Rockin With Legends. -The recap. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So as most of you know, I entered my song "I Won't Cry" in a song contest & I won the "rockin with the legends" performance prize. I am very proud that out of thousands of entries from all over the country I was voted into the top ten by the voting public and then hand selected by a panel of celebrity judges and members of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame as the overall winner. So as my reward, myself and my band got an all expense paid trip out to Raleigh NC with all the vip trimmings to open the Rockhall Benefit Concert for the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and John Entwhistle Foundation. I played at a 7,000 seat amphitheater! The line up of acts that I opened for feautured some of the biggest names in Classic Rock History. Frontman of Cream, Jack Bruce, Deep Purple singer, Joe Lynn Turner. Styx singer, Dennis Deyoung.
Alan White, drummer for Yes...so many other's... Dave Mason of Traffic, Tom Bowes, of Tower of Power, Buck Dharma, Blue Oyster Cult, Eric Bazalian of The Hooters, Jefferson Airplane/Starship, Rick Derringer, Randy Hansen, (Does Hendrix nearly better than Hendrix if you could imagine such a thing).. The amazing violinist, Geoffrey Castle...more I cant even remember... I'm sure I will kick myself later for forgetting someone. I had the opportunity to play, eat, drink and talk with most of them and I must say they are the nicest coolest people, you could ever wanna hang out with. They also all happen to be... rockstars!! The thing I am aspiring to be???.. they did it.. are still doing it. Wow. To be in the presence of such fame and success and to have these greats praising my work and congratualting me on my success. Hahaha.. umm can you say validation??? There really arent enough words for me to express how it made me feel. For the moment I will go with euphoria and exhilerating.
The performance on stage was amazing and I could write forever on the details over the four days that I was in Raleigh but I don't wanna gush too much so I will share with you my most special rocktrip memoir.
On Saturday night/Sunday morning (4am) after a near/miss jam opprtunity that almost happened, but didn't quite, at the Lincoln Theater afterparty with all the guys... I got a call on my cell from someone in the Yes group aka THE WHITESOX ALL-STARS and was invited to come to the their hotel suite and sing and perform acoustically. See the thing is that I played on Friday and opened the show early in the evening and not everyone on the bill that wanted to hear me perform got the chance. They had hoped to get the chance at the Lincoln as they had all heard great things from those who did witness it. Again... Wow!!!
I agreed of course. I told everyone in the car, "Change of plans we're going to Yes's hotel room to play some music." :) Sascha, my drummer was driving and we were stuck in the Wendy's drive thru. There was only one car ahead of us taking forever and Mike, my bass player was like "dude let's just go, they're gonna go to sleep. hahaha!!!" Sascha was hungry and has a thing about low blood sugar levels so we stayed another minute or two to calm the beast.
The drive thru girl was seriously like the worst ever and nobody knew why it was taking so long. Sascha was trying to order chicken nuggets or something and the drive thru girl said.. "We dont have chicken nuggets all we have is number 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8" and she said it in this thick accent in like one second with no explanation and I was dying of laughter. I wish you could have heard it cause it loses something in the translation but anyways... blah blah fastforward to the really good stuff...
We got to the hotel suite and I expected to see like just a few people in there and what I walked into instead was nearly every artist I had met, the president of the rockhall benefit and everyone's collective entourage with thunderous applause, pats on the back and smiles all around me. I was completely overwhelmed. What came next was a big jam on "Summertime" with TV personality Elizabeth Vargas and then "Come together"
After that, I was given the floor and a guitar to play signed by Jack Bruce whom I had earlier met. Amazing!!!
I played an acoustic rendition of "Become" which was adored by all and remarked as
"fu%in brilliant" by Joe Lynn Turner the singer of Deep Purple (who posesses a rock scream powerful enough to crack the sky) and heartily applauded. Gigi White,the sweetest woman and wife of Alan White was front and center with her hubby and they both were smiling at me in pride and admiration like we were family.
After I finished that song their was a knock at the door and it was the night manager (again:) warning them about the noise. hahhahaha. I figured that was the end of it at that point but then Gigi said to me... "Play whatever you want Pete. We're already in trouble." :) I closed with a song I wrote called "Come Around" I finished and then all were coming up to me and complimenting me asking for cards and at this point the rest is all a hazy dreamy euphoric blur because the whole thing was a little overwhelming. All I could seem to say was "thank you" over and over smiling and trying to keep it together. So it was like 5:30am by now I had a plane to catch in a few hours back to LA. Goodbyes were exchanged and they all went downstairs to keep jamming till God knows when in the hotel bar which they decided they would take over. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I'm happy. I went out strong, satisfied and then some. What a weekend!!! I wish you all could have been there. Thank you to those at The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame for supporting my career and my work and thank you also to my fans here and around the country and the world for your support!
Big luv 2 ya!
Raise Up!!!!
-Pete Hopkins