I feel to post my Lemmy story.
Let me preface that I'm not too deep into the genre but I can appreciate good music played with honesty and heart, if you know what I mean.
It was 1996, I was living in Rome at that time and i received a call from a friend journalist who is a very HUGE Motorhead fan. He asked me if he could stay at my house (he was living in another city) because he had to go to a Motorhead concert to be held in Rome. In the past times he had briefly encountered and said hi to Lemmy after some concerts but this time he had contacted him for a full interview which Lemmy agreed. They arranged a meet in the afternoon before the concert and I went there too.
I remember standing in the parking area of the Music Club at the time agreed, in front of a long van which was Lemmy house on the road. After a couple of minutes the man came out. He looked like he had just woke up and what struck me was that he was totally dressed in a white uniform with stripes and the such and ... that was also the color on his face... WHITE! I mean, the man surely had some fun the night before...
Anyway, he just apologized about the fact that he needed a couple hours more of rest and more coffee cups before to proceed with the interview. Nonetheless he chatted with us a good twenty minutes and was totally a cool gentleman. Then he retired into the van inviting us to show up two hours later.
How many of his colleagues musicians in that state would have showed up just to keep the date with two fans?
I had to go to work then but my friend later went to the van and he reported Lemmy was, again, totally cool. He did the interview, showed his basses (I guess he had just recently received the carved top walnut Rick at that time), his WWII memorabilia etc. He also gave two Press Passes for the concert so that night we were allowed to stay in the reserved area between the crowd and the stage taking pictures.
The volume was incredible even with ear plugs on (without 'em on I would be deaf now) so after the first two songs we moved to the back (it was a 1000 people place). At that point Lemmy asked to the crowd <<Is it loud enough?>> and, as the people from the audience yelled <<Yeees!!>> he reached his Marshall stack, cranked it to full volume and went straight into "Ace of Spades".
That was a fun night...
RIP
Respect.
!
