Years ago, before Black Label Society (and before the beard), Zakk Wylde came to one of our local music stores and played on the back of a flatbed truck in the parking lot. One of my friends was a drum instructor at the store, and Zakk had sent a list of songs he wanted to perform - none from Ozzy, it was all southern rock, a lot of Skynard. Anyway, the drummer and the bassist from the music store played with him, never practiced - just winged it and it sounded great. Zakk was throwing down the Heineken's like he was dying of thirst. Afterward he signed autographs inside the store and later that night he performed an acoustic set with a friend of his, in a piazza in downtown Greenville. Zakk played a piano and his friend played guitar.
Then in 2000, I went to a convention (for work) in Seattle. While there I was looking for a good band to go see in one of the local bars, however, just so happened there was a concert that night and it was Incubus (before they got real big) opening up for the DefTones and TapRoot was the first band - so I went and, well, it was Seattle! I stood on the floor where they were running sound and some guy walks up drinking a bottle of water and shakes hands with one of the engineers and hops inside the fence. Anyway, it was Chris DeGarmo of Queensryche, I got to shake his hand as he was leaving, told him he was "my father". THEN, remember - this was Seattle, I walked out to look at getting a shirt, and there was Jerry Cantrell of A.I.C. He was standing there talking to someone, and I just stared (star-struck). What amazed me was how people were just walking by not paying him any attention, I wondered if they knew who he was, but it was his hometown so maybe it just wasn't as much as a shocker to anyone else.
Anyway - I LOVED Seattle, the absolute coolest city I have ever been too. Everybody was super-nice and it doesn't feel dangerous walking around at night like Atlanta does. I also married a woman from Seattle.
I had heard that DeGarmo was working with a band after he left Queensryche called Spies for Darwin, but I never heard anything out of them. To this day he is still one of my favorite guitarists even though I haven't heard anything new of his since his last QR record.
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