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The
Adventure Begins...
Hangin'
with Diamond Dave
A
few months back we asked you crazy mofos who've hung out
or spent an evening with Diamond Dave to send us your
experiences. Here's a couple to get things started. If you
have a story to tell, send us your impressions of meeting
Diamond Dave. Send your pictures, stories and empty Jack
Daniels to daveman@dlrarmy.com
Your 15 minutes starts ticking away right now...
Submitted
by J. Marko
Photo by R. Burrier
It
was a rainy night in Tampa Bay on Dec. 17, 1999. I was
giddy after securing my opportunity to me the Diamond One
himself,  David
Lee Roth.
I had won an auction on a local radio station
benefiting the All Children's Hospital.
About $5,000 later I had a custom built
guitar (shaped like a motorcycle gas tank from the '50s),
2 tickets to the show, and a meet-and-greet with Dave. I
was ready.
My best pal (she doubles as my girlfriend) and I
loaded up the Lexus and headed for the gig. We knew ahead
of time that there might be some problems.
The afternoon DJ got hold of Dave's hotel
room and phone numbers and promptly preceded to give them
out over the air. Naturally, Dave got pissed (who could
blame him) and nearly canceled the whole thing due to
people hounding him in his private time.
Dave though, being as kick-ass as he is,
realized that the fans should not be punished. It's
Showtime !!!
The radio station brass is apparently made up
of idiots, so nothing was handled smoothly. The show,
listed as an 8 O'clock start began at more like 10. We
were told to be there at 6:00. Needless to say, we stood
in the rain, guitar in hand (for signing) for 2 hours.
Finally, the dickhead from the radio station shows up and
tells us we'll be doing it after the show. We shook it off
and continued with the Jack Daniel's meets Jamaican reefer
pre-show party.
Dave hit the stage about 10 p.m. "Hot
for Teacher"! The sellout outdoor crowd goes wild.
About 30 seconds in, Dave pulls up holding
his eye. Grabs a towel, does a few blinks....
"... from the top boys..." he said, obviously
wounded.
Drum rolls again, guitars kick in.
" Hold it, hold it....I've only got 2 eyes and I
ain't losin' one for you fucks," he said.
Someone threw a cup of ice on stage and hit
Dave straight on. He heads back stage with the band. Ten
minutes go by and the morons in the crowd begin to boo.
Out comes the tour manager like a scene from Zep's
"The Song Remains the Same" movie. He offers
$500 bucks to anyone who will bring the asshole who threw
the ice up on stage.
Lot's of yelling and pointing, but these
morons don't even know who they are let alone the guilty
prick. The crowd is going crazy. About 15 minutes later,
lights, camera, action !!
"Hot for Teacher" and a refreshed Diamond Dave
!!
"Who wants to be around predictable people
anyway!" he says.
The crowd is in a frenzy. The rest is Tour '99 history.
The show ends and we wait
another hour in front of Dave's tour bus with the brains
of the radio station. Shit for brains, that is. Then we
get the go ahead waive from Roth security. There we are,
guitar case in hand, in the pouring rain. We head up the
stairs into the bus. I can't see shit but I hear a very
familiar sound: The Diamond Dave laugh ! We were close !
As we made the turn into the main bus, live before my
naked, steaming eyes....Mr. Roth and Roll! Surreal.
We were greeted by Dave and we shook hands.
Very nice guy. He offered us a seat and continued to laugh
and talk. We spent about a total of 40 minutes with Dave.
Naturally, he did most of the talking.
Dave made light of some "Cobain"
that was on the stereo at the time, talked about hippie
days, joked, and gave the middle finger salute,
"here's one for the Palestinians" ! Dave is the
man ! He signed the guitar, 2 extra tickets, and most the
prized thing of all - He personalized his book to me.
Pizmo, my better half, took a couple pictures of us and we
laughed some more. He described cleaning weed on the outer
cover of the book and looked my girl dead in the eye and
said, "Look me straight in the eye sweetheart and
tell me you don't know what I'm talkin' about".
