Meeting Marshall Mathers: The Slim Shady Era

Chapter 108

My name was being called, I squinted my eyes open.. Marshall was in my face, fully dressed with a strong scent of cologne,

"What time is it?" My eyes drifted back shut,

"7:30"

"In the morning?" My eyes now opened,

"Yeah get up" he got off the bed,

"Why're you already dressed?" I reluctantly sat up yawning,

"I need to be at the airport for 9, I figured you'd wanna come"

"Come where?" He now had my full attention,

"Well..." He had a smirk as he sat back on the bed,
"I got a private show in Pittsburg this evening and I thought that you'd like to ride along?"

"Really?" My face lit up,

"Yea, kind of a big deal too, it's all low key, surprising the fans, tickets will be put all around town"

"Marshall that sounds so fun. How will you direct them to the tickets?"

"We've got the local radio broadcasters helpin' out, they'll announce live on air where the first 30 tickets are and then I think there's a set of 50 and a set of 60, we also got one golden ticket what allows access all areas to the show where they'll meet me and the rest of D-12"

"Kind of like a Christmas Easter egg hunt only for tickets, you're gonna cause havoc on those streets"

"It's all part of the fun, I piss people off and so do my fans. So get ready, you ain't got long" he stood back up and tossed a pillow at me.

We had a fantastic plane journey, Marshall was in one of those priceless goof-off moods, him and Kuniva's alter ego Rondell Beene were roasting each other so you could only imagine how funny the short journey was.

The next part was like a military operation, as the SUV's rolled into the venue we all had to duck down, the windows were only lightly tinted so they couldn't run the risk of being seen by any of the public or by all costs the paparazzi.

Once in the empty building we was taken down to the main concert hall, by the looks of it it was going to be an intimate affair between Eminem's fans and himself there wasn't much of a divide from the stage to the front row at all and it wasn't too big of a venue. The ones who would find the tickets first were very lucky indeed, I knew that if it was me before I had met Marshall I'd of killed for an opportunity like this, to attend a concert of around 100 or so people and have him separated by a metal barrier in front of a stage that was raised only around 5ft from the floor as opposed to his bigger shows where he was far away.
I absolutely loved watching the stage being set up, a lot of effort went into it, the lighting, the piles of huge deafening speakers, the DJ table and then the factor of sprucing up the background with a huge D-12 sign that had lightbulbs all around it for it to shine brightly above the stage.
After that was done then came the sound checks, first of all whilst the lighting technicians checked the light sequences they had DJ Green Lantern scratching some records as a member or the crew did the mic checks doing the whole "Mic check 1-2-2" routine. The first of D12 to come and hang around the sound checks was Swifty and Denaun, Paul was walking around in boss mode instructing and directing and I was just supping on a large latte taking in the moment. Marshall finally showed himself, he had a lot of people in his ear talking about the show and how everything was running smoothly,

"Em" Paul shouted him over, I listened in as they talked about going on the radio to let the fans know where to find the hidden tickets, Marshall seemed very fond of the idea of him presenting the news as opposed to one of his crew,