After driving for 1 hour in rain and snow, we arrived at the Gruggahalle. First we went for something to eat and around 6 pm we were at the front of the hall, 30 minutes later the doors went open and we went directly into the hall to make sure we got a good spot, we had on the right side of the stage, first in line.
At 8 pm Whitesnake took over the stage and did a 90 minutes set, we saw them earlier this year at the Arrow Rock Festival were they opened for KISS! At 10 pm it was time for Alice Cooper, for me it was the first time I saw him live. Alice opened the show with It’s Hot Tonight. He also did a copple of songs from his new album Along Came A Spider and of course all the classic Cooper hits like, 18, Schools Out, No More Mr. Nice Guy and Poison where played. For us it was cool to see Eric on the drums, he has a different drumstyle than when he’s playing with KISS and it’s cool to see him using a double bass. During Eric’s drumsolo he got some "help" from the guitarplayers who played along with him on some extra snare drums! Alice 90 minutes horror show, including the hanging part, was very cool to watch and we have enjoyed his show.
After the show it was time for us to go backstage. In the room were some other fans, just relaxing and drinking. We wait to see what was comming. We were welcomed by Alice’s tourmanager, who directly said we had the wrong shirts on, lol. First Chuck Garrick came in, he said hi to every one and started talking to the fans. A copple of minutes later Eric came into the room and he spotted us right away and came directly to us, asking us about our KISS shirts and why the German T-shirts still have that rediculois ZZ logo, he didn’t understood it. He than saw our KISS Meet & Greet pics and wanted to see them and asked if we wanted to get them signed, of course he signed them right away, we talked some more and than he went looking for a sandwich. Eric talked to the other fans and after a while he came back and we took some photo’s with him.
We got some Alice Cooper guitarpics, including on from Eric (!) The other bandmembers dropped in and they all just mingled around the fans, talking and taking pictures with them. Eric came back to us and I asked him about the new KISS-album rumours (said they aren’t recording and that Paul was up to the idea of recording a new album) and the upcoming ESP Euro tour in Februari 2009 (said they would have a cool setlist and that Bruce would be spit fire, lol) All in all, it was very cool to experience all what happened backstage, all were relaxed and Eric took really time for us. We stayed for over 90 minutes and saw the band leaving to the tourbus. We had a great time and we’ll never forget it! All we can say, thank you to a special friend!
