This was such a cool encounter.

It was a trip I currently cherish as among the coolest things I've EVER done.

In November 2007, while doing afternoon drive at a rock station in Honolulu, 105.9 KPOI, where I did afternoons and was Music Director for over five years, a listener, Liz, kindly invited me to see the Led Zeppelin reunion show. She had previously called in to the show to let me know she'd gotten picked in the lottery done for concert tickets to their memorial/tribute show in honor of Ahmet Ertegun. She was going with her friend, and I was rooting them on for a fantastic experience, proud that we'd have a Hawaii-based representative in the house. It was dramatic when we also found out a short time later that the date of the show was being postponed due to Jimmy Page injuring his finger. Her friend could not go, she asked me to fill in, I was stoked beyond belief, and attended what I will still, to this day, call THE SINGLE GREATEST SHOW OF MY CONCERT EXPERIENCES.

Period.

I know... hard to believe... but true.

So, we had her general admission seats, from the lottery, and then, I set up an interview with Paul Rodgers, who was on the gig, and his people then hooked me up with another pair of tickets, and passes. SICK. Just sick.

I interviewed Paul Rodgers in his hotel in London December 9, and then the Zeppelin show was the next night, with Bill Wyman also on board, with his The Rhythm KIngs band. They opened the show, and then after the gig, they also played the Indigo club, attached to the O2, where some of the aftershow parties took place (the place is huge; literally two separate aftershows at once in that joint- crazy).

At the Indigo, after his set, Bill was walking out, and just outside the club interior, was a lit lobby area, where they were doing the coat check or something, and also where there were stairs to the upper level ultra vip thing.

Bill was cruising out for the night, this is like, 2:00 am? 1 something? Really late... and he is kind enough to snap this pic... What can I say? It was, "Hey Bill, Aloha, I'm Dave Lawrence, I doubt you'd remember, but I interviewed you a couple years ago, long interview for a Honolulu radio station"... He seemed to recall, was very cool, I asked if he would do the pic, he said yeah, but make it quick, he had his little daughters there, super late at night, they were being carried by women and looking zonked... He did the pic, we had a nice hug as it was snapped, and off he went.

Extremely cool, never will forget meeting Bill Wyman, for almost all their relevant stuff, bassist of the Rolling Stones... till 1992 I believe... 

Nice guy, was just with a woman or two carrying the kids, and scooting out the door after his aftershow party set. Good times... One of many star pics from that night we'll be featuring here.

I'm a media personality and radio broadcaster in Honolulu, Hawaii, and news anchor with Hawaii Public Radio, the voice of NPR statewide in the islands. You can hear me most weekdays on the KHPR/statewide feed at http://hawaiipublicradio.org on NPR's award-winning show All Things Considered. I anchor local news and features, including many fun interviews with major music acts. Follow the HPR News link at http://hawaiipublicradio.org for my Dave Lawrence Reports page, where you can hear extended interview segments with artists I've interviewed this year for HPR, including Ziggy Marley, 311, Grateful Dead's Bill Kreutzmann, comedian David Spade, Jack Johnson, Julio Iglesias, Boz Scaggs and many other acts.

I do a lot of interviews with artists -- see more at my homepage http://davelawrenceonline.com as well as check out http://hawaiipublicradio.org and find my audio archives there. On Facebook http://facebook.com/davelawrence
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