MILAN SHOW!!!

When I got that phone call and I heard <Hi, it’s Barbara from Hard! And I think I have a good news for you!> I couldn’t believe it!

God such an emotion... such an unexpected emotion!!!

I sent a lot of those coupons trying to win that meeting SLASH! Sure! I would have loved it but... only a couple of days were missing for the concert and at that point I was sure someone else got that price...SIGH!

Instead I was between the three lucky fellows who won a day with SLASH, the myth of my life! INCREDIBLE!!!

It took so long from that time for the 22^nd of December to come!

But it finally arrived and in the very very early morning (5.30 am) we left to rich Milan!

Sonia and Silvia, the two girls we met 5 years ago in Pistoia went with us!

The travel to Milan was pretty good and easy and fast, we were there already at half past 10, I left my car right in front of the hotel (I am quite lucky???) and we went to wait for me to be called inside and meet the MAN!

But it was a long waiting, in the mean time I met the other 2 guys who had to enter with me, Antonello and Vittorio and I discovered that Antonello was from a town very close to where I live!

During the long waiting we had something happen, I stared at the hotel entrance and I said:<Keri Kelli and Johnny G.!!> (because I still call him Johnny G. instead of Johnny Blackout...it’s a matter of tastes??!!!).

My boyfriend (Max) went first towards them and we followed, Keri and Johnny shook our hands and Keri told us they were going to see some paintings and that they would have been back in one hour, Johnny soon escaped into the taxi ... to protect himself... from us or from the cold???

Gosh it was so very cold!

-3 degrees Celsius that should be about...27 Farenight!!!

Anyway I was there to meet SLASH so...couldn’t move.

Time was passing slowly, and Barbara came out at one point saying we wouldn’t have met SLASH there but (because he was such a spoiled rock star!) at half past four at the Alcatraz (the place where the show would have been played!)

Ok, a lot more then one hour passed and Keri and Johnny didn’t come back so we went to have a walk thinking they probably came back from another way, only for a lucky chance (our car was in front of the hotel remember?) we went back there and... Keri and Johnny were really coming back in another way! On foot!!!

This time we had few more minutes to spend with them, they were in hurry worrying for the sound check, but they took some time to talk with us anyway, both of them signed me an autograph, Johnny only wrote his name since he had violet hands because it was SO COLD! And Max told him he should have been used to cold weather since he is from Sweden! And he said that was the reason why he moved to California!!!!

Keri told they enjoyed the paintings very much (I bet it! It was Leonardo!!!) and maybe they had too many beers! LOL

Keri is incredible, more handsome live then in pictures!!! He has such blue eyes!!! But most of all he is SO SWEET! Very much careful and nice and kind!!!

When we took pictures Keri was really worried we could have good shots and told us to take more then one! (we took 4 at the end!!!!) and he was fantastic asking us if we wanted to have passes to go through the barriers to get our pictures together with photographers!!!

We said...lol we said NO at the beginning because we misunderstood, what we thought was he was asking if we had already the passes, but he explained, he said <Why not! U can have great shots from there!!!> So we left him our names and he promised to let us have the passes later.

THANK YOU KERI!!!!

We were much impressed from the guys, and excited of having met them...and we actually wouldn’t have expected them to be so...special!!! (This is particularly for Keri, <Johnny is a cold guy> told us Keri when he run away for not being shot in the pictures...but he is cute anyway! And Johnny, I hate cold weather just like u!!!)

We moved in front of the Alcatraz, we went there by car and again had the luck of finding a parking quite close!

Again we waited, it was freezing, a lot of guys out there were getting drunk already...Barbara didn’t come for a long time, then the guys arrived, they came in through the main entrance and people got crazy, they all called together <SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!> and jumped and pushed and one guy climbed a pole of a street light to see him (have a look at this picture, SLASH noticed him!)

We still were out and waiting, and freezing!

