Disturbed broke out in 2000 with their single "Stupify" from their album "The Sickness." The album launched them into stardom. Clearly the year 2000 was a groundbreaking year for them and they toured heavily in support of it. One of their dates included a stop at this years local Rockfest, headlined by 311.
Other music groups included incubus, Nickelback, Sprung Monkey, Ultraspank, Sevendust, Coal Chamber, Eight stops Seven, and Kottonmouth Kings. This was a great lineup and we hoped that we would be able to meet all of the bands. This would hopefully be easy to do considering the fact that most bands sign autographs in the Hasting's autograph booth. Sterling, Earl, and our friend Mr. Ao were especially hoping that we would come back from the concert with Disturbed's autographs, here's hoping.
Luckily we secured a great spot in line and hoped that the guys of Disturbed would show up. Luckily it was meant to be, as we saw David Draiman (vocal), Dan Donegan (guitar), Steve "Fuzz" Kmak (bass) all walking up to the autograph tent, ready to sign. Wait a second... 1,2,3... uh where was the fourth member of the band? Unfortunately drummer Mike Wengren didn't make the trek with the rest of the guys, we never found out why. Missing out on Mike's autograph didn't spoil things however, as the rest of the guys were just so great.
The first person to greet us at the table was none other than the voice of Disturbed, David Draiman. David was the man and was definitely one of the nicest guys we met that day. He totally dug the things we brought to get signed and thanked us for bringing them. He also gave us some cool looking promo 8x10s so we could get them signed as well, which was even better. They didn't seem disturbed at all when it came to signing autographs and all of them were nothing but nice to everyone.
Disturbed was coming to town again and this was Sterling and Earl's chance to get drummer Mike Wengren's autograph. We headed down to where they usually stay, but we arrived too late and they had already left. Now we would be fighting an uphill battle because the venue is extremely inaccessible with fences surrounding the premises. We waited at a distance from "the Gatekeeper" (a security guard we've gotten to know) and hoped we would spot him.
The only Disturbed member that we saw was lead singer David Draiman, who was riding his bike right out of the gates. We really didn't need to bug him for anymore autographs, so we just watched him ride around town. The only thing we saw for the rest of the day was David riding back inside the gates, as far as Disturbed went. We did however, get to meet the entire band of Spineshank so at least this day wasn't a total loss. Read their story to find out the details for the rest of the afternoon.