Waiting at the STAGE DOOR ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

[iefje]

My father and I and three friends went to the stage door of the Theatre Royal in Norwich on the 15th of May, 2004, during their final tour of Britain. We managed to get autographs of Hank, Bruce and Brian. Three of each: one on the sleeve of The Shadows' first album, one on the scratchplate of my Squier P-Bass and one on a sheet music book of The Shadows we just bought. Later in the year on the 16th of October, we went to see Jet Harris & The Rapiers in Midwoud, a very small place in the North-West of The Netherlands. Again, I managed to let Jet sign the above three items, so I had all four autographs of The Shadows' second line-up of Hank, Bruce, Jet and Brian from late 1961/early 1962.
On the 11th of May, 2005, we went to the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam and again tried to meet our heroes. I did succeed to let Hank sign the Dutch single "Guitar Tango"/"Nivram" (my father's very first vinyl record in his collection, back in 1962) and a Fender Stratocaster scratchplate. Also, I was able to get a picture of Hank and myself, taken by my father. Bruce went inside quite quickly and Brian went inside right away, probably because he was slightly injured at that moment, because he had a splinter from a drum stick in his hand. Because of this, the boys didn't play "Little 'B'" that night. Brian's specialist actually advised him not to play, but he didn't want to let the fans down. Despite his injury, he played one heck of a show!