I'm loving all these old 1999 Slipknot stories.
My Turn...
Was in grade 11. Never knew who Slipknot was, but was a fan of Coal Chamber, but for some reason I wasn't attending the show that was coming to Winnipeg. The Slipknot/Coal Chamber/ Dope show (fantastic lineup by the way!). A friend of mine, was huge into Slipknot. How he found out about them, I will never know. None of our group of friends knew who this "Slipknot" was, but he was over his head. They were doing a signing at a local mall record store (HMV) and he skipped class to stand in line all day to be at the front of the singing. So, school ends and myself and another mutual friend go downtown to the signing to hang with our friends. We had no idea who the band was, but what else do you do when you're 16, lol.
So, we're at the store, hanging with friends, meeting new people in line. Then the line starts moving, OK, sure whatever... let's go meet this band that we don't know. Turns out, earlier that day was yearbook day at school, so I had my yearbook on me... figured I'd get the band to sign my yearbook, because... why the hell not, lol.
After the singing, we went to the venue to go hang out with our friends in line again, keep them company. We had no intentions of going to the show (me and the other guy), we didn't have tickets. Probably couldn't afford them or something, I donno. But we had a bunch of friends going and we were not, but we just went anyway. As the line started moving to get into the venue, we started walking away. I don't know which of us had the idea, but as we walked around to the side of the building, one of us decided to open the side door (like a fire exit type door) and it wasn't locked. It lead directly to the kitchen of the venue. Nobody was there. We walked in. Now we are in the kitchen. Someone walks in and asks what we were doing, we said we we were looking for the washroom, they direct us through another door, which we walk straight into the fucking venue and now we are at the front of the stage with the rest of our friends, and boy... they were pissed off that we got in for free.
That's one of my favorite memories/stories to tell. The show was amazing as well, never knew who Slipknot was before that, but after that show, I became a fan. Got the Self titled record for X-mas later that year.
Man, those were the days. The band just isn't the same as they used to be with all the lineup changes over the years. Good times.