R.I.P. Eric Wagner
Well, Damn. This is a total shock. I kinda missed the boat on Trouble the first time around and became a big fan in the late 90’s. When I heard that The Skull had formed and were playing the old Trouble classics with Eric and Ron Holzner, I couldn’t wait to see them play.
In 2013, they announced a show in L.A. but nothing up in norcal.. so I made a family vacation out of it and drove the 3 of us 7 hours to L.A. to see them play, and do some sightseeing in L.A.
When I met Eric outside of the club, I told him how excited I was to see them play and how much I loved those early Trouble albums. Then I told him I drove 7 hours to get there- most traveling musicians would say the standard “wow, that is a long way- thanks for coming out”– Eric looked at me sideways and said “Why didn’t you just fly down”. Haha! He didn’t suffer fools at all. This was a birthday show for someone and there were 5 bands booked and the 2nd to last band played for what seemed to be hours. Eric was PISSED. It led to a hilariously sarcastic show with him smoking it up onstage with random fans.
I have better multicamera videos of them on my site, but this was my favorite show. Thanks to Chris Lemos for bringing them to Sacramento. Twice.

Here is my original description of the show:
Strange night. This was a local guy’s “birthday bash” with 5 local bands and then The Skull. The show started late, and ran later as the night went on. Eric Wagner, who is the mellowest guy in the world was even visibly irritated about it. They did not start their set until 1am, ended at 2:30. I was hurting the next day- my daughter woke me up at 7 or so. That was a long drive back to Sacramento. Shot with the HFM30.

This is the first time that this has been posted in full quality
Recorded by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Canon HFM30 handheld