Happy 10th Anniversary, Keith ... and Get Well Soon!
Mon., Oct. 10. 2005 11:00pm EDT
Thursday, October 6, was Keith Haynie's 10th anniversary as bass player for ApologetiX! On Friday, October 7, he celebrated by fracturing his big toe playing football with the neighborhood kids.
Remarkably, it was Keith's first broken bone ever. Even more remarkably, last weekend's concerts in Alabama and Georgia were Keith's 626th and 627th concerts with ApologetiX. His first was October 6, 1995, at "The Place" Community Center in Weston WV.
Although he'd always played electric guitar up till that point in time, Keith had an electric bass that a friend had given him, and he took a crash course in bass playing when the ApologetiX bassist slot opened up after Andy Sparks retired. In fact, he was still practicing his parts as his wife drove him to his first gig!
Of course, it wasn't that Keith was practicing because he didn't know his parts; he was practicing because he wanted to know them inside and out. That's the way Keith started with us, and that's the way he's been ever since. We can always count on Keith to know what he's supposed to be playing and to hold us all together on stage. If Motley Crue's first 10 years were once summed up as a decade of decadence, Keith's first 10 years can easily be summed up as a decade of excellence
The doctor says Keith's toe should heal itself in about a month. If he can put up with 120 months with us, we know he can make it through a month with a broken toe.
Even though we'd already been playing for three and a half years when Keith joined, the only states we'd played were Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, and he got to play all of those plus Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and South Carolina within his first year. So if ApologetiX does finish playing all 50 states this year (as it looks like we will), Keith will have played all 50 of them, too.
Keith and his wife, Krista, celebrated an even more important anniversary -- their 15th wedding anniversary -- this past June. They have a son, Sam, and two daughters, Sarah and Abby. Sam, who sometimes comes along with his dad on band trips, turned 14 on Monday, Columbus Day. Sarah and Abby will turn 12 and 10 respectively in January 2006.
Editor's Note: Monday was also the birthday of Chris Rieger, wife of our drummer, Bill "Moose" Rieger.
Happy anniversary and get well soon, Keith, and happy birthday, Sam and Chris!
|