In the Summer of 1974 I discovered my love for "hard" music. It was Ballroom Blitz from the SWEET that brought my blood to boil (well, I actually was 8 years old at the time!).

On Christmas Eve 1977 I received a turntable from my father, who didn't have any idea about modern music. The turntable was so small that the LP actually hung over the sides. His colleague gave my Led Zeppelin II and I loved the record, although I didn't understand it completely at the time. Whole lotta Love and the easy listening song Heartbreaker went straight to my heart. That's when I started to love the sound of the electric guitar. Jimmy Page's solos kicked my ass. After that I bought myself (I delivered the Toronto Star and got to keep the money for myself!) Double Live Gonzo, Kiss Alive II and Bootleg from Aerosmith and all of a sudden I was on the right track - Rock 'n' Roll!  

In May 1982 the time had come for my first concert. My friend Hemme and me had bought the tickets months ago and actually couldn't sleep being excited like Hell. The Scorpions with Blackfoot as an opener in the Donauhalle in Ulm! It was their Blackout-Tour - I loved the record at the time. Hemme's grandma lived in Ulm so we were able to sleep at her place. We drove to Ulm with our bicycles - it was over 50 km away. On the day of the concert we went to the venue way before anything had opened. And that's why we got to see Klaus Meine carrying his "voice box" to soothe his vocal cords which were slightly damaged at the time. Oh my God it was a rockstar, who we had seen on the cover of a rock magazine. He gave me an autograph on my jeans jacket and I was in heaven. The gig was going great and all of a sudden Rudolf Schenker threw his guitar pick into the audience after leaving the stage - a guy bent over and tried (!) to pick it up... Well, I slid in from behind - kinda on his fingers - grabbed the guitar pick and vanished out of his sight - he was kinda bigger than me...

Here are my treasures - I can't get all of the guitarist's names together anymore but still here are the ones I remember:

Rudolf Schenker, Brian Tilse, Dave Mustaine, Marty Friedmann, Jimmy Bain, Melissa Etheridge, Dave Sabo, Ricky Warwick, Pete Friesen, Timo Tolkki, Toni Iommi, Dimebag Darrell, Zakk Wylde, Robert Flynn, Tommy Victor, Josh Homme, Joey DeMaio, Joggl "Gonzo" Kraus, Paul Quinn, Michael Jung, Barry Sparks, Steve Vai, Ted Nugent, Karl Logan, Mat Sinner, Dave Meniketti, John Nyman, Chris Babbitt, Joe Stumpp, Kyriakos Vasdokas, Leon Tsorbatzoglou, Wizard Oz, Nick Catanese, Doug Scarratt, Tim Carter, Ian Hill, Glenn Tipton...

A couple of them are missing. I gave Joe Satriani's to Hemme for a birthday present. One from Harald Sprengler (Stormwitch) was lost over the years and all the guitar picks I caught during a gig from Ingwie Malmsteen I threw back at him because he really got on my nerves - what an arrogant son of a bitch - everytime his singer wanted to say something he started to play around tuning his goddamn guitar. I love his playing but he is an asshole - fuck him!

My most valuable ticket.
I was having breakfast at work reading the newspaper and saw that Ozzy Osbourne was gonna play in Böblingen. So I went to the box office and actually was the first one there. I went back to the station and noticed that I had just bought ticket # 1 - fuckin' awesome, I'd say. Nowadays you just get your tickets from some shitty computer without any number on it - man, that sucks... 

Over the years I got to catch a couple of drumsticks, too:

Frank Gilchriest, Scott Travis, Vinnie Paul, Michael Fast (2x), Ian Paice, "?", Randy Black.

The half one is from Scott Travis (Judas Priest). Another guy and I both caught the goddamn stick at either end and neither of us would let go - we looked each other deep into the eyes and all of a sudden we both had half of a drumstick in our hands - never surrender!

The "question mark" belongs to the drummer of the Melissa Etheridge Band - don't remember what his name was. It was cool because I caught that drumstick at the Fiddler's Green in Denver, Colorado in May 1995. I was on vacation with a friend of mine when we arrived in Denver at about 5 pm. We always were listening to some kind of rock radio station and that's where they announced that Melissa Etheridge would be playing an open air gig today. We didn't have a road map with us because it was never expected that we would ever hit Denver. So I bought a newspaper which confirmed the date, went to a gas station and got directions to the Fiddler's Green, where we arrived at about 5.30 pm. I got out and got in line. A woman in front of me wanted to pick up her pre-ordered tickets but her credit card wouldn't work - no dough - no tickets. Then it was my turn. The lady asked me what kinda tickets I wanted - I asked her what kinda tickets she had. She told me she had a lot for "out in the green" but also had two Front Row tickets, which had just become available at the moment - Rock'n' Roll, Baby. I bought the tickets and 1 1/2 hours after our arrival in the city, Oli and I were sitting in the Front Row with an ice cold beer in our hands. We met a woman who was from Chicago, who had ordered her tickets 6 months ago and still hadn't been able to get a seat beside her husband (well, we helped her out with that!)...

Well, the years have passed and I still go to metal concerts because I love 'em and I know that will never change - you know, now that I'm over 40 me being a Swabian knows what the fuck he's talking about!

So to all my fellow headbangers - See you in the Front Row!

Oh yeah and if you want to read about further adventures - just check out my concert reviews!