Someone (and me too!!!) started to think that it was all a joke... if u want to call it softly... that we wouldn’t have met SLASH at all, we were quite angry ...and freezing!

And time was passing and nothing was happening...but my fever rising...

We were supposed to make an interview to SLASH, almost 10 questions each of us, the magazine (Hard!) advertised it as spending a day with SLASH! And it was already half past five and we still were out waiting... I called Barbara by phone to ask and she said she would have come out to take us in as soon as possible but we wouldn’t have had time for the interview anymore, only we would have listened to the sound check (WOW) and met SLASH for a few minutes after it (SUPER WOW!!!!!!!!!!)

But still we were outside.

THEN time arrived for us to get in!!! We have been asked to stay far from the stage on a platform on the right, Matt started banging on his drums!!!

GREAT! We could feel it in our stomachs! And then Keri and Johnny and Rod came too...we were wondering <maybe SLASH listens from the back and says what’s good and what’s wrong??> Not at all! SLASH tried all his guitars, from all sides of the stage and from down the stage too! He jumped, he ran, he played solos, he smoked and at one point, when we clapped our hands at the end of a solo (serial killer) he greeted to us!

This was the first time I went to a sound check and I loved it, you really can listen to different instruments ...think about listening to SLASH playing alone only with the drums!!! I always dreamt about something like this!

Then he went towards us... ... ... stopped at the bar first, said something to the barman and reached our place, went towards me first and hugged and kissed me and then said hello to everybody and shook everybody’s hand ... and we were icy and sweating.

We all had Xmas presents for SLASH, Vittorio was the first one to give his, and it was a bottle of wine from his town and a cd of his band, SLASH thanked but was really much more impressed by Antonello’s special bottle of Jack Daniel’s, Vittorio (how nice!) commented <but u can find it everywhere in the world! My wine is particular!> SLASH’s answer was simply <that’s why I like it! Where ever I go I can find it!>

I gave him a cartoon wall clock with the shape of a dinosaur, the clock was signing 5 o’clock of course! And a couple of bottle of my grandfather’s home made wine, and a t-shirt.

SLASH was very very nice thanking us and getting the presents and he said he wasn’t expecting it! So Vittorio ( unbelievable ) said <now u have to make a present to us!> In that moment I would have die, I couldn’t believe my ears, SLASH asked what, and he asked to touch one of his guitar, answer was NO! Vittorio you should have known that HE is very jealous of them!

But he didn’t give up and asked for some picks, this time SLASH said ok and gave us some of his picks.

... Vittorio took off his notebook and started his interview like if he was the only one in there, Antonello was staring quite, only said <hello mr. SLASH> and nothing more.

I said just a few words, I gave him greetings from a D.J. of rocknrollstation.com radio he knows(go there it is cute!) and asked about <99 times>, why wasn’t it in the album? (I have it on a bootleg and I love it!) he said it wasn’t finished yet and that they’ll put it in next one! à already ready for a new one SLASH!!! GREAT!

The last thing I could ask was something Linda (Scott) asked me to ask ...(eheheh) she said she always asks but never gets an answer, the question was if he would ever release a video to teach playing like he does or a book... he said he plays by ear and doesn’t really have time to do it so...we can find pieces of riffs and solos on magazines...

SLASH was very soft speaking, very nice, easy talking and funny, Vittorio went on with all the 10 questions he wanted to ask, so fast that at one point SLASH wondered < u don’t want to know the answer to the previous one first?>

None of us asked anything about old Guns n’ Roses, and that wasn’t because we were told not doing it but because we were much more interested on him!!!

SLASH smiled, and was so cute and sweet and hey! Lemme say HANDSOME!

He has such a carisma and such an attitude!!! U can’t but admire it when you are with him!

Then they already said it was time for him to go so Barbara told us to quickly take something to get signed, I had <live like a suicide> with me and my boyfriend’s Les Paul!!! When he saw the record he said <oh, this is cool!> with his cool, soft voice, you know when SLASH talks like he was a cartoon?

