Re: NYC premiere part 2.

[TangerineMan <tangerineman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 5/28/03 10:11 pm, "Nech" <tytlane@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 
> I'll try to keep it short here but it's hard. I can probably transcribe each
> and every conversation to the t but that'll be in my own diary. For you I'll
> keep it simple. 
 
<snip happens>

> I asked "John, it's been
> bugging some of us for over 20 years now...just what was that phone doing on
> your keyboards at Knebworth?!?!?!?"
> And the answer is "Well, it served no purpose really. It just was put there
> sometime during rehearsals and soundcheck and just became stuck there and
> became sort of glued  to the set. I really don't know why it just sort of
> never got moved" So there you have it...no direct line to Mellotron support,
> no line to Satan, no request line to the Queen. It was just there.

You forgot the funniest bit (to me, anyway): he said, "Thank goodness it
never rang, though. I don't know what I'd have done if it had rung during a
show" (or words to that effect).

> HA!  John is an extremely amicable person as is his wife. We asked for his
> autograph and even for a multitude of posed pictures. He gladly and graciously
> oblidged. Of course Tango man cut off my head in one,

"Of course," he says. ;-)

You'll have my pics in your in-box shortly, bud.

> Robert was still 
> by the bar and seemed to be getting a bit tired of the people around him and
> as he was walking towards the back, when asked by Mike if he could sign his
> Neal Preston's "Portraits" book, brushed him aside and sternly said "NO."
> hmmph. I guess if you don't have the cleavage you don't rate. Robert, hate to
> sat it, but that is just plain not a nice way to behave towards your!
> fans.

I should clarify this. About two minutes previously, Pascal had got a Fate
of Nations vinyl album cover signed by Robert, and I had chatted with him
briefly. I said "I just wanted to shake your hand" (which I did; nice firm
grip) "and thank you for all the years of music, and say 'Go Wolves!'" in
reference to Wolverhampton Wanderers, his favorite football club (soccer
team to us N. Americans). I asked him if the results were known--whether
Wolves had made the Premiership (top-tier league in England). He broke into
one of those patented wide-eyed grins and said, "I've just come from there!
It's done, we're in." I'm not sure whether he meant he'd seen the deciding
match back home in England, or on TV here in North America.

My (hopeful) take on his dissing me is that when I tried for the autograph
two minutes later, he either didn't realize I was the same guy (I approached
him from the rear/side), or had decided that I'd had my 30-second audience
with him and that was all I was going to get. I was happy to have shaken his
hand and spoken to him, and I already have his autograph (thanks to a Rick
Barrett trivia contest a few years back) as well as Jonesy's.

I'm still slightly miffed that I didn't get into the select group who got
Jimmy's John Hancock last night--but I understand, and remain hopeful that
another opportunity may well arise one day.

> All in all, JPJ is the most easily approachable if not just for the security.
> I wonder if he just chooses to do it that way or if their respective
> management teams chose it.

Well, he always was, and still is, "The Quiet One." A genuinely nice guy,
full of good humor. That's not to say the other two aren't--it may be a
question of circumstances.

> We are the Ocean.

Nice!