My friend and I left Thursday night, slept in Carlisle, PA, and then drove
through snow to finally arrive in Dayton on Friday at about 5.
Interestingly, we were staying at the same hotel as Third Eye Blind (not a
huge fan). Anyway, we got to the show at about 7 and the first band,
Blackberry Smoke, went on at 8. The arena was pretty big. Then Adler's
Appetite came out. First for the only negative thing: Izzy was not there
at all. At first I was a little upset over that. But the band totally
rocked the house. The music was right on and Kerri did an amazing job with
Slash's solos. And of course the drum beats couldn't have been closer to
the originals. They came out and did Welcome to the Jungle, followed by
other classics like It's so Easy, Mama Kin, My Michele, some Thin Lizzy
song, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, and maybe one or two more I am
forgetting. Suffice it to say that they were great.

Jackyl was the main act but because I didn't care about seeing them, I
went to the side near back stage access. I first tried to get backstage by
talking to a security guard--no dice there. I then stopped this guy from
the sponsoring radio station and told him we drove there to see Adler from
Jersey, and he let us back and told us to hang out there for a little
while, and that when he got back we'd have to leave the back stage area.
Anyway, we met Bret who is a super nice guy and then met Jizzy, also a
really nice guy. Then we met Kerri--I've never met him before, and he was
totally awesome. He told us--stay here and when I get back we'll hang out
in the dressing room. Even before he got back Bret took my friend and I
into the dressing room where we met Adler. Adler was super nice and really
welcomed us into the dressing room to hang out with the band. Then Kerri
came back and we basically hung out with him and talked some about his
current band and their plans as well as about the Snakepit days and the
show I saw in NYC. He told me some cool Slash stories about his favorite
fast food place in LA--Hamburger Haven, and a story about the plane ride
back from Japan one time. We told him it would be great if Adler's
Appetite put out an album and he said that they have a couple of offers on
the table and they're going to eventually record with some guest
appearances from Izzy and maybe even Slash.

>To tell you the truth the whole experience was surreal because I've never
>been aggressive enough to really try and get backstage. It was one hell of
>a time even though their set was short and Izzy didn't show up. It was
>awesome to hang out with Kerri and the rest of the guys. The night
>definitely made me a fan of their band.