A few days a go I experienced a surreal event that myself and my friends are still talking about.
I regularly play in a 5 piece rock/pop band, we were playing in a bar in small town on the South of England called Gosport, Gosport is a small and unremarkable town except that on Sunday night some of the residents were treated to an extraordinary musical event, our drummer who runs a drum school told us he was bringing a rock icon along as he was in the area and was a good friend of our drummer, well after our drummer played the first hour he anounced a special guest was to appear and on walked........Carl Palmer...formerly of EMERSON,LAKE&PALMER and proceeded to stun a disbeleieving crowd with some amazing drumming, the atmosphere was fantastic and everbody went away happy to have experienced this impromptu appearence. What I found surreal was Mr Palmer helped our drummer pack his kit away, not the sort of thing you see every day.

Larigot

Carl Palmer is without a doubt one of my favorite rock drummer of all time. For me there is a " big three " that stand above the rest in that genre, and he is one of them. Bill Bruford and Neil Peart are the others. ELP is absolutely my all time favorite rock band, with Yes and Rush very close behind.

What a great story Larigot, including the part about Carl Palmer helping your drummer pack away his kit. I know if I had been so fortunate to meet Mr Palmer in this way, the event would be one of those memories frozen in time, to be remembered for the rest of my days.

AJ

Wow! If only Keith would have joined him. Once, in my 20's, I too was in a 5 pc band and played at a Hilton Hotel. On a break, Dan Fogelberg and band were having a drink, after completing a local concert, and played an hour long set.. It was pretty awesome too.
Zuki

Back in the mid to late 1960's my Dad owned a full service electric shop,
if it run on electricity we sold it or at least repaired it.

The County Fair was going on & the Animals were playing at the
Fair, a friend of mine was helping them setup there equipment,
& they found out they had a couple bad mic cables.

My friend told them lets go find Denny & he will fix them.
They came over to the house, knocked on the door & my
Mom said somebody wants to talk to you.
I go to the door & WOOOOOOOW there was the Animals,
couldn't believe my eyes.

I didn't get to jam with them but I did fix there mic cables.
Denny

Denny, was Eric Burdon still with them?

Dreamer, I can't remember any of there names.
I didn't even get there autographs, I'm not
into that stuff.
Heck I didn't even charge them for fixing the cables.
Denny
PS: I do remember that one of them had his head saved,
was a little different for them days, everyone
had longer hair back then.

[This message has been edited by dlstarry (edited 05-03-2003).]

That is a beautiful story. Not only a musical icon, but a noble person.

Beakybird

Larigot,
my envy for that experience is absolute!

I have ELP at the very top of my personal music chart, sharing that position with Yes, Genesis and Gentle Giant.

I was in Genova ages ago, when ELP performed one of their first italian concert, but I cannot enter the place because my daddy told me that I was too young (14 I think) for that kind of thing. And all those guys with long hair.... you know things like this (my daddy has been in the army for half of his life).

My closest encounter with an artist has been years ago with Mike Rutherford (Genesis bass and guitar player), on a beach of Elba Island, here in Italy. He sits about ten meters from me, playing with two children. That's all!