After hundreds of gigs (an average of 150 a year), thousands of miles, and many many years of ups and downs in the music business (mostly downs...  there weren't too many gigs for hairband keyboard players once Nirvana and Grunge broke!), Stu was about to finally give up his big hairband dreams.  Then out of the blue, Poison --"the #1 hairband of all time" according to VH-1 --called!  "The original 4 members of Poison have re-united, and Poison is getting ready to do it's first tour in years, an arena tour package of classic L.A. Hairbands with Poison headlining over Ratt, Dokken and L.A.Guns...  would you be interested?"   "I haven't cut my hair since I was 16...  what do you think?!"
So Stu ended up being the only sideman to play onstage with Poison, and toured with them in 1999 and 2000 to an estimated 500,000 fans.   The photo on the right shows Stu ready to go onstage in front of 40,000 fans, headlining over The Doobie Bros, Pat Benatar, Survivor, Rick Springfield and more.   It was the last set of the four-day festival, and the huge crowd went wild!   (For more Poison tour photos see the PoisonTourz page.)  Just goes to show ya, don't give up on your dreams...  no matter how long it takes!   And Stu's hairband dreams definitely started early. . .