March 25th 2014 – A cold and foggy day in Berlin. Sometime on that Tuesday morning a private jet from London flew in to Schönefeld airport. On board: Rod Stewart and his wife Penny.
Background: Rod was on a promo tour for his Live The Life tour that would bring him back to Berlin the following June.
Some radio stations made Rod’s visit to the German Capital public in their morning programme. And somewhere in this city Holger heard this and from that moment on his day changed completely.
Holger, well known to many of the SMILER members as he is ‘touring’ with Rod as often as he can (front row every time!), spontaneously took a day off. He went back home, took his camera and the Rod autobiography and hurried up to get to the Stadium Alte Försterei where Rod was expected to arrive later that day.
A few minutes later Holger was standing in the cold outside the stadium and waited for hours and hours….
Nothing happened … and it was cold. It was in the late afternoon when a van with darkened windows arrived at the stadium. A guy opened the gate and the van went into the stadium area.
Suddenly it stopped, a door was opened and somebody shouted Holger to come to the van.
And he did… Rod and Penny were sitting inside the car and smiled at him as he stood next to them – frozen after many hours in the cold. They had a little chat with him and of course a photo was taken and the book was signed by Rod.
Then Rod left and went into the media area for some interviews and a photo shoot.
Holger felt the cold no more. He went back home happy and proud as hell after this extremely remarkable adventure on a cold day in Berlin.
Text by Martin Heidt
Photo by Holger Slomski