>> back

08/11/2005 - The Guests Arrives In São Paulo .

I woke up in the morning with a call; I believe to be about 8:00am. On the other end of the line was Flavio, saying that the bus wasn’t there to pick them up. I only could go to São Paulo 08/11, my band arrived there 07/11. I gave a call to the guy responsible for the production there, and he said to me that the bus certainly was there in the bus station waiting for them. Then I called back to Flavio, I had already lost hope of sleeping again. While I took a bath my cell phone started to ring, as I already was accustomed with problems at any time, I was taking baths with the cell phone in reach. Before taking the call, I looked at the number to see who was calling. It was Paulo Baron, problems for sure. I was wondering if I should finish my bath and call him back later or if I should stop my bath to see what the problem was, but he didn’t give up, and the cell phone didn’t stop ringing. I dried my hands and took the call, on the other side of the line, he said in a super calm voice "Hey Renato, How are you? I am calling to tell you that all theguests have already arrived in the airport, we’re waiting now for Bruce’s flight”. I was calm, all of them were already there and Bruce would surely come, he is a man of honor, the kind of person who I like. I prepared my stuff, and after 11 minutes, my cell phone rings once again. Now was Andre Dellamanha, one of the producers of the event, He called to say a thing that really relieved me, " Renato, Bruce is here".

I arrived in São Paulo.

 I arrived in São Paulo, the flight was very good and the bus was at the front of the airport waiting for me. I arrived at the hotel, Hilton, excellent rooms, excellent food, everything was perfect. While I was taking a coffee, I met Mat Sinner and Ralf Scheepers; they were waiting for Achim Koller (sound engineer of the DVD) to go to lunch. We had a very nice conversation. While this time we gave some interviews, and one of these interviews was really cool, I interviewed them and they interviewed me later. I think I’m going to use it on the DVD.

Meeting Chris Dale.

I returned from lunch with Ralf, Mat and Achim. In the Hall of the hotel I met Chris Dale, my great friend, seated, reading and taking a juice, he adores orange juice. I asked if he was well, he answered “Sure” he was very happy. I was very happy to see he was happy, because he always helped me; he was the responsible one for how I got to know Bruce today, so for me, he was the person responsible for that entire event. I asked if he already had lunched, he said not, I invited him and then I was to eat one more time. I thought that I wouldn’t eat too much, but I was so agitated that I ate like a monster again. I asked him about Dawn (his fiancé) and we spoke on a thousand subjects, I adore talking with him, he is an excellent person. He said that he had met Bruce in the hotel and that he was really happy being there. I was happy to know that.

The Meeting.

The evening arrived, a meeting had been scheduled. Some of the guests musicians didn’t know each other, I was the only link that joined to all of them, then I was the responsible for introducing them. We closed the bar of the hotel. It was an excellent place for this meeting. When I arrived all of them already were there, Bruce seated with Chris and Roy Z, Mat seated with Achim and Ralf, Roland seated with his fiancé and my band seated with Paulo and Andreas Kisser. Ok, I could see that that meeting was really important. How they could work well together if they didn’t know each other? We would transmit this in the stage. Then I started the most important meeting of my life, try to imagine yourself at my place, I was seated in front of the greatest Heavy Metal musicians in the world, who were there in that meeting because I invited them, for sure they wanted to know what I had to say, but not even I knew what I should say. Then I started: "I would like to thank all of you guys for having come, I will never forget this. Today we probably are preparing a concert that was never made in the world before, a single event in the heavy metal world, and this was possible because you had trust in me and came when I invited you, Thank you very much". All ofthem gave a smile. I think only in that moment did they also think about the uniqueness of the event. I introduced them all and we were drinking and talking. We scheduled the time that each one of them would enter on stage, the order of the songs and all the other small details, it was an unforgettable moment. It is not every day that you have chance to command a team like this.