Oh dude, I have such an awesome story about this show. I was 16 years old as well, didn't have a job, so I couldn't really afford to go to concerts, so I never bought a ticket to this show. But I knew a hand full of people that were going. Actually, there was a meet and green with Slipknot at a local record store downtown this day. I had no idea who this "Slipknot" band was at the time, but I had a friend who was OBSESSED with them. I have no idea how he found out about them, but they were pretty new at the time, I didn't know who they were, but he skipped school to wait in line all day at this signing. Me and this other friend of mine decided to head downtown after school to see if we can see our friends at the signing, and we did. Our friends were like, wait in line with us and get signatues and I was like... I don't even know this band or anything, but friend was like who cares, you're here, they're just about to sign stuff. The thing is, I didn't have anything to get signed...
Or did I? Earlier that day at school, they actually handed out our yearbooks.... I figured, hey what they hell... yearbooks are for signing right? So I whipped it out...
That's right, slipknot signed my yearbook! LOL... They also decided to be funny and write "1666" under the 1999 part as you can see in the photo. I think it was Shawn "The Clown" who did that. he also asked me where my photo was so he could draw devil horns on it, but I said no nah don't do that.
So after the signing, my other friend and I who didn't have concert tickets decided to go with our other friends who did have tickets over to the venue, because... well, what else is a 16 year old going to do? Might as well go hang around the venue with out friends, right?
So we went, and hung out and met alot of cool people. But then it was time to start letting people in, so it was time to part ways. Myself and the other friend with me who didn't have tickets decide to go around to the side of the venue, and I have no idea who's idea this was, but we opened this door that was on the side of the venue, and to our surprise, it was unlocked. We walked inside to the kitchen of the venue. We were inside the kitchen with backpacks on, it was quite obvious we just walked in from outside. 2 guys then came in and we were like "oh we're lost, where is the main room to the show" and they just point thru this other door. So we went through the door and lo and behold, we were inside the fucking venue and we didn't pay a goddamn cent to get in!
That is why I put this concert on my top 10 concerts of all time list. I would like to think my musical tastes have matured from when I was 16. You don't catch me listening to Slipknot or Coal Chamber anymore going on 31, but it was an epic moment for us getting into the show for free and the lineup was KILLER. You don't have tours anymore like Coal Chmaber / Slipknot / Dope. That was an amazing lineup where all 3 bands were pretty big names back then.
Le Rendezvous was TINY as fuck... I googled the capacity and it says 725. The venue was shut down in the early 2000's and reopened again maybe 10 years after it was shut down. So i'm not sure if they remodelled it and changed the capacity. I seem to remember it allowing a little more people than that, but it was under 1000 people for sure.
You also mentioned that Joey was cool to you guys where people nowadays think he's a dick. I guess you could say that's what gaining fame does to you. The band was really cool when we met them as well, but they were just gaining popularity in 1999. I haven't seen or met the band since then, so I can't really judge on whether his attitude has changed other than what I see in interviews and stuff. Some interviews he does seem a little stuck up, but who knows. Like I said, fame can somewhat change a person's personality. Even touring with 8 other band members day in and day our would tend to change someone as well. People change as they grow older, who knows what happened.