YOU'VE GOT YOGMAEL!!!
4 quick notes before we get to the full run down of London
Yogfest:
1. A note to the
people who don't care about anything other
than facts in YM, this would be a good issue to skip. And
effective immediately,
the "fact" based posts will lead off
each issue.
2. The YM Archives are up to date over at
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~alhatu/archive.htm
3.
And on the topic of YM archives, as Tim holds the
exclusive rights to them -- a trade-off for my first link -- he
is working
out "the situation".
4. Speaking of that first link, it is almost exactly one year
ago today that late one night,
I took a chance and decided
to start this monster. Man, what the fuck was I thinking?
AND AWAY WE GO...
***************************
DERBYMIN-at-aol.com
writes:
-------------------------------------------
Hi Amanda and fellow yog fans,
You might remember that I was trying
to arrange a George
weekend around the same time as Yogest .... instead
seven of us got together last weekend for lunch and
had
an absolute BLAST. Below is our story.
A day in the life of a George 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)
Here are the fave moments of:
Bev - 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!!
++++
Bianca - 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...
++++
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, snif! snif! I just wanted to continue
the Party!
++++
Alex
- 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 pleased 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.
++++
Lara/Carl - 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.
(And my thanks to Bianca for
the pictures. Version 1.6 of the YM
homepage will be up and running with them soon. AG)
Bye for now.
Michelle.
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To
Wrap it Up:
"Heaven knows we sure had some fun boy."