Copying this from my Facebook.
On June 22, 2001, my parents took me to see Pantera in Philly and I was introduced to Slayer at that show. I became obsessed with them until a guy on IRC told me to shut up about them and to listen to a file he was sending me.
'This Sacrament' by Nevermore
It changed my life on the first listen, and I immediately needed more. I went to Best Buy, and they had 'Politics of Ecstasy' on CD. I looked at the back, and there was the song I needed. I got back in my parents' car and blared it on the way home. Little did they know what was in store for them.
I found Nevermore's website, back when Jeff transcribed some songs on there. I found their message board and signed up on January 26, 2002. For a brief amount of time, I was the bootleg guy. Live recordings of the band were very difficult to find back then, and I found what I could and distributed them to the board members that wanted them. I lived on that message board. All day, every day. It's what I did for the better part of a decade. I met alot of cool and not so cool people on there.
Nevermore was announced as a headliner for Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles 6-Pack Weekend in Cleveland, OH in June 2003. I told my parents about it, and it didn't seem to take much convincing for them to book a hotel and figure out the driving directions. I guess they understood how obsessed with the band I was.
Anybody that knew me in high school can tell you how obsessed I was. I gave mix cds and invited anyone to concerts if they'd listen to me preach the gospel of Warrel Dane, the guy that wrote and sang these intense and poetic lyrics with an inhuman range and style.
I was up front and center for my first Nevermore concert. I was excited and nervous. The band came out, and Warrel stares at me for a little bit. He slowly raised his pointer finger at me from the stage and mouthed "I know you..." I freaked out. From what I remember, the band was amazing. The last song they played at every concert was a cover of The Sound of Silence, and that was the cue for the crowd to jump on stage and rock out with the band. It's what happened at every show.
Warrel would pull people up, whether they wanted to be there or not. I pulled myself onto the barricade, being supported by my fellow NeverBoarders, and I made a leap. The security guard shoved me mid-air, but the boarders caught me.
"Don't fuck with HIM!" thundered from the PA, and Warrel was chastising the guard that stopped me from hopping onto the stage. He opted to say that instead of sing the lines he was supposed to.
The boarders shoved me onto the stage, missing Jeff Loomis by a foot or less. There I was, on stage with my favorite band, hundreds of miles from home, with the singer holding the microphone in front of my face while also singing into it. We both sang into the mic at the same time, and it was glorious. The song ended, and I went up to him. Before I could say anything, he said, "You're Will from our message board. Come on backstage."
We got to talk for a while and take a photo (taken by Candlemass's drummer). We said goodbye, and I went back to the hotel with my parents who wound up buying the band pizza and beer at the afterparty.
From then on, we'd be internet friends. Whenever I'd see them live, he'd talk to me throughout the show. That's just how it was. It didn't matter if it was Nevermore or Sanctuary. He'd take the time to make the Nevermore board members feel like they were more important than the other people in the audience. I'd wind up going to restaurants, fast food, bus hangouts...
He was a hell of a guy. A hell of a weird, interesting, complex guy that made a random 16 year old kid from New Jersey feel like he was important.
There was a Nevermore boarder with the name "dreaming neon darkspot". She was around my age, and pretty cool. I think she started on the board around the same time as me, if not before. We started talking to each other on there when we were 14, started dating at 17/18, started living together at 28, and here we are.
Thank you, Warrel Dane, for not only giving my teenage years into my 20s meaning through your amazing lyrics and music, but for introducing me to the greatest thing that ever happened to me - Laura James.