“So, in 2012 a couple of my friends and I decided to do multiple German SP dates. Starting in Hamburg we drove to Berlin, then Cologne and then finally to Munich by car. We had an all-around good time, until right after the show in Cologne when we decided to drive through the night to Munich to get to my friend’s house. For the longest time I was awake and talking to my friend who was driving until I fell asleep right before we were supposed to get into Munich.

I was woken up by the car spinning and crashing into the side of the highway… Someone had rear-ended us (we would never find out who it was, since it was a hit and run) and sent us spinning. When we finally came to a stop the car was totaled, I had a bleeding head wound and a friend of mine’s hip was hurting pretty bad. Luckily, there was a police car close to the accident and the ambulance came in a matter of minutes too. I got taken to the hospital and had to have stitches on my wound, while my friend got x-rayed and checked out. Through some sort of miracle, we weren’t stranded 30 minutes outside of Munich, were able to rent a car and were all released from the hospital that day.

When we finally got to my friend’s house, battered, bruised, shaken and a little bit traumatized we were faced with the decision if we wanted to go to the show that night or not. It was raining, cold and we were all miserable but we decided to go since we had gone through so much to get there. Waiting for soundcheck in the rain was a point where I thought about going back to my friend’s place and just sleep for the rest of the day, but once we got inside the venue all that disappeared.

After a couple of songs the guys came down and all the hardship of the day seemed to have been worth it. They were all so sweet and concerned, we had to tell our story what felt like million times, I was asked if I need ice for my injury (I was pretty badly swollen up, which I honestly didn’t realize at that point). Jeff came up with an amazing nickname “Stitches” which stuck with me for longer than I would have liked if I am honest. They didn’t have to care but they did and that’s one of the main reasons why Simple Plan are my favorite band. Two days later, at the soundcheck in Vienna, Pierre was in the middle of a song when we came into the venue and stopped singing to ask me how my head was – they are amazing and wonderful human beings!”

“Everything started when Jeff asked on Twitter if someone could help him with a guitar pick design. I’m a graphic designer so I decided I should give it a try. I worked on some ideas and sent them to him. He actually ended up writing back and telling me he liked my ideas but wanted me to work on them a little more. At the end he told me even though he had liked my work, he wouldn’t be able to use it in his guitar pick but told me he would still offer me tickets and a chance to meet the band (at that moment they hadn’t announced any show in my city) – I was kind of disappointed but happy I had that opportunity.

So that happened in February, months passed and finally the announcement of a Mexican tour in July was here. I was so excited I immediately wrote him back asking if he was gonna keep his promise, he assured me he would and asked me to remind him when the date of the show was coming closer. So I did, he was always really nice, asked me for my name and days before the show he wrote back telling me my tickets would be at the ticket booth of the venue. He didn’t offer me to meet the band but I was really excited anyway – it was going to be my 6th SP show but the very first full SP show I was attending with my BFF.

Finally, the day arrived, we went straight to the ticket booth… but THERE WERE NO TICKETS UNDER MY NAME! I remember feeling very disappointed / angry, but then I thought the guys weren’t like that and he would never do that to their fans, so I decided to send him a DM, telling him about how my tickets weren’t there and how disappointed I was. After like half an hour, which I felt took like forever, he wrote me very surprised that there were no tickets for me and even sent me a pic of a computer screen with the guest names on it. Someone from the staff had made a mistake and wrote my name incorrectly and actually changed my first name from Paola to Pablo. He was really sorry and apologized for the mistake. He ended up sending Sim, their tour manager, to look for me outside the venue. When I met Sim he went with me to pick up my tickets and gave me two cloth stickers that said “after show”. We were really excited but confused: Was that sticker going to give us access to the postgame? I wasn’t sure so I had to write him back again and ask him. He said it was!! I remember we were excited, I’m pretty sure I started jumping and shouting in the street. I have been dreaming of that moment for a very long time now, and finally the moment had arrived.

So we enjoyed the show and after it we went side-stage to where people with post game access were making a line – we couldn’t believe what was happening to us. Everything was perfect until moments before entering the room where pizza party was taking place, there was a security guy from the venue checking that everyone who were entering were wearing the post game bracelet, which btw my friend and I didn’t have. He stopped us and asked to see our bracelets, I tried to explain him what had happened but of course he couldn’t believe a word I was saying. At that moment I thought that was it and we were going to be kicked out, but I managed to call Chady from the other side of the hall, he heard me and came to me, I explained him everything and asked me to wait there while he talked to Jeff. A minute after that I saw the band coming, Jeff saw me and immediately said hi, hugged me and took us inside the pizza party. That moment was epic, he was nothing but nice to me and my bff. He even made me feel ashamed by making a joke about how I was so angry writing him on twitter when I had no tickets. We talked and laughed a lot about everything that had happened. All the guys in the band are amazingly kind, they are all very humble and down to earth, maybe even more than I had imagined.

Since that day he has been nothing but nice to me, he actually even recognized me on the last soundcheck and pizza party they held at my city. I think it’s pretty amazing how great human beings they are and all what happened made me love them and admire them even more.”