Mr. Hudson Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 I was in a band called Superfuzz at the time - a 3 piece stoner/blues rock band from Southampton England. Our singer/guitarist Ed decided he'd try to educate us with some Rival Sons, and bought all three of us tickets to go up and see them at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, London for late 2012. An up and coming 3-piece called Pint-Sized Hero opened on the night with some aggressive, straight-edged pop/blues rock and seemed great with the large Sons crowd. The next band on was a 5, maybe 6 piece electro/psychadelic T-Rex style band named Odyssey or something like that... either way, they played an even better set; much more to my tastes. Finally the evening pushed forward to about 9:10pm and the lights started to dim around the large ballroom, and the voices began to simmer down gradually as it got darker. Me, Ed, and our bassist Tristan all motioned ourselves closer to the stage as we wanted to see these rockstars up close and personal... we wanted to feel in the presence of greatness, though we got more greatness than we expected! There was only one rail in use to bar off the stage and that was near where we were stood on the right side of the stage, facing out. To our left there was a backstage entrance/exit, which was barred off by some rails, which created a pathway to some stairs left of us as well, and these stairs led up to a tiny platform which we were stood right next to, so the backstage exit must have been no more than 8 or 9 feet from us at this point. Rival Sons finally made their entrance and instantly i could feel the presence and charisma of Jay Buchanan (Vocals) and Scott Holliday (Guitar). They all kicked off with Keep On Swinging off of their then newly released album Head Down. I remember distinctly throughout the first 20 minutes or so of their set that the backstage door was frequently being opened and closed, noticing their drum techs and unfamiliar faces looking out at the large crowd. Nothing prepared me for what happened about 40 minutes in though, as they began playing Jordan, the backstage door was opened vaguely, I couldn't help but be distracted by this door, and I felt like the only idiot in the room not paying attention to the awesomeness being produced from on stage, but then I suddenly saw two sort of large looking men in suits with stern looks on their faces walking out in single file and towards where we were stood next to the rail guarding off the backstage entrance. This is when people started to notice what was going. As the two guys got closer I could see multiple other heads bobbing up and down behind them, all following in single file down this narrowly created exit towards the small platform besides us. Apart from the two tall men I could see coming towards me, I could just about count three other heads behind them. The other two guys at the end seemed quite tall and built as well, but the head I could see sandwiched between the four men had grey hair, and this made extremely curious indeed. The grey hair also appeared to have a ponytail that I recognised. As they finally got close enough that they walked by me, I stood suddenly for a moment in shock, and for what felt like an entire life time, and as the awesomely loud rock segued into what seemed like low frequency ambience, and unbelievably my friends didn't notice, but the man I was staring at was none other than Jimmy Page! I tapped furiously on Ed's arm and screamed in his ear, "That's Jimmy PAGE!! It's JIMMY PAGE!!" pointing wildly at him as if I could be considered a threat at any moment to the legend himself. All three of us turned our heads slowly, 90 degrees to our left and gazed up slightly and there he was surrounded by his masculine entourage watching the Rival Sons gig with the gaze of a master overlooking his pupils, discerning of everything else, but the music he was seeing and hearing. Although this story most likely pales in comparison to a lot of other Jimmy Page stories on here, you'd have to consider that I was stood no less than maybe 3 feet from the man for the duration of about 20 minutes of Rival Son's set. And all 20 of those minutes I could not concentrate, and I kept looking over to check if what I was seeing was really real, or an illusion. Crazy thoughts and ideas came into my head, but nothing practical. One young girl was let through the rails to go up and get Jimmy Page's autograph, and I swear in that moment, I had a brief fleeting thought, "I could slap you and steal your autograph". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ddladner Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Great story, Mr Hudson...lucky you! Looks like you will be in debt to Ed for a long time!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BUK Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Ah! Great story indeed! Nice to know the man looks in on his musical children! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McSeven Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 Rival Sons are a great band. I love those guys. They are coming out with a new CD in June of 2014. They have 15 songs done and they said there is a bit more acousitc stuff on the new one. They had 6 weeks this time. As opposed to about 20 days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 Great story and I approve of the name Superfuzz...great name for a band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McSeven Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 There has been a lot of buzz about Rival Sons lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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