Mike was beyond cool meeting the small
group of fans, photos and autographs were
no problem, very fan friendly. I was stand-
ing by the bus when William DuVall turned
the corner and he too took time out for a
couple lucky fans, myself included, but
was rushed off by the Tour Manager onto
the bus.
We’re all kinda waiting to see what Jerry
Cantrell is going to do, but to our dismay,
he is lead off the bus by the T.M. and a
ring of security personal, no photos, no
autographs, no nothing but a wave as he
passed by.
This show for me was shot from FOH
(Front of House), which means from the
Soundboard, not the pit, and to my sur-
prise, I was the only member of the media
covering this epic event.
I got set up and at 9:pm the boys hit the
stage with Check My Brain and truth be
told, the opening guitar riff was so heavy
you couldn’t help but to bang your head
along with the band and in my opinion
with song is the most successful single
since William DuVall joined the band.
Page 48
Speaking of DuVall, he does sound a
lot like his predecessor and the har-
monies with Jerry work just as well, if
not an exact match, most of the time.
Now in the Good News Department, I was
also given tickets to the show, so after my
first three songs to shoot, I ran across the
street, put away my gear and reentered the
venue and found out that my seats were
fourth row center, this is where I took in
one the best shows I had seen in quite
some time.
Songs like Them Bones, Nutshell, Man in
the Box and of course, Rooster had myself
and a sold out venue on our feet begging
for more, Jerry is a master at his craft, just
melting your face off with acute smoking
riffs and the funny thing was this crowd
at times were chanting Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,
I wasn’t sure if I was at a AIC show or
watching Jerry Springer, quite unbeliev-
able.
William does a lot of interacting with the
audience as a solid frontman would do as
well as Mike on Bass, he was all over the
place, looking as if he was having the time
of his life, Jerry on the other hand seemed
all business, to me it seemed as if it was all
about the music, the way they plowed thru
a 19 song set list, each song just flowed
into each other, it was magical at best.
On this night, I witnessed the show of
shows, top drawer in every aspect, every
song you knew, if you have been a fan as
long as I and the couple thousand in atten-
dance that night, you had memories wash
over you from years ago, I walked out of
the theatre feeling that Jerry and the rest
of the band just couldn’t have given me any
more that they possibly could have, I ‘ve
been going to shows for 46 years and I can
count on one hand that caliber of an act
that leaves you in that state of mind only
after 90 minutes on stage, it was a night I
will never forget.