As you can see from my earlier posts in the "music is magic... Music is emotion", you can explain the subject in different ways. One of them is what music means to me and what it does to me, but another is a certain emotion you get when you here a certain band, artist or song..This post is about my youngest son Sam. Sam is a happy little guy (he is almost 12 now) whith a great love for music (wonder from who he has it ;) ) and especially Volbeat as you can see in this clip of 8 years ago :)
I used to play in a band myself,. so Sam wanted to play in a band also. He wanted to be the drummer and wanted to play in my band :) Next to our own drummer. In the next clip you see Sam drumming on his new drumkit :) What a monster ;)
From the minute he heard Volbeat he was a big fan. He likes the great guitarrifs and bombastic drums. Everyday he went to his room and played the Volbeat albums for such a long time that even my wife got to no the lyrics one by one :)
One day he's asked if we would go to a gig someday together, and as the great dad I am ;) I promised him that we will.
Unfortunatly disaster strikes, Sam had an accident in our garden with the trampoline, he broke his elbow. It was a complex fracture of which the doctor's in our hometown misjudged. To take a long story short, it took Sam 5 surgeries and 5 years to recover, although not complete recover his right elbow always will be 'different' than his healthy one...
But Sam is Sam and he is still a cheerfull and great kid enjoying life everyday. As the years gone by there where several opertunities to see Volbeat, but there were always on some festival an mostly the closing act. For a youngster not the best place and time I thought. But still everytime Sam asked me "Dad when do we go to Volbeat, you've promised me"...
And he was right, I promised him more than once....
It was november 2016, I think, when the news was that Volbeat was comming to Eindhoven for a complete gig (no Festival, I called my wife and said, "honey, this is the moment Sammie is waiting for, we are going to Volbeat". The gig-date was almost a year later (september 2017) but ticket sales start freaking early nowadays. I suprised Sam at home with the tickets, he went balistic :)....
D-Day
It was thuesday the 5th of September 2017. I called Sam in sick at school, it was showtime :) (what a bad parent ain't I) .
We went to Eindhoven together and arrived there early in the afternoon. I'd promised Sam that we get as close to the stage as possible, so we had to be there early. When we arrived there were only a couple of other 'volbeat addicts' so are chances where high. We took a little bite, waited a very long time (we heard the soundcheck, and the stagesound was promising), and finally the 'doors' opened. I told Sam to run as fast as he possibly can to get on front row and that I would be right behind him..
And we did it !!! Yiehaaa, we were front row at our first Volbeat gig together. From there on it was heaven for me. The support acts (Amorphis and Floggin Molly) were great, but when Volbeat prepared the stage we we're getting nervous :). The started the show with a lot of fireworks, and Sam was headbanging and living it totally. As a dad it felt in heaven seeing this little monster enjoying (finally) his first volbeat gig so much.
Volbeat rocked it big time, the guys where having fun at stage and the show was awesome. We enjoyed it every single minute. The sound in the venue was louder than loud but no blurry one. It all came together perfect.
The frontman of Volbeat started a conversation with the audience. He told us that he was thrilled to see so many youth at the Volbeat concerts and he wanted to dedicate the last song to the youngsters. At that moment a guy of security came towards us and said to Sam that he could come on stage if he wanted to. He looked at me and asked "can I go dad"... I said "of course, I'ts a once in a lifetime oppertunitie". So he went on stage with his idols. And again, I was as proud a dad can be to see him enjoying. After the song he even took a selfie with the frontman of Volbeat.
So this was emotion from the heart. Giving my son finally the concert he wanted for so long. A great father-son moment which wil be remembered for a long time.... And the great thing is, next July Volbeat is comming to Holland againg, and guess who already has the tockets ;)...
Thank you, and take care!!
This song is our favorite, it is an ode from Volbeats frontman Michael Poulsen to his dad who passed away.....
Great song with a great meaning.
