My odyssey to get my favorite album signed on LATAM (and i did it)
Korn once played at a local gym with a capacity of around 4,000 people, just 20 minutes away from my house. For reasons life threw at me, I had never been able to see them live before, even though by now they had already visited my country five times.
The first day they were supposedly arriving in my country, nobody had seen them anywhere. That same day, torrential rain had been forecast in my city, so trying to find out which hotel they would stay at was going to be even harder. As expected, they ended up staying at the most luxurious hotel, and by intuition I decided to go wait outside and see if anything happened.
Everything was normal until it started pouring rain, with thunder and lightning included. I had my only vinyl copy of my favorite album, See You on the Other Side, protected from the rain, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it getting damaged. Anyway, I waited almost the entire day under the storm, and nothing happened. The person I was hoping to see the most was Brian, but no luck. I went back home completely soaked, exhausted, and empty-handed.
The second day before the show, I woke up early and got ready to try my luck again. I went there in the morning hoping there wouldn’t be many people yet, but once again nothing happened until later in the day, when the hotel was already full of fans just hoping for at least a greeting.
I went home very late once again, still with nothing.
By show day, I had basically accepted that I probably wasn’t getting anything signed.
That day I arrived very early to the venue line. I had a ticket that would let me get front row, and during that morning I met several really nice people. Among them was a guy who travels the world seeing Korn in different locations. This was approximately his 80th Korn show, and the band actually knows him personally—they’re pretty much friends.
The three of us ended up together in the front row. At one point, the band’s bodyguard approached this guy and handed him a commemorative guitar pick. I immediately took that chance to talk to the bodyguard.
Turns out, I had brought my vinyl to the concert. I was scared of damaging it, but this was my only real chance to maybe get a signature, so in that tiny split second I asked the bodyguard if it would be possible for him to take it backstage.
To my surprise, he kindly agreed.
I couldn’t believe it. I was literally screaming from excitement.
A few minutes later, he came back with it signed by Munky, Head, and my biggest dream of all: Jonathan Davis.
Then the show started, and I enjoyed every second from beginning to end. Every minute felt magical and liberating.
During Y’All Want a Single, Jon pointed directly at me and smiled.
That image will stay in my memory for the rest of my life.
That’s all—I just wanted to share my experience as a Latin American boy finally seeing his favorite band in the world for the very first time.
Greetings to everyone!
This phograph is from the show the moment it arrived to my hands on the pre show.