What a great time... one I'll never forget.
Take it from me, a fan of David Lee Roth and
Van Halen from day one, this guy is total class.
Those of you who elect to listen to anyone
else's story about Dave's adventures are missing the
truth. Ed, Al, Mike...I love you guys, but quit fuckin'
lying ! You let the greatest foursome in history drift
away from you for all those years. For the rest of us, we
all know that Dave never went anywhere he didn't want to
go. The solo years rock !
So too will the reunion years.
Whatever you guys out here do, read the book
and keep tuned in to the DLRARMY. As Dave said to me as I
shook his hand upon leaving, "God Bless, see ya next
tour!"
Meeting
my hero, DLR
Submitted by J.Pittillo
It was last July 1999 and the DLR Band
tour was coming through Greenville, SC. My wife and I went
to the show with a couple of friends of ours from our
local rock station (WTPT 93.3 The Planet, www.93planet.com).
Zakk and Kimberly do the morning show, and Zakk is also
the program director.
I brought my copy of Crazy
from the Heat for Dave to sign just in case I got back
stage, but after driving to the gig I decided to leave it
in the car. I figured I wouldn't get back stage and
something might happen to it.
We didn't think we could get in but
Kimberly, who is pretty hot and looks alot like Shania
Twain, except better (no shit check out the web page) said
that she would go and talk to Big Ed. They had done a
radio interview about a month earlier with DLR and
Kimberly talked with Big Ed so she felt like he would
recognize her name.
Sure enough, we walked up to the stage
before the show, found Big Ed and he gave us "Club
Dave" passes!
I was pissed though! I had left my copy of
CFTH in the car. I would have missed several minutes of
the show if I went to get it now. Luckily Kimberly had
brought a couple of copies of the DLR Band CD and gave me
one.
My wife wasn't very excited at first,
but she was happy for me.
The show was awesome. Of course.
DLR hit all the highs, and took several
signature jumps off of the drum riser! After Dave played,
we went to the area to get back stage. Big Ed got us
first. There were about 20 people who had passes. We went
back to "Club Dave" slowly, the rest of the
people who had passes came in about 5 or 6 at a time.
Big Ed was playing old disco and
Motown, everybody was partying with the free beer and
liquor. After about 20 minutes the band came in! I talked
with Bart and Ray for a little while and then spoke
briefly to Todd.
Then Big Ed Anderson comes up to us and
asks us if we're ready! Hell yeah!
We walk out and directly across the
hall, there is a sign on a dressing room that says
"SENSEI," you know, like the Ninja master! I
know right away that this is DLR's dressing room. My wife
and I walk in first through the cloud of smoke, the smell
of weed smacking me in the face... and there before me is
David Lee Roth.
He shakes my wife's hand first, of
course. She is a hot little blonde, and she is wearing a
tight little black dress. He shook my hand next and asked
how we all were doing. He talked with everybody there.
There were about 6 of us in there now. He answered all of
our questions and just shot the shit with us for about 20
- 30 minutes. He signed my DLR Band CD and my '94 YFLM
tour shirt. Someone with us commented that I was a
"die-hard" fan.
When he went to sign my shirt he said
"Man, you are die hard!"
Pretty cool.
Someone asked him about Van Halen. He
said, "Who knows what's going on up there on Van
Halen hill man!"
Well, all good things must come to an
end. We had to leave for the next group to come in. I made
sure that I was the last to leave and shook his hand again
and
thanked him.
A great experience! He was very cool.
Someone once told me that you should never meet the people
that you idolize, because they will disappoint you.
Not true here. He couldn't have been
more down to Earth or made us feel any more welcome. After
the experience my wife has a new found respect for DLR and
is a bigger fan now. We just recently had our third child,
and first boy.
We named him Roth. Roth Dallas Pittillo to be exact.
I've always been a Dallas Cowboys fan too. |
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