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Ozzfest 2002 - Diary Of A Mad Band – Neurotica Tour Diary! 

Get the inside story of Ozzfest from Neurotica's Kelly Shaefer. 

Week One

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Day one - the trip!!!! Well as most of you know the tour started a few days late due to an untimely illness with sharon osbourne, so we headed out on the Sunday instead of the Thursday we planned on!!! The bus shows up and we are stoked cause its all black and has a great big 42 inch big screen in it, perfect for playing Madden 2002, our friends and family saw us off, and we headed for the first show in Scranton, Pa, it was quite a long trip so we got acquainted with our bus driver right off the bat, her name is Sharon and she used to drive for Ozzy and Sharon, she has done Ozzfest before and is really helpful and cool!  We arrived the day before the show to do soundcheck and it was pissing down rain, it was at the top of the mountain, cool venue, we had a great soundcheck and now it was time to get used to playing at freakin 9:30- 12:00 in the afternoon, holy crap that’s a hard hour for us, we went over and got our credentials after the sound check. We were introduced to a new thing for Neurotica, CATERING!!!!  2 sure fire meals everyday and its a very nice spread too. After that we could hear Ozzy soundchecking so we sat and listened for a bit and then it was off to sleep. gotta get up at 7:30 to crush at 9:30. DAY OF THE SHOW 7/10/02 We wake up with the enthusiasm of 12 midnight we are so ready to bust it out and get that first show out of the way. We set up the stage and had the dubious honor of striking up the very first notes of Ozzfest 2002 quite an honor for a Lil ole metal band from Sarasota!!!  Hit the stage and go the f*&% off!!!! Great early crowd of a couple thousand die hard metalers who were in line by 5:a.m. we opened with “Up in the hay” and it was underway!!! we rolled into “Ride of your life” next and it seemed that people were familiar with that one from the Forceable entry disc.  We then played “All my friends crush you” and now things were heating up, we were having a blast we could not believe that we were actually doing this shit!! Our final song is a cover of the Beatles “The Walrus” and it went down like it was taught to these kids at birth, we were surprised at the number of kids who knew this tune considering it was about 30 odd years old! That was it, we had completed the first show at Ozzfest 2002, our crew did a great job and we were on and off like clockwork!!!! Now it was time to party and bask in the glory that is Ozzfest. But first we headed over to do our first signings at the FYE tent, and we were overwhelmed by the amount of people who bought cd’s, we signed over 400 posters it was crazy, I have never even been to Scranton so it was amazing that just like that we sold some shit!!! We then headed over to the Jagermeister booth for another signing there, and lo and behold there was another line of people. Holy crap man!! this is gonna be one fun ass summer!!!! After we returned from the signings, we hop on the bus and were chillin and we look out the front window and Kelly Osbourne is sitting in a golf cart in front of the bus so we head out to meet her(WATCH FOR PICS COMING THIS WEEK), we introduce ourselves and chat briefly. We hung out and watched Otep, and Down, and then we headed onto the next town which is Camden,NJ.

