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The following morning, Joel and Benji perform an acoustic version of "Lifestyles" in the intimate setting of "The Howard Stern Show." Everything is a bit more intense today, because it's the release date of The Chronicles of Life and Death. Aside from chatting up the new album, Benji spends the majority of the on-air time goofing around. Joel constantly deflects Stern's indelicately worded questions about his relationship with Hilary Duff. (He claims that they've just hung out a few times and he's never even kissed her.) It's quite a start to the big day, and it's not like Joel is playing at full strength.
"After the [Webster Hall] show last night, I was so wired I couldn't sleep. It's always hard to sleep after a show," he says. "So I didn't sleep. We were all talking about it the other day, and we realized we've been doing this constantly for, like, 32 days now."
And he won't have time to sleep, because after their appearance on "The Howard Stern Show," Good Charlotte are off to tape a performance on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien." And after that, there's just a short break before the band heads to Tower Records in New York's East Village for another in-store signing and a performance that will shut down an entire city block, the second time they've managed to do that in as many days (the line for the Webster Hall performance curled around the block, bringing traffic outside the venue to a halt).
Outside Tower Records, Good Charlotte fans have been camped out since 3 a.m. to catch the performance, which will take place on a stage set up in the middle of East 4th Street. Girls in black fishnets have driven in from Connecticut. A group of kids from Long Island sit on the curb, their eyes made-up to mimic Benji's punk-raccoon getup. Scenesters in Other Music — a fiercely independent CD store directly across the street from Tower — stare at the kids with a mixture of disdain, pity and curiosity. And as the day wears on, the number of Good Charlotte fans begins to swell. Masses in black, holding scrapbooks, posters and hand-drawn portraits of Joel and Benji, snap up copies of Chronicles so they can have them signed after the show.
Across town, Joel is feeling under the weather, doubtless the result of the band's breakneck schedule. Later in the night, his illness will keep him from doing still more interviews, but right now, he's determined to play.
"I'm a little sick," he says. "But you gotta play the show."
Outside Tower Records, it's beginning to get dark, and it's the coldest day New York has seen in months. Kids begin to crowd the small stage, and the NYPD sets up roadblocks. There is screaming and chants of "Good Char-lotte! Good Char-lotte!" Now, a roadie is tuning the band's acoustic guitars and there is more screaming and more chanting and just when it seems like Good Charlotte are about to take the stage ... there is more waiting.
But the fans don't care. They'd wait all night if they had to. And when Joel, Benji, Billy and Paul finally take the stage, Joel apologizes for being late and repeatedly tells the crowd, "We love you guys." Soon kids are singing along to his lyrics, and a few retro-ists even break out lighters for the slower numbers.
And as you look around, it all starts to make sense — because all of the miles and dollars and waiting and aggravation ultimately lead here. To the ones in the fishnets and the makeup. The ones sneaking drags off of cigarettes. The 9-year-old girl in black Chuck Taylors, a plaid skirt and a MADE hoodie, who's singing along with tears in her eyes, her dad seemingly not really knowing how to react, trying to comfort her with one hand on her shoulder, the other dialing his cell phone.
"I'm not worried about this album being over our fans' heads," Joel says. "I know our fans — no matter how old they are — will understand what I'm singing is from my heart and my life.
"And I don't care what other people think. For me, the last two years have been really hard. But they've also really been worth it. For us all."
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Photo: Jason Campbell
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