And the last thing. Such small shows are absolutely thrilling. Now I have experienced it all – stadium, arena, theatre. And the last one was the best for me without a doubt. It creates such an intimate atmosphere. You feel you can literally touch the sounds, say anything and your voice will be heard. The interaction with musicians is just unbelievable. I wish one day BJ will play such a show in Europe and I will get to be there too. I’d pick such shows any time over the stadium shows and would pay much more for them too.

As the show finished we quickly went back to that backstage entrance outside. Limousine was still waiting, so we knew Richie did not leave the building yet. As you know it was the longest show of all European shows and it finished at about 11.40pm. When we got there, the crowd was already there. Definitely much more people than before the show. And we were all waiting for Richie to come outside to show him our gratitude for the last time. Our car was parked again very close, just few meters away, and my friend went for his guitar to try to get Richie’s signature again. It’s always worth a shot although it was really cold and it didn’t do any good to this gorgeous guitar, but it was his decision and moments like that do not happen often. Time was running but still there were no signs of Richie. Many people went out down that stairs, including the support band, Richie’s band members but still not Richie. But at some point Nick came down to fans and picked some guitar of a fan and went back up to get it signed by Richie. “What a lucky man”, I thought, now there is no chance my friend will get it. He was standing right by those stairs but Nick didn’t see him. After few minutes, Nick came back with the signed guitar and everybody in the crowd gave a loud applause for the owner. And now Nick started to collect any kind of memorabilia, like photos, CD booklets etc. to take them up again and get it signed by Richie again. And as he was walking back up again, my friend asked him to take his guitar too, saying something like “Mine too!”. But Nick shook his head for a “No” and said “no more” and started to walk up the stairs. I was few steps away from my friend hoping to get a nice photo of Richie walking down the stairs. But when I saw my friend being rejected by Nick, instantly I jumped towards him, grabbed his guitar, hold it up as high as possible and I said one more time “Nick, can you take this one too, please?!”…He stopped and he looked at me. I don’t know, maybe he recognized me from the afternoon, I am not sure. And I thought “ Oh my God, there is still a chance”. He grabbed the guitar, and looked on the neck. As it was quite dark he had to look closely, and when he saw “Taylor”, he picked it up to the end and said “Ok, I’ll take this one too”!!!!!!!! OMG!!!! I couldn’t believe it myself too. My friend will get his dream come true too. When we bought the tickets weeks before the show, he said right away “I am taking my guitar and will get Richie’s autograph on it”. And he was so right. And when Nick took it, the whole crowd started to clap their hands in ovation for us. We both couldn’t believe it but after few minutes Nick came back down with all those little things and my friend’s guitar. Here’s the moment when he is handing it over to my friend:


And there it is, Richie autograph – “Richie Sambora, 2012”!!! I think that value of this guitar has just multiplied a couple of times. It was a valuable guitar anyway, but now with this autograph of one of the greatest guitarist in the world it has become a priceless jewel and a collectible item of the highest kind.

But that’s not over. When my friend had it in his hands, he started to play the “Whoah whoahs” part of “I’ll be there for you” very quietly. And I thought we should take advantage of this whole situation
and told him to play it louder and then probably the crowd will pick this up. I started to sing and suddenly everyone joined us. We sang it at midnight, right outside, giving Richie that one last magical moment and giving back for this amazing show. But still, Richie was not going down and we probably did dozens of loops singing it and it became boring. And then some guy from the crowd went to us and asked my friend if he can play “Seven Years Gone” and he said he did not, but I said that I do. And my friend passed the guitar to me, and I started to play my fav song. I couldn’t believe what was happening. We are waiting for Richie after the show, and I get to play the song everyone was hoping to hear. Even more, the song I asked him to play right before the show. I was the last person he heard before going into the building, asking for this particular song, and now it seemed that out of some weird coincidence, I will play it for him, instead of him playing for us. As my friend did not have a belt attached to guitar it was very hard to play it in a standing position. So I had to squat to be able to play it. After a moment I finally found a good position and could play it with full force now. It was unbelievable. Again people started to sing with us too. But still Richie was not coming. It was almost an hour after the show finished and he was not leaving. We also played few loops of verses and chorus and people stopped singing so I stopped too. You can actually watch it here, it was quite dark over there so it’s not very clear but my wife tried to capture the moment: http://youtu.be/yzLVBnb4Qnc

But I realized this is the best song to thank Richie for everything one more time. Sure, those “Whoah whoahs” from “I’ll be there for you” are much easier to sing for the crowd, but SYG would be so much better to show respect to him. Not a BJ song, but his own masterpiece. And in fact the one fans want to hear the most and for some reason the one he can’t sing for them. I decided, that the moment he will show up on those stairs I will play it and sing my lungs out to thank him personally again for his music. And finally, after about an hour, he showed up and I started to play. The crowd joined me and it was clear that Richie was truly moved by this situation. He was surprised that so many people were waiting for him outside and I personally would like to think, that he was touched hearing his song for farewell. He stopped in the middle of the way down, and raised his hands to thank us all for being there for him. He looked really tired but also very happy and satisfied. He went straight to the car and there were no place for photos or anything else. As I was playing the song, my wife managed to take one last shot of Richie driving away and what an amazing shot it is. Just take a look at this yourself. Look into his eyes. I think those eyes say it all. He was truly touched. He did not expect the Berlin audience to give him such fantastic support throughout the whole show and even after it. He left his whole heart and soul on stage but for sure the crowd gave exactly the same in return. He left the place really happy, fulfilled, just as I did, as we all did. That will be one of the most magical experiences I have ever had in my life.





So, as always the good things end quickly and we had to go back to our hostel. I couldn’t sleep until 4am and I had to share the first thoughts with my friend over the internet (also from JT) and also sent my thanks to Richie and Nick on Twitter again for such an amazing show. What a day it was. Beyond anything I could ever imagine. Again, you may think I made this all up, but believe me, not a single thing in it is a lie.

On the next day we wanted to see the city at least a little bit, as we’ve never been to Berlin before. We had a 2 or 3 hours walk and it was very nice and we saw the most important sights for sure. To add some downs to the story, not to make it look too sweet, I can tell you that I lost my phone in Berlin. While we were driving to city centre, we got stuck in the traffic again and we didn’t move for a long time. And I walked out of the car to see what’s going on and I heard something falling down. I saw my memory card from camera on the street and I picked it up and I thought that was it. But about 2-3km after that I realized I don’t have a phone with me and I was sure it was the phone that dropped back then too. We drove back to the place hoping to find it, but as my wife tried to call me, the voice box was answering automatically, so I guessed the phone is dead already. But what I really wanted was my card with number and memory card in the phone. The phone was 3 years old and I was about to change it soon anyway. And when we got there, we found it on the street, but in 5 separate parts, damaged totally, but at least I got the card and my phone number. So this trip had to have some kind of sacrifice too.