Glad I Saw 'Em #3 - Mark Sandman

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Glad I Saw 'Em. It's a musical series about musicians that I was lucky enough to see in concert, because they are now deceased and obviously, that opportunity isn't going to come around again. As I stated at the beginning of #4, these remaining artists were very special to me, and this guy's death hit me pretty hard. We are at #3: Mark Sandman (1952-1999.) Mark Sandman was the vocalist/bassist/lyricist for the Boston-based jazz-blues rock trio, Morphine. And oh, how I loved Morphine, with their stripped down, "low rock" (their own description of themselves) sound. And one Monday morning, I was booting up my computer at work, when a co-worker comes in and asks me, "Hey! Did you hear about your Morphine guy?" No, and I'm wondering what I missed over the weekend, because this guy is a really nice guy, but kind a geeky, focused entirely on my family-sort of fellow, and wouldn't even know about Morphine if I hadn't been constantly gushing about them. Turned out that Mark Sandman had suffered a heart attack and died onstage in Italy. And I had just recently seen them, at the Ogden Theater in Denver. It was a hell of a show. The band even kept playing well past the encore portion of the show because we were a very vocal, enthusiastic audience. Morphine may have only had a cult following, but thanks to constant touring, it was actually quite a large following. Hell, I even had tickets to see them again when they were scheduled to come back through Denver a few months later. And then Mark died. And I didn't even know, until a guy who probably could've cared less about the band, but was polite enough to listen, told me. The show that I saw that night was sold out. I only got in because I went down and bought a ticket from a scalper on the street. And we were right there in front, off to the side of Mark. One of the best shows of my life, as it turns out. (Oh, I need a candy bar info verified by Wikipedia)