Supertramp band member befriends fan decades later thanks to a license plate brought to show at Alpine
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David Wise, Supertramp Superfan
MENOMONEE FALLS -- It sounds like a story that a dreamer may have come up with.
"It's etched in my memory forever."
37 years ago, the Wise brothers saw their favorite band Supertramp play at Alpine Valley.
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"During their Famous Last Words tour, I took one of the license plates off my car and took it to the concert, we were sitting in the third row for that particular show," David Wise said.
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John Helliwell
David – a superfan who lives in Menomonee Falls – waved that plate back and forth to the music at that concert. It caught the eye of the band's saxophone player John Helliwell.
After giving the plate to a security guard -- with a note on the back -- the plate made it's way up to the stage.
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"Held up the plate and showed it to the audience and said this is a nice gift thank you Dave and Dave this is for you," Wise said.
But it's what happened years later that's striking a chord with the brothers. Helliwell posted to social media looking for the owner of that same plate.
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"It's just this weird blast from the past. It's what, 37 years ago? Something like that and just out of the blue it shows up," he said.
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So David reached out to the artist and the two have since been corresponding back and forth.
A friendship David never dreamed of.
"He'd actually put it on the mantel of his home and that he had been thinking about me throughout the years," Wise said.