and sober and he barely had any sense of humor that I could see. At that point, I thought he was sort of a bore, to be honest with you.
But onstage he looked like there was no place he’d rather be than standing right there with you.
EDDIE: I was sitting there with the guitar and Billy comes up to me. I said, “What do you want me to play?”
But instead, Billy put his hand out, asking for my guitar. I’m the fucking guitarist. And he’s trying to take my guitar.
He said, “Can I borrow it, man?”
I wanted to say, “No, you cannot borrow it.” But what could I do? I’m standing up in front of thousands of people. I handed it over and Billy took it and walked right up to the mike with Daisy. I’m standing there with my dick in my hand, no reason to be on the stage. I had to slink off.
BILLY: I waved to the crowd and said, “How about this Daisy Jones, everybody?” And the audience cheered. “Do you all mind if I ask Daisy a question?” I put my hand on the mike and I said, “How about ‘Honeycomb’ now? Just me and you?”
DAISY: I said, “All right, let’s do it.” There was only one mike out there. So Billy stood right next to me. He smelled like Old Spice and his breath smelled like cigarettes and Binaca.
BILLY: I started playing it acoustic.
DAISY: It was a bit slower than we normally played the song. It gave it a tender feel. And then he started singing, “One day things will quiet down/we’ll pick it all up and move town/we’ll walk through the switchgrass down to the rocks/and the kids will come around.”
BILLY: And Daisy sang, “Oh, honey, I can wait/to call that home/I can wait for the blooms and the honeycomb.”
KAREN: You know how sometimes people will describe other people and say they make you feel like you’re the only one in the room? Billy and Daisy could both do that. But they somehow did it with each other. They each seemed like they thought the other one was the only person in the room. Like we were watching two people who didn’t realize thousands of people were watching them.
DAISY: Billy was a great guitar player. There was an intricacy, a delicateness when he played.
BILLY: At that slower tempo, the song started to seem even more intimate. It was gentler, softer. And I was sort of taken aback, in that moment, that Daisy could so easily go where I was taking us. If I played slower, she could bring a warmth to it. If I played faster, she’d bring the energy. She was so easy to be good with.
DAISY: When we finished, he put the guitar in one hand and he grabbed my hand with the other. All the skin on the soft side of his fingers was callused. Just by touching you, he’d scrape you.
BILLY: Daisy and I waved to the audience and they cheered and whooped and hollered.
DAISY: And then Billy said, “All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are The Six!” And the rest of the band came out onstage and went right into “Hold Your Breath.”
EDDIE: I came back out onto that stage and my guitar is sitting on the side there and I have to go and pick it up. And that chapped my ass. It’s not enough he tells me how to do my job, he controls when we can go on tour, now he’s taking my goddamn instrument from me and taking my place onstage. And he can’t even bother to hand it back to me when I get back up there? Do you understand where I’m coming from?
DAISY: As they were all walking out, I whispered into Billy’s ear. “Should I leave?” And he shook his head no. So I joined in, started harmonizing when I could, banging my tambourine. It was such a fun show being up there with them the whole time.
BILLY: I don’t remember why Daisy stayed that night. I think I assumed she’d leave but when she didn’t, I thought, All right, then. I guess she’s staying. I mean, the whole night was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of deal.
WARREN: I swear to you, Karen had this “I just got laid” vibe to her all night. And I was convinced Bones was lighting her special.
BILLY: I leaned over to Eddie, between one of the songs, and I was going to thank him for earlier but he wouldn’t even look at me. I couldn’t get his eye.
EDDIE: I was so over Billy’s nice-guy routine. He was an asshole. A complete and utter selfish prick. Sorry to say it but that’s how I saw it. To be honest, I still see it that way now.
BILLY: I finally tapped Eddie on the shoulder, right before the finale, I said, “Thanks, man. I just wanted to really give ’em a good show since Rolling Stone is out there.”
EDDIE: He said he’d normally let me play but since it was Rolling Stone, he wanted to really do it right.
GRAHAM: Pete gave me a look between sets and I was trying to figure out what the problem was. He finally nodded toward Eddie.
Look, I got it. With Billy, it was easy to feel like a second-class citizen. But how we all feel about it doesn’t change the fact that people were paying money to see Billy. People liked his songs, the way he wrote them. They liked watching him up there. Billy was right to go out onto that stage and take Eddie’s guitar. It wasn’t respectful, necessarily. It certainly wasn’t flattering or nice. But it made for a better show.
The band was a meritocracy for the most part. Even though it functioned like a dictatorship. Billy wasn’t in charge because he was a jerk, he was in charge because he had the most talent.
I had told Eddie before….It’s a losing battle if you’re going to try to compete with Billy. That’s why I don’t. Eddie didn’t get that.
KAREN: We ended the show by playing “Around to You” with Daisy harmonizing with Billy for the whole song. We hadn’t done a pure vocal harmony song before. It sounded good.