Story

Rod is amazing, Listen to Rods early music and even though I was only a very small child during the 70’s when I hear some of his hits, it makes me feel like it was such a cool time to be growing up in. Rod was an absolute must to paint, I had been imagining a meeting with Rod, I felt he would be really funny and nice, when the day finally arrived during Feb 2008, he was true to all my hopes.

Originally I had planned to meet him over a weekend, but I found out that he had arrived on a private jet a couple of days earlier than his scheduled concert in town. I received a tip off as to where Rod was staying and so I raced into the city that night and waited around to see him. When I arrived I noticed a familiar driver to the rock stars and he was waiting outside with the car, this gave me good hope that Rod was going to be coming out sometime soon.

After about 2 hours, not long at all considering some of the time ive spent waiting for others. Anyway so 2 hours later I was sitting with a friend in the hotel bar having a drink watching out for Rod. We ordered drinks to secure our place inside the hotel and my friend decided he would pay, so he got up to go and pay with me telling him to hurry, I always get a bad feeling in those situations, ive seen it happen before, the minute you turn your head you miss the action. As my friend left to pay, I watched on and exactly as I thought, I see Rod and his wife Penny Lancaster walk out of the elevator. I turned to my friend and called out to him, but not too loudly as I didn’t want to draw attention to Rod. I picked up my paintings and took pursuit on foot right behind Rod who was walking with his tour manager. All the time im wondering where my friend is ! My heart was beating as I built up the courage to call to Rod.

“ Excuse me Rod “ I called out from behind him, holding my painting……he looked around and smiled instantly admiring my work. He stopped and straight away asked if I would like it to be signed. I told him of course id love it to be, and I offered him the second portrait. Rod laughed and began to comment on the different images id painted of him through time. He said he felt he looked like a young David Bowie in the early portrait and that he believed he’d lost some weight since the middle image of how I depicted him today. Rod was really funny he made me feel relaxed and I told him I felt as if he was a school teacher marking my work, to which he said “ O.K I will grade you “ and he wrote his comment giving me a 9 out of 10 after I told him to grade me something higher than a ‘C’ as this is what I always seemed to get at school.

To ask for a photo was a bit too difficult, as Rod signed my friend finally appeared from the side and Rod looked a little startled, and began to leave telling me they had to go. My friend followed on all the while asking Rod for a photo, I was little scared to go for more, I didn’t want to over step the mark and upset Rod. I quickly took out my video camera and got a small amount of footage as Rod & wife Penny walked to their car, with my friend trying to stop them. Unfortunately Rod refused my friends request.