I love it!

Then he took time to make a drawing on the Les Paul, even if in the mean time there was already a guy (the tour manager I suppose) calling him and saying it was late, SLASH answered he only needed a moment more and he wasn’t going to eat anything before the show.

(Once Rod said he never saw SLASH eating!!! J)

He made such a cute, big drawing on that guitar! It almost is his right arm tattoo and he said it was the first time he drew it on a guitar!

... ... he left and we were still dreaming!!!

I wouldn’t forget it even if I had Alzheimer!

Whatever happened around me while SLASH was there, I don’t know!!!

I called my boyfriend and told him to come inside to take the signed items to the car.

People started to enter.

We still were on that platform, I was telling to Max and Sonia and Silvia what happened when someone went towards us and called my name saying <Keri Kelli wants u to have this>

THE PASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was ... how to express it? U have to imagine!

So it happened, it really happened and few minutes before the show I reached my place through the barriers... it was strange, my first feeling was FEAR, I got scared by the crowd! You can’t imagine the power it spreads when you’re on the other side if you didn’t experienced it! I reached Barbara (of Hard! Magazine), she advised me, <when they’ll start it will be so loud that your hair will fly!>

And it was true!

The show started with Life’s a sweet drug, then Been there lately... Just like anything, Shine and that was the bad part…when all photographers and me (off course) have been asked to leave the place... I just moved in a side part of it and nobody told me to go away!!!!!!!

Then Mean bone, and the crowd got wilder!!! And I was so happy to hear that many of the fans were singing “oh baby baby” at the right moment... in 95 only a few people knew the songs!

Serial killer killed my heart, Back to the moment...resuscitated me!

And then It’s so easy was a blast of energy, and Landslide, and Ain’t life grand, Mr Brownstone, Beggars and hangers on, Speed parade... I hope I didn’t forget anything because all was worth to be seen, heard, felt!!!!!!

During the show a couple of banners were thrown on stage and Rod showed them, one said <Snakepit get in the ring> and the second one <Snakepit you are our bad obsession> they were cool!

At the sound check we saw Keri Kelli with a home video camera, that we suppose (and saw) someone used to film all the show, and at the end Matt went to film the crowd!

Does anybody have that cassette???!!! Or was it only for personal use?

The energy they spread out from the beginning to the end of the concert can’t be described but has to be experienced, Rod is an amazing singer and a fantastic performer!!! Many were surprised of how he could have such a wonderful, powerful voice even at the end of the concert and a so perfect, sustained one at the beginning!!!

His vocal cords should have one gear more! (I don’t know if u use this way of saying in the rest of the world)

The rhythm section was very solid and perfectly synchronized, Matt made a great job behind his drums and Johnny got hot giving the right colors to drums.

Keri Kelli spends so much on stage!!!

I couldn’t believe how much he was sweating! From the very beginning he had rivers of sweat sliding down his face... he is awesome!

Keri had an Italian sticker on the back of his guitar ... check it out!

And look at his face he was giving us so much, was so aggressive!!!

And I guess it is very difficult for a guitar player to stay on stage together with our guitar hero, together with the best guitar player of all times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We’re talking about SLASH of course!

He is the best, your eyes stuck on him and can’t move away, he captures you with his powerful riffs and his passionate solos, his big hands moves softly and quickly on the strings, his face mirrors his feelings, he is all into the music.

Before the end he gave us his wishes <A merry fucking Xmas and a fucking happy new year!>

Thanks SLASH for being the man and the musician you are!!!

And u, don’t ever loose the chance to see them LIVE!!!!

It is something you won’t forget, they’re too much!!!!!!!!!

THANKS to everybody who sent their pictures (Antonello, Simone…)! I had to do them without flash so…u can imagine the result!

A SPECIAL THANKS TO HARD! AND BARBARA TOO!!!