A High Point in My Life

I was looking through pictures recently, trying to organize and pick some out for a project that I'm working on. As I was going through them, I found pictures that I forgot I had taken, some that I hadn't seen in a while, and some that I consider treasures.

It was December of 2005, and one of the presents I asked for at Christmas was a membership in the Queensryche fan club. (For those of you who do not know who Queensryche is, shame on you.) It came close to the holiday, and Rachel says, "Go ahead and enroll, it's one of the presents I wanted to get you." YES!! I signed up, and about a month later I got my package of stuff from the fan club - signed 8x10, some stickers, and a certificate. It's a little odd for a 32 (at the time) year old man to be so excited by this, but I don't care. My love for this band goes back to 1992. I had moved in with Tom and Jim in the Main Street house, and I was playing video games with Jim one night in his room. He puts in a CD to listen to, and I was hooked. Queensryche - Empire. Geoff Tate's voice, combined with the guitar licks from Wilton and DeGarmo, the thudding bassline from Eddie, brought together by Scott Rockenfield's drumming just amazed me. I must have borrowed that from Jim 10 times in the first month after this. Well, then Jim bought Operation: Mindcrime, their album that was immediately before Empire. Again, I was blown away. The whole Mindcrime album is a concept album, and tells the story of an underground revolution set to take down the government, and the false idols of religion. From started to finish, just my favorite album of all time. I still listen to it to this day, and if I start the CD, I almost compulsively have to listen to the whole thing. I love it. It also helped me through a rough time of transition for me, as I just left Mom and Dads and was trying to make it on my own. I think that's why it's stuck with me for so long, because that album helped to bring me out of my shell .. hard to explain to another person, but that's what I feel.

One of the things I wanted to do in my life was to see Queensryche perform Mindcrime, but live in concert. I accomplished that in 2005 once, and twice in 2006. Well, then the summer rolls around and they are announced they were the opening band for Judas Priest for their tour. Now, one of the perks of being a fan club member is the requesting of Meet and Greet passes. You actually have to sign up for the passes on their website, for the concerts you are planning on attending. They then pool the requests and randomly (yeah, right) pull people out of a proverbial hat to give passes to. I say randomly, because I don't believe it's random at all. The same people always seem to get passes, all you had to do was see the pics they posted on the forums to see that fact. Well, the time came when they announced the concert in Hershey that I was attending, and the time came and went and no pass. No surprise there, there are two pretty active local fan clubs in this area that have people who usually receive this honor. Well, I get home from work last year, and I see an email from the fan club. I get that nervous, sick feeling as I opened to find that I had been picked to receive two passes to go backstage. Well, the friend in our Ward who I usually metal out with decided against going to this concert, and now I have backstage passes. He still drug his feet, even knowing that I had these passes. Oh, well, fall out. I ended up promising one to this guy on the forum who was pretty cool, and because I didn't want it to go to waste. I told him my only requirement was that he HAD to take pictures of me with the band. Well, the night came, and my instructions were to go to Will Call window, show my ID and pick up my passes. I still didn't believe it. Well, there they were ... one envelope with my name in black marker, and inside were two passes.

I met Scott almost immediately, and we hung out before the concert. He was older than me, a music teacher from the Scranton area, and looked kinda dorky. We were both able to sneak our camera's inside the venue, as the meet and greet was scheduled for during the Judas Priest set. We jammed all through the Ryche's set, a lot of older songs that I hadn't heard live. I took my Rage for Order vinyl record backstage, and sat it on the table with a borrowed silver Sharpie. Well, they all walked in one at a time ... they talked with us, signed my record, posed for pictures, and just were so good with the six people who were backstage with me. As I left the backstage area, I was treated to the LOUDEST music I've ever heard, as Judas Priest was cranking at that point. I left and headed for home, since I was going to this same concert a few days later, and I really felt like a tool alone at the concert. I got what I came for, so no worries. Thank you, Jim Jardine, for turning me onto this incredible band. Thank you, Rachel, for giving me the gift of the fan club. Thank you Queensryche for your music, and for allowing me to fulfill a dream of meeting you face to face. Pictures now -


First Pic - Geoff Tate (I was considering naming our child Tate, if it was a boy. Rachel said she would've considered it, and liked that we could nickname him Tater)
Second Pic - Eddie Jackson (great background vocals, and hammering bass)
Third Pic - Michael Wilton (he wanted to made the faces at the camera, not me)
Fourth Pic - Scott Rockenfield (he said that it meant more for him to meet me, than vice versa)
Last Pic - Matt Stone (he replaced Kelly Gray, who replaced Chris DeGarmo when C.D. left the band before the release of Q2K. Stone's wife was so normal, I couldn't believe it)

I posted these pics on the band forum, and one of the comments that was made was asking if I was a giant, or something. She had been to a few meet/greets and remembered how tall she thought Geoff Tate was, and here I am much larger. I replied back something to the effect of - "Yes, I am a giant. Please look for me at the next concert. I'll be on the lawn, devouring little children." She said she couldn't stop laughing after reading my reply.