Friday, July 12, 2002

Day Two We wake up to total bumpiness and wonder what is going on, our driver is having a hard time getting us to the gig we are on in like 40 minutes and we had not yet reached the stage, it was chaos and we got very stressed out which was not a good thing. We should have gotten up at 7:30 like the first day but we did not and we payed the price for it. We went on and our stuff was not plugged in at first so we were 3 minutes late getting on.  Now you have to understand every band has a total of 5 minutes to be ready to play they have 7 bands deep set up on the 2nd stage so when one is done they take it off the side and move another one up the line, an amazing crew they do a killer job of pulling this off, anyways we get on up there and it went well, but we were just honestly a little out of it, we were 65 minutes outta bed and on stage in front of thousands, its very hard to get used to these early morning hours. Our friends showed up but could not get their tickets in time to catch our set so that bummed us out!!!, We had fun mind you, but we knew we had to get it together a little earlier in order to be able to put on a good early show!!!!!  We opened with “A lot of the same as well and I think maybe we should have just left it at “Up in the hay”. So the next show we will go back to the set we played in Scranton!!!, All the bands are really cool, we have lunch and dinner with everyone every day so your likely to be having lamb chops with Rob Zombie, and have Kelly Osbourne roll in for lunch as well as Shawn Glass from Soil, Pepper Keenan from “Down” you never know who you will eat with on any given day, very cool I thought!!!! My girl was at this show cause it was basically philly and she was visiting her family so she came to the show, we hung out, had a great steak dinner with some folks that Kelso and Migwell know, they were very cool they even paid for dinner for our crew as well. We all had huge steaks, hell you don’t pass up free meals on the road EVER!!!! WE watched Ozzy for the first time tonight, and man what a show, Zack was just crushing man!!!!!  It is such an honor to be a part of this whole Metal rodeo, just seeing Ozzy on stage made me realize that this is such a big deal, I will never forget this experience, some people seek $$$$ for happiness, but no one can put a price tag on touring with Ozzy and we are experience junkies all the way, and this was like a dream  experience.!!! We head out this morning at 3 a.m. to head for Hatebreed’s hometown of Hartford, Conn about a 3 HOUR DRIVE!!

Saturday, July 13, 2002

Day 3 This morning we woke up right beside the stage. We go on at 10:10 this morning. We arise feeling good, much better than yesterday that’s for sure!!! Had a bowl of frosted flakes for breakfast and headed out to see the stage and what the stomping ground would be like for today. It’s very cool to have this community of metal side by side in busses at every city, its like you wake up and brush your teeth with everyone in the parking lot, try to find a clean toilet before they get all yuked out, cause you see as nice as the bus is, you cannot take a crap on the bus and this poses a problem in the morning got me??(SORRY FOR THE SPECIFICS) hehe So we all head out to watch Flaw, Andrew W K was on first today at 9:30, then it was “Flaw” and then us!!! Our label folks were here today, we had a killer set from the get go it was juiced up!!! Everyone was having a great time. “The Walrus” went down really good again today, I think we may need to record this tune for a soundtrack or something soon, it is really working with a metal crowd and that’s very cool I think!!! Our driver Sharon is away for the day to see her family. We hung out after the show with Pat Egan from Koch, along with Chuck Oliner and John Franke from Koch as well as Benjie Gordon from Smackdown records. Watched Otep’s whole set today, man if you have not heard them yet, you must check them out. The GIRL that sings for them is so Brutal!!!! Also watched “Down” today as well as Hatebreed, we could could watch everyone right from the bus window great seats man!!!! As we speak its 6:16 and they stop serving dinner at 8 so I better head over to eat, we plan on heading to Boston for a few days, we have 2 days off and then we have a 5 day stretch of shows including a killer Neurotica party at the WWE “World” in Time Square on the 18th, really need a shower so we may rent a room tonight so the guys can shower up!!!  Also had another great day at the FYE booth, and the jager booth was outta control, watch the website for all the cool pics that we have taken so far. We cannot wait to see you all in West Palm Beach on the 26th. Oh yeah it appears that the Cincy show and the Raleigh show is cancelled and replaced with the D.C. show and the Pittsburg show that was at the beginning of the tour, shame really cause we have a LOT of friends in Cincy!!!! We had an amazing jam session at the end of the day with Aphex theory, Flaw, Ill nino, Pulse Ultra, and others a drum session with us on Dlembe’s and the drummer from aphex theory had a set all set up in front of the busses, we will have pics posted soon!!  Ok I am out, its very hard to get an internet connection out here so bear with me on the updates, I will do it at every stop so you can have fun right along side of us, don’t forget to get the record now dammit, it’s out!!!!!!! no shows till tuesday the 16th  week one is over and we are having a blast!!!!!!! cheers!!!!!

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