I was a huge, huge, huge Queensryche fan when I was in high school. For me, Operation: mindcrime was great metal that required more than half a brain to appreciate, and being front row for the Empire tour twice in 1991 still ranks as the top concert experiences in my life. I - and other friends of mine who were fans - always admired Geoff for being intelligent and making use of it in creative ways that inspired me and made me happy. Was he kinda elitist and arrogant? Sure, but a. he was a frontman; it kinda went with the territory, and b. I as a fan never had to deal with the negative side. I was so disappointed when DeGarmo left, particularly when the following albums sucked. I saw them tour with Dream Theater and Fates Warning, which would have been the pinnacle of fangirly awesomeness ten years earlier, and I was bored senseless by them. My inner 16 yr old - who once watched GT crawl across risers while snarling into a microphone - was aghast at the sight of them ... just phoning in the whole performance. And the cabaret show? The horror, the horror.
But I had no idea, until reading Michael Wilton's deposition, how bad it really had been. And I was crushed to see how someone I had admired that much as a teenager had fallen so far. Everyone else seems to find a great deal of joy in mocking GT, but for me it kinda hurts a little and I don't want to watch the videos of him acting like a big fucking shitbird, and hear about how he's really always been kind of a shitbird. It's just not funny to me at all, and he really needs to shut the fuck up, get back on his boat, and stop making such an utter embarrassment out of himself and everything he ever was in the past.