This story took place
during the "Slave to the Grind tour"
Me, my brother Dave and our friend Mike go to see Skid Row, Pantera and
a canadian band called The Killer Dwarfs in Toronto. We don't have ticket's(we
ALWAYS buy scalpers).
We find a guy who's selling
2 front row tickets, so we buy them. Our bud Mike buys seats that are 12
or 13 rows behind us(he has every intention of sneaking up with us anyway).
As we wait
for Skid Row to take the
stage, my brother Dave spots Baz's dad walking through the crowd right
towards us. I ask my bro "How do you know thats him?" "I saw him on bla
bla bla...." Cool. I say hi to him as he walks by. So
he stops and chats for a few seconds. He introduces us to Baz"s younger
brother Zach. Bas'z dad asks us if we will staying in this spot all night.
"Sure we are,
why?" was my answer. He then
asks us if we could keep an eye on Zach during the show. Zach wants
to watch the show up front
with the rest of us maniac's. Cool, we'll keep an eye on him. The show
was awesome. Baz was in true form, as usual. Now its over and we're gettin
ready to say our goodbye's when Zach asks us " Hey..you wanna go backstage
with me?" Coooooooollllll!!!!! So Zach finds
his dad, he says "no problem" and all of a sudden we are backstage!!!!
It was cool. Met the whole band. Hung out for a few hours and then it was
time to say our goodbye's and thank-you's. As we are leaving, Sebastian's
dad asks us if we will be coming to the Peterborough show the next night.
We inform him that we do
not have tickets. "No problem. Give me your names and meet me at the front
door at 5:30 tomorrow." HOLY SHIT!!!! Baz's dad is gunna get us tickets.....for
free!!! We couldn't believe it. So the next day comes and we are
about to leave our home-town, St. Catharines,
when a close friend of ours
decides he wants to come with us. I informed him that if he did come, he
would have to buy his own ticket(if there were any left). Now there is
4 of us..... So.....because of traffic, we arrived at the arena 20 minutes
late and we thought for sure we misssed Bas'z dad, who said 5:30, not 5:50pm.
We pull up to the front of the venue and who do we see standing there,
waiting for us......... Sebastians dad!!!!!!!
We couldn't believe it. We pile out of the car, apologize for being late
and explain to him about our friend who's gunna buy his own ticket.
"Oh no he's not!!" he says and
hands me 4 floor tickets(general
admission show) AND...... 4 backstagepasses!! Awesome.......awesome.....awesome.......!
We quickly head down the
street to get a motel room and have a few Molson Canadians before the show.
As we enter the arena, we spot Baz'z brother Zach and he show's us
where the backstage entrance is. As soon as we find Bas'z dad, David, I
say to him " We HAVE to get our pcture taken with you!" We
take a few shots and then head backstage. When we get there, David brings
us into a room..............and i'll never forget the sign on the door.............
"SABASTIAN'S FRIENDS AND FAMILY ONLY!!!!"
It was awesome!! We
hung out with his mom and dad, aunts, cousins etc etc... Everyone was super-nice
to us. We got to hang with Phil fom Pantera. Dave "the snake" Sabo came
in to say hi and pose for some pictures. He let my buddy play his guitar
for a few minutes. Everyone was cool.
And then the show started.....And
what a show! Sebastian was over-the-top, out-of-his-mind, crazy awesome!!!!
One of the best shows I've seen to this day. People were freakin out! Their
home-town hero was back home and the energy in the crowd was un-real!!!
I would know, I was right up front feelin it! So after the show, we headed
back stage again for the after-show get together. Lots of family and friends,
special guests...and LOTS of beer. We stayed for a few hours hangin out
and talkin, drinkin (more than) a few beers and enjoying the night. When
it was over and it was time to go, we said our thank-you's to David for
EVERYTHING he did for us and we headed back to our motel room. It was an
evening that I will never forget. In the words of Sebastian himself, it
was
RIGHT ON!!!!!!!!!!!
Roger.