Saturday the 19th of April 2008, and us Hydra's are preparing for the next concert we are going to attend. The band we are going to see are TWIN DRAGONS. Actually, that is not quite true, cos we are in fact going to see MIKE HICKEY (who many of you will also know as MYKVS), who is playing guitar with TWIN DRAGONS on their European Tour.

The concert is in a place called Leonberg, which is not too far away from Stuttgart in Germany. Mrs H and myself first drive to meet up with the Istein Legions - Weird Al, Strange Eli and normal Lungi - who are coming with us to tonight's show. We are facing an almost 4 hour drive, but the weather is pleasant and the car is packed with beer, so we depart...

 

Several stops for beer (and toilets!!) later and we arrive at Uhlenspiegel, the venue for tonight's show. We note that the tour bus is already there, so we crack open the next round of beers. While we are sipping said beers, Mr HICKEY comes out of the venue to see if we have arrived, as he had been forewarned of our invasion. MIKE exchanged HELLo's and big hugs (the big hugs were with Mrs H, not the rest of us ugly mutha's, of course!!). Us Hydra's have known MIKE for a long time now (I first met him at a CRONOS concert back in London, England during January 1991), and we met him many times when he was on the road with VENOM, CRONOS and CARCASS. Spent a great hour or so talking about times past, present and future, and made plans for MIKE to autograph the large selection of VENOM, CRONOS and GOATREIGN items we had taken with us at the end of the evening. The happy sight of Al and Eli returning from a petrol station carrying a case of the world's greatest beer, Tannenzäpfle, completes this most enjoyable start to the day.

 

A couple of hours till show time, we find a really excellent bar / restaurant nearby, which sold top quality food. So good, in fact, that we all commented that we wished it was located a lot nearer to where we live. Yep, it was that good!!!

 

So, back to the venue, grab some beers and we go to the very front of the stage. Very good atmos in the packed venue, and TWIN DRAGONS arrive on stage. An excellent set of music covering every genre from Blues, Rock & Metal, all performed to the very highest order by these top-notch musicians. Apart from MIKE, the band consisted of NATHANIEL PETERSON (v), TC TOLLIVER (d), FABIO CERRONE (g) and DON ROXX (b), and they were joined onstage for several songs sung by ERIC MARTIN, who some of you may remember was the singer in supergroup MR BIG. Mr MARTIN gave us a good laugh, as he encouraged all us VENOM Freaks to roar out as he introduced MIKE to the crowd, adding that he had seen us gathered in the car park earlier in the day. Good fun!

 

Mrs H and myself spent the whole gig about 2 meter's away from MIKE. It was a real fascinating and amazing experience to be able to watch such an amazing guitarist at close quarters. Not just that he is a hero of ours, but also to see such a wide range of music being played so precisely and expertly - it was a real honour for us. Awesome!!

 

Eventually, after some 2 and a half hours, the show came to an end. The crowd obviously had a great evening too, and the calls for more lasted long after the final chord of the evening.

 

After congratulating MIKE and the rest of the band on a terrific evening of music, the time had come to get all the stuff signed by MIKE. People looked on in amazement as we started unpacking the piles of CDs and vinyl's that poor ol' MIKE would have to sign. It was probably unfair of us to take up so much of his time after such a long concert, but as ever he was a true Gentleman, and made us very happy by signing each and every item we had brought with us. Re-fuckin'-spect, Dude!!!!!

 

After saying goodbye and thanx to MIKE, back to the car for the journey home. More beer, then the silence from the back of the car indicated that Al, Eli and Mrs H had all nodded off. Understandable really, as we'd drunk enough beer to last for a tour, never mind a gig! I was fighting a losing battle too, and I dropped off too somewhere between Karlsruhe and Evil Istein....

 

A very special day for us, for which we owe a massive HELL YEAH to the awesome MIKE MYKVS HICKEY!! Thanx for all, MIKE, and hoping to see you onstage again very soon indeed!!!