A day in the life of a George Michael fan "gathering". Saturday 9th Aug dawned ~ but this was no ordinary Saturday ~ this was the day that seven fans would meet for the very first time.
Both Bianca and Nathalie proved to be die hard fans .... Bianca
travelled to the UK from The Netherlands and Nathalie from Germany.
The remaining five of us travelled into London from various parts of the
England.
We all met up outside the Capital Radio Cafe (Capital Radio
being a London based radio station). From the moment we all met
it was go go go. There was never a dull moment to be had. We all
hit it off and talked nineteen-to-the-dozen about ...... George :o)
How did we recognise one another? The idea was that I would
stand outside the cafe and wave my Older t-shirt around .... I think I
did this but due to British Rail being on time for once, Bev arrived
before me. When I arrived Bev was talking to Jason (the doorman).
Bev told me that she thought maybe Jason considered her to be a
sad case standing outside the cafe clutching her CD of Older (I
had told everyone to bring an item of George along) so she
explained to him what was about to happen. Apparently Jason, bless
him, took it upon himself to ask anyone who looked a little lost
if they were involved in the George gathering. In fact even after I
arrived waving my t-shirt around, he still continued to ask.
He even agreed to pose for pictures holding the Older t-shirt.
(Jason we luv you .... you were a terrific sport).
Bev had previously contacted Capital Radio and informed them that a
number of George fans would be descending upon the Cafe. Some time
during Saturday morning/early afternoon one of the DJ's annouced on air
that a group of George Michael fans would be going to their Cafe. The
radio annoucement must have been pretty impressive (although none of
us actually heard it) because several people turned up thinking that George
would be joining us. In fact, Bev told us that one young girl was more
persistent than the others and she had to be persuaded that George would
not be coming but the gathering was for George Michael fans. Of course
we would have liked George to join us .... but we were not going to be
bothered
one way or the other .... we simply wanted to meet and have an absolutely
FANTASTIC time .... which of course we did.
The cafe has a resident DJ so we all completed a request form to get our
fave records played .... apparently to play all our requests they would have
had to dedicate a whole hour to George .... something they were not keen
on doing :o( However they did play two of our requests ...one George track
"Spinning The Wheel" and one Wham! track "I'm Your Man" :o) There were
a number of TV screens surrounding the cafe and the video to "Fastlove"
was played a couple of times, but never with the actual sound track ~
soooo Nathalie who had never seen this vid persuaded the DJ to play
both the vid and sound track simultaneously. The minute the record
started Nathalie jumped over the back of our seats, did a relay race to
the front of the Cafe, and then stood swaying to the dulcet tones of George
totally mesmerised by the video. What can I say ... Nathalie you
were great .... we captured the moment on camera.
I ran two competitions ... one about George and one about Wham! I thought
these were dead easy BUT ..... nobody else seemed to think so. Despite
the perplexed looks on some of the faces ... we did have two winners.
Congratulations Bev and Lara.
I think the staff and customers at the Capital Cafe were pleased to see
us go .... normality as they knew it was about to return. Instead we
decided to pay HMV at the Trocadero Centre and Tower Records at
Piccadilly Circus a visit. Who didn't spend any money???? I think
we all spent a reasonable sum purchasing items which were missing
from our collections.
I really don't think anyone wanted to go home .... but all good things must
come to and end. I think it is fair to say that we did George proud.
I think my best memory is definitely of Nathalie ... my worst moment ....
was when the DJ interviewed me and asked how we had all met and why
we had got together (being in front of a mic is downright horrifying ... I
certainly don't envy George).
I would like to take this time to say a big thank you to : Bev, Bianca,
Carl, Lara, Nathalie and Alex for making Saturday possible and such
a huge success .... THANK YOU :o)
Beverley First of all I must say how enjoyable the whole lunch was - to be with other genuine fans who feel the same way that I do about George and his music was just fantastic!! But the single event that I'll always carry with me is the moment that "Fastlove" was played, accompanied by the video on about 20 screens - and Nathalie vaulting over the back of the seats to get a better view!! As I've always said, it's the most exciting shower scene since "Psycho" - but for quite different reasons!!
Left to right: Carl, Lara, Beverly, Nathalie, Bianca, Alex, Michelle
My impression of the George Michael get together...
or "the gathering" as Michelle liked to call it :o)
Uhhhmmmm... first of all, I think I must have been crazy, to spend all
my last money and decide to fly over to London for the George Michael
get together. It was a last minute decision, Thursday afternoon I
decided to go and in less then 24 hours I was already on the plane. I
will not bore you with the details what a mess it was to find myself
plane tickets, or the fact that I found out that my pass was not valid
anymore... or finding a (affordable) hotel which was probably the
hardest part... luckily Michelle found me a place to stay in Kent :o)
My favourite moment... now that's a hard part, because I had so much fun
that day. Jason (the doorman of Capital Radio cafe) was great, he was a
good sport to stand there with the Older t-shirt and ask almost
everybody who came in, if they were George Michael fans :o) We stood
outside, talking about George and waiting for everybody to turn up, but
when we heard them play "Fastlove" we decided there wasn't time to wait
anymore, we gave Jason the Older t-shirt just in case anybody else would
turn up and rushed ourselves inside, it was like George asking us to come in
:)
We had so much fun, talking about George that we hardly had time to
order and eat lunch :) It was great to hear Beverly talking about the
unplugged, of course we did all envy her, but I'm really glad for her
that she had the chance to be there, I mean.. this way she could tell us
all about it. :) They had a dj in the house and of course we had him
play some of our favourite GM-songs. They even came over to our table
and did a little interview with Michelle :) BTW... you really did a
great job on that one Michelle!!!
