I do what Chip tells me. He’d told me I had to come see Phish at the Variety Arts Center and I’d watched them blow up. The DMB was his new band.

I didn’t know that the Santa Monica Civic had a false floor, that it was suspended in such a way that when they started playing “Ants Marching” and the college-aged audience dressed in the same exact clothing as the band members themselves erupted and started moving up and down that the floor would too. I’d never heard the number before, I haven’t forgotten it since.

During the break, before the headliner took the stage, I went with Chip to a side room, just east of the auditorium itself, that resembled nothing so much as an elementary school classroom, to hang out. It was there that I met Boyd, Carter and LeRoi. Maybe LeRoi, I can’t remember exactly, it was fifteen years ago…

This was before Dave became not only a TV star, but a cultural icon, before his humor became widely known. They were just another band. Who kept getting bigger and bigger, whose fanbase kept growing. I followed them to the Palladium, all the way to Staples and the Hollywood Bowl. And got to know their manager, Coran Capshaw, along the way. Not incredibly well. Which is probably why he wanted to have lunch on Tuesday. To talk in an environment different from backstage.

On the way to the Peninsula, I heard “Where Are You Going” on No Shoes Radio, Kenny Chesney testified not only about Dave, but the band’s drummer. I told Coran and Chip this when we sat down. Coran told me Kenny had a place on St. John too. They were buddies.

It was that kind of conversation. Catching up, filling in the little details. Telling me about the status of the band. How they’d mixed it up, how they were playing better than ever before, with Tim Reynolds on the road with them and two replacements for LeRoi.

LeRoi had been in an ATV accident. This I knew. But Coran told me the details. The four-wheeled vehicle flipped over backwards upon him. He broke ribs, had a collapsed lung, his shoulder was hurt, they had him in an induced coma for a week. And three days after he came to, LeRoi checked himself out. Against the will of the doctors.

And after being home, he got an infection. The nurse taking care of him had LeRoi readmitted to the hospital. Where he was on both heart and lung machines. But he pulled through.

The story was told with seriousness, but no drama. There was no question, LeRoi was coming back. Certainly by the first of the year. We started talking about other things. The challenges of maintaining a superstar act in these confusing times, ticketing, Music Today. And an hour later, the phone rang.

Coran carries both a BlackBerry and a Razr. He picked up the Razr. He was listening rather than talking. And after two minutes or so, he flipped the phone closed and became wistful, let us in on his mental soliloquy. That was LeRoi’s assistant. They’d called 911. LeRoi’s lips had turned blue. They were taking him to the hospital. He had a blood clot.

Coran traced it back to the infection that had put LeRoi back in the hospital weeks before. He’d had a hard time fighting back. And he hadn’t gone into the process in the greatest shape, he had diabetes, other health problems.

LeRoi had flown to L.A. for rehab, he was staying at his house here, just miles away. Suddenly the story took on a different feel. Somewhere in the landscape visible from the Peninsula deck, this story was playing out.

Then ten minutes later, the phone rang again.

But this time, the call was longer. Chip and I engaged in conversation. For the better part of ten minutes. And when Coran flipped the phone closed again, he said:

“He died.”

A jolt just went through my body, writing this. I’ve never been in a situation like this before. I might have met this guy, but in a perfunctory way, I don’t know him. But he’s part of the lifeblood of Coran and Chip’s world. And he’s a human being, like the rest of us. And he’s now gone.