It's been a crazy week since I got home from the concert last Saturday night, but I want to share my experience at the Hollywood Vampires VIP meet and greet.
We were almost an hour behind schedule for the meet-n-greet prior to the concert at Britt Pavillion in Jacksonville. Rumor had it Alice had to play a round of golf before they left Rohnert Park that morning, and Johnny was "in no hurry" to get ready. Alice Cooper's personal Jeep Grand Cherokee was on a trailer being towed by one of the luxury motor coaches. We'd get updates from time to time, like "Alice is in the house!" and later that all three were finally in the building, but not together yet.
Somehow I ended up being first in line of our 40-person VIP group. Johnny is even better looking in person, and you clearly get the sense he is a genuinely nice guy. I expected a hand shake, but he greeted me with a hug. I told him I'd brought a book to give him, but as we weren't allowed to bring anything in with us, Tara, our guide, said she'd give it to him. I explained I'd waited ten years for the chance to give it to him and thank him for helping me to write it. He leaned closer and raised his brows in the "say what?" expression.
Alice turned toward us and leaned in at that point, shamelessly eavesdropping, and he and I grinned at each other. (There are two stages at Britt, and there was a local group playing at the small stage, and they were *very* audible where the photo backdrop had been set up -- not so much backstage as under it, outside at what is usually an entrance to the building but had been cordoned off with pipe and drape and many security guards.)
I told Johnny I'd grown frustrated over the years that he wouldn't take on a typical romantic leading man role, where his character gets a happy ending AND the girl, so I wrote a book where his character does.
He smiled and half-laughed. Alice said, "It's very hard to have a happy ending."
I think I replied "That's why I write romance!" but I may not have had the chance, as that's when the photographer turned me around. Oh yeah, my ten seconds are up. He snapped six shots, but so close together there was barely time to blink let alone change pose or expression. The link to the photos has everyone's pic from the session, and everyone was photographed that way, so each person's pics are nearly identical.
As soon as the photographer lowered his camera, I whipped around and offered Johnny my condolences on losing his mother. He said thank you (he let me see a hint of his sorrow) and pulled me in for another hug.
I shook hands with Alice -- I think. It may have been a hug, because I can't recall how he shakes, and I usually notice how people shake hands. The meet was so fast, it's such a blur. Both Alice and Joe are so much smaller in person than I expected -- shorter, and very slender builds. I definitely shook hands with Joe Perry. I felt bad for having ignored him, so I told him I was glad he was feeling well enough to rejoin the band. (He had just rejoined the group the night before.)
The concert portion sounded great, and what little I could see, the musicians seemed to be having as much or more fun than the crowd. The problem was that Britt is an outdoor amphitheater, on a hill. There is an area directly in front of the stage that is usually sold as reserved blanket seating, but for this event, they sold standing room only tickets, so the view from our reserved front row seats was of people's backsides.

The top of the drummer's set was visible on its raised platform, but that was about it. One of the gals in our group complained to ushers. After a few minutes they rounded us up and gave us the wristbands so we could also go in the SRO area, but people had already been crowding the front for a couple hours at that point, and being 5'2", I still couldn't see much more than shoulders and heads, and when the band came out (20 minutes late) there were so many raised arms waving, fist-pumping, and recording, I ended up seeing much of the concert on other people's cell phone screens.
The first five rows of reserved seating couldn't see the stage over the people in the SRO, so they stood up, which meant the people behind them had to stand, and so on, so basically the entire sold-out crowd of about 2,600 had to stand the whole time. Being outdoors, the sound was good without being painfully loud.
On the plus side, I was near the side of the stage where Johnny hung out, so I could see his head and shoulders between the crowd, and he often came to the front edge of the stage, about ten feet away. Alice was an awesome showman, all over the place, and often came to the front edge, too. He frequently held the microphone out to the crowd, especially on the encore song, School's Out. He talked to the crowd between songs, telling the band's origin story and why they sing the songs they do. Johnny did back-up vocals, so there were only a few times we could clearly hear him. Alice introduced "Bad As I Am" and explained Johnny's inspiration for writing it.
"Johnny's step-father was... well, he was--"
"He was a criminal!" Johnny chimed in.
So the song is about the things step-dad would say to Johnny, about as bad as he (dad) was, and good as Johnny was, i.e., don't do what I've done. There's a spoken word part that Johnny does, but it was muddled and I couldn't make out the words.
We clearly heard Johnny tell the crowd Thank you! at the end. He threw guitar picks to the crowd often, and went back to playing so quickly I wondered where he had them stashed.

He was great about coming up to the very front edge of the stage often during the performance, sometimes joined by Alice or bassist Robert DeLeo. He stayed at the front for quite a while after the encore, slapping hands with the crowd.
I expected to see Johnny's long-time bodyguard, Jerry, and I wasn't disappointed. He actually came out on stage first, and hung out by the speakers at the edge of the stage for a while, near Johnny's microphone. I guess when Jerry saw the crowd was going to behave themselves and stay on the correct side of the barricade, he relaxed and went farther back stage, though we still saw him now and then when Johnny went back to the corner to change guitars, get a drink, or wipe the sweat from his face and head.
As part of the VIP package, we received a bag of Hollywood Vampires logo swag -- bandanna, coasters and bottle opener set, black candle, guitar picks in a small tin, an autographed 8x10, and a picture frame. My bag was short the frame, so Tara said she'd have it after the meet. Nope, the truck with the goodies had been sent away (very limited parking at the venue -- I had to park on a residential street and hike in about a half mile, in 88 degrees, and then walk back in the dark, after 11 pm), please meet her after the concert. The truck took a long time to get there after the concert, so I chatted with the security guards and saw another VIP meet-n-greet group go in, a family with pre-teen girls. Tara was shocked that the venue had sold SRO tickets directly in front of the VIP group, and felt bad that it took so long (about 45 minutes) to get my frame, she had the guy at the merchandise booth comp me a t-shirt and poster. So I got another $65 worth of swag. And she said she gave my book to Johnny after the meet, before the concert.
I knew our time to talk would be short, so I wrote a letter explaining why I had "cast" him as the hero in my novel, and how being able to envision him made the monumental task (for me) of turning in a publishable manuscript in only five months under contract (it had taken me three years to complete the first draft of the first novel I'd sold) much easier. I remembered to print the letter and tuck it into the book before I left home, but do you think I remembered to sign it? Gah.
Amazingly, I did not cry or tear up when I met him -- got that out of the way in the truck before I drove to the venue -- and was so giddy I forgot to tell him the title of the book or my name. Was annoyed with myself, but as a friend pointed out, how many people do you think brought him a book that night?
So other than a highly obstructed view of the performance, the experience all went much better than the beginning of our trip might have suggested: we were 90 minutes into our 5-hour drive to Medford in Friday afternoon rush hour traffic when I realized I'd left my concert ticket in its safe place, on the refrigerator. D'oh!