And she really did a great job on the competition.. not that I won
anything, I mean it was sooo hard, listening to other music and looking
at the George Lyrics at the same time.. guess I was distracted by sooo
many things :)
They were playing "Fastlove" a couple of times on the tv screens (which
were all over the place) but never simultaneously with the music. So
Nathalie went up to the dj and begged him to play it together, since she
hadn't seen the video before. Yep.. she really jumped over the back over
our seats, rushed herself over to the video screens and enjoyed the
video very much :o)
I guess we could have stayed there forever and talk about George Michael
and the internet, but since I still didn't have a copy of Waltz Away
Dreaming and of course we all wanted to find some things to add on our
collection, so we decided to pay the record stores in town a visit. I
found myself some great George goodies to take back home...
And... I finally learned the right way how to pronounce "Aegean" :o)
It's a pity that all good things have to come to an end.. I really had
a great time!! I hope we can do it again sometime, with lot's of more
people, I mean... there are so many George Michael fans all over the
world.. and especially in England, so I was a bit surpirsed that so few
people showed an interest.. :(
Oh well, like I said.. next time better, and with some wishful thinking
we maybe can combine the next meeting with a George Michael concert on
Wembley :o) I decided to already go saving for that one, just in case
the rumours might be true...
 Left to right: Alex, Nathalie, Jason(Capital Radio Cafe doorman), Bianca, Michelle, Lara Nathalie My favorite moment: Meeting all of you and realizing that I could talk all I wanted about my beloved George. Although watching the FASTLOVE video for the first time was absolutely spellbinding, meeting you all was by far my favorite moment. My worst moment: I don't have too many of those, so I can only say seeing you all guys go, snifF! snifF! I just wanted to continue the Party!
I think my favorite moment of the meeting has to be Nathalie running to the DJ booth and got the DJ to play both the Fastlove video and music at the same time. When the video came on, nothing seems to exist to her except the video and she climbed over her seat, ran around the back of other people's tables and watched the video in front of everyone's stares:) When we finally leave the restaurant, everyone went to the toilet except me and Carl. That's when I realised that I've lost my sunglasses and during my search for my glasses, I also found Bianca's much treasured Older pen! I think she's pleases that I found it:)) Finally, I would like to thanks Michelle for organising the meet and it's a shame that the person originally came up with the idea was unable to make it. I had a great time, thank you.
First, I want to say "hi" to Michelle, Bianca, Alex, Nathalie
and Bev. You guys are GREAT!!!!
It was Saturday, August 9th, very hot and humid. The only thing to bring
out a bunch of people on the tube, where there is NO air conditioning
whatsoever, was a meeting of die-hard GM fans. When I told my son where
we were going, he had a sort of puzzled look on his face, then told me
"Maybe I should invite a bunch of Republica fans over for lunch!!" He's a
bit
sarcastic. I wasn't really sure how many of us would show up to the Capital
Radio cafe that day and actually I was surprised. I thought that only a
couple
of us would actually show up. Boy, was I wrong!! Two of them had even come
from other countries to attend this get together!!! It was absolutely
wonderful
meeting others that loved GM as much as myself. As all GM fans know, we
are so used to others that only remember him from his WHAM days or not
much more do they know of him after that. And they laugh at us. If they
ever
really got to hear more of him, they probably would be fans also. Being from
the
USA, I know the lack of GM airplay or news there. You can surely bet that
when I had found out that my husband was being transferred for work to
England
that I was ecstatic to be moving to the country he spends most of his time!!
And I get to hear more of him here then I ever did in the states. Its'
GREAT!!!!!!
Anyway, back to the day. We were in Capital Cafe for a really long time.
We all talked about how long we had been fans and talked about whether us
women ever would have a chance with him or not. We can dream, can't we?
Bev told us about the "Unplugged" show that she got to go to. Bev, we are
all sooo green with envy!! You are so very lucky!! But, you did deserve to go.
(Bev is a GM fanatic, she knows just about everything about him!!) After
lunch,
we all trekked down to HMV and Tower to get things that we didn't have of GM.
All in all, the day was absolutely fabulous!!!!!!!! I had so much fun, and
so did my husband, Carl, who likes GM, but isn't into him as much as all of us were. I
was so sad to see the day come to an end. I can't wait for the next get
together!!
Hopefully more of you will be able to come!! You will have a great time!
I'll see
you there!!!!!
"Faith"fully,
Lara
P.S. Thanks to Michelle for putting this whole thing together. You are
wonderful!!!
One final thank you .... this time to Laura who originally came up with the idea of a London meeting and who unfortunately had to return home to Italy .... so .... THANK YOU Laura .... Saturday would never have taken place without your initial input. Bye for now.
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