I'll try to give some more context here on the people I met:
Having a metal party at my place with all my friends and the members of Tokyo Blade, Satan, Avenger, Blitzkrieg and Mercyful Fate.
This was a wild party actually. I had give up the room I rented because of it. At first it was my intention to have an evening with Michael Denner to have some quiet time to talk and let him hear some music he did not know yet.
But, some people got wind of our meeting and before I knew it people carrying stacks of beer turned our meeting into a wild party with very drunk people in the garden were I rented my room!
Ian Gillan I was awestruck when I met him. It was in Belgium after one of
the best gigs I ever saw. First his manager told us that Gillan was very tired, he did not want to meet any people, we better leave and crap. Next thing we know the man himself comes walking around the corner and said: "Hello there"! "How are you guys doing?" Walked towards us shook our hands and asked us how we liked the gig!! I was dumbfounded!! That was the ultimate surprise. I mean we were almost ready to leave when he came to us. And he was really nice as well. Well we did a small interview with him and said our goodbye's. Believe it or not. Gillan is a cool guy!
All of
Accept in 1981 and becoming friends with them
My friend Metal Mike knew their sound mixer Michael Wagner, yes the same one, and asked if we could meet the band after the show. So we got to meet them. Since they were Mike's favorite live band we followed them when we could. this resulted in us seeing them 2 or even 3 times a week when they toured near us. We would travel to the west border of Germany or the to see them. Afterwards we would go out together and have a lot of fun.
Wolf and Jorgen were the nicest guy's of the pack. Udo was a little more distant but friendly and always ready to answer you, when you wanted to know something. Peter Baltes was like a kid living the rock star life!!
All of
Iron Maiden and chatting a long time with Paul Diannio and Steve Harris. I met them during the "Killers" tour after a fantastic gig in Belgium. Btw they played the same hall were I had seen Gillan twice. We had an interview with them in the lobby of their hotel. I was sitting next to Steve Harris and opposed to Paul Diannio. Dave Murray, Adrian Smith [who just joined the band then] and Clive Burr were also there. I have met them twice after and Steve always knew me when he saw me later in Amsterdam and in Darmstadt in Germany.
Raven and becoming very good friends with them. Especially with John Gallagher. I first met Raven when they played somewhere in the most southern province of The Netherlands called "Limburg". I was wearing a Jaguar T-shirt and John was wearing a Raven t-shirt. he wanted the Jaguar shirt and I wanted the Raven shirt. So we swapped. That was the beginning of a 3 year friendship. They put a picture of Mike and me on the back cover of their second album "Wiped out". We would meet every time they would play in The Netherlands. And they would play there a lot. Great times and I had a lot of fun. Both John and Mark were great people to be with. We had a lot of fun!!
Tygers Of Pang Tang. I met these guys when they played a festival in The most northern province of The Netherlands called "Groningen". After the gig we got to meet them and I had a talk with John Sykes. He was a bit aloof but not unfriendly. A day later they played a free festival in our national capital and I was up front sitting on a fence headbanging furiously. I was really into them then!! There were people there filming from the movie tone news. They reported the festival and shot images of me headbanging which most people in The Netherlands were not familiar with. This was in 1982.
One Saturday when I was at the Dynamo pub some friends of mine told me they had gone to see a movie and when the movie tone news was showed they had seen footage of me acting like a madman at the Tygers show. I never saw that footage but after a while more people would come to me and tell me the story.
Venom I met them when they gave their signatures at the Dynamo pub.
Befriending
Meryful Fate [except their asshole drummer]. When they recorded their "Nuns have no fun" EP in Eindhoven they did a few shows at the Dynamo and that how I got to meet them. Michael Denner and Timmy Grabber were very cool and we used to go out with them in Eindhoven.
As for
King Diamond we met a few times and talked. He acted normal and was responsive when you approached him. Nothing unusual there.
Anvil I met these guys when they played the Dynamo. Party people for sure.
Exciter. I saw them live in I believe Dortmund Germany. After the gig we did an interview with them. They did not make a lasting impression on me. I guess they were tired and wanted to go to sleep. I can't blame them
Trance great band and very professional! We had a small hall at the Dynamo with a 500 people capacity but in general with a very shitty sound, most bands tried to compensate the shitty sound by turning the volume WAY UP!!. Trance brought along their own fucking PA. And their stuff was amazing to even see. I remember standing there while they were setting up their gear. later in the evening when they started playing our jaws dropped to the floor!! The sound was perfect!! We could not believe it. It was clear as glass. Nice people and very good show.
Manowar. I got to see them with a few friends. We were all big fans of them. This was just after they released "Into Glory Ride", still my favorite album of them. They gave a great show without any of the bullshit speeches that would become such a big part of their shows later. When we got backstage they were posing around acting like they were the shit. We looked at each other and left right away! On our way to home the car broke down and we had to wait for a few hours before the Dutch mobile car serve was there to repair our car.
Motorhead [Lemmy RULES]. I met them at a festival in Darmstadt Germany. Also playing were Kansas, Iron Maiden. I was talking to fast Eddy and Lemmy came along. They were both cool as hell.
Crossfire that was a Belgium band that delivered two tracks on the Metal Clogs sampler. Fun guys. One of the first acts that was booked in the Dynamo.
Killer Also a Belgium band. I saw them live twice. I hear some good things about their new album.
Jaguar. I met these guys when they just had released their Backstreet Woman single. Very nice people. Later they would get a much better singer and release Axe Crazy with him. Both singles were played on national radio in a metal show that was running then.
Lars Ulrich [Complete and utter asshole] I met this guy when he stayed at my friends house. He acted up like a complete asshole and my friend had to stop me from smashing his face in!
Heir Apparent They would play a few gigs in The Netherlands and they stayed at some youth hostel in Eindhoven for a week. Since I had a vacation during that time I looked them up and suggested to them I would introduce them to Eindhoven. There were bored out of their minds in that hostel. So I took them to my place and let them watch The then just released Live In Tokyo video from Queensryche. They loved it. After that we became friends and had a great time in the week they were in The Netherlands.
Savage Grace. They played the Dynamo a few times and our SOD like band played as their support act.
Anthrax See the story here:
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3848897&postcount=35
Agent Steel I befriended John Cyrus when I met him in Katwijk were we played the Scum club. I told him about Eric von Daniken but he did not know about him. At least thats what he told me. When we played at the Dynamo together with them, Bernie Versailles filled in for our absent guitarist because although he knew we had a gig at the Dynamo, he decided to go and see Dio live. He was a smart like that.
Helstar They played the Dynamo several times and I got to meet James a few times. I asked his wife if she would sell me her Helstar shirt! I spoke to James again a few years back when he toured Europe with
Destinys End.
Toxic played at the Dynamo Open Air festival. I met Josh a few times during that night. Crimson Glory I only met them briefly. I talked to Midnight and told him how much I liked his vocals.
Laaz Rockit these guys played the Dynamo so many times we jokingly called them our houseband! I invited them at my place to see some movies. Their manager checked out my record collection, he was especially interested in which thrash metal bands I had. Real party people!!
Helloween I interviewed them for Aardschok.
Overkill I saw them live in Belgium as support act of Anthrax. I told them how much I liked their show and their fantastic first album that had just been released.
Blitzkrieg [especially Brain Ross was a very nice guy] They played the Dynamo and were very cool people..
Pew. I hope some of you have read all of that
Some people I would have liked to meet.
The first one is of course
Judas Priest! Thats right, I never met them
And I would be very honored to meet the Metal God himself.
Neil Peart. I would have loved to talk to him. And I came really close. Mike from Aardschok was going to do an interview with him and he told me that if I helped him a with a few questions I could go with him and meet Neil. Well, I had quite a few questions as you can imagine!! But when the time came another editor of Aardschok decided to go with Mike and Mike had to tell me I had to stay behind!!! Btw the editor in question did not know shit about Rush!
David Lee Roth. Party animal and a Very Interesting Person. Would have been nice, but it never happened.
O well, you can't have it all
