On
21st October 2006 Hannie and Anja of the Dutch Queen Fan Club
had organised another Queen Fan Club meeting. Due to the amounts
of tickets sold in advance, they had to decide that this would
be the last Queen Fan Club Meeting. This is bad news, because
these meetings have been organised perfectly for many years by
these two ladies. One can understand that the financial risk of
organising such a day is just too big if not enough tickets can
be sold.
The good news is that a large number of tickets were sold at the
entrance of the venue after all. I hope new ideas will come up
for making another Queen Fan Club meeting happen in 2007.
As usual there were market stalls, a lottery, an auction,
karaoke, special guests and the grand finale was a live concert
by the Dutch Queen tribute band Miracle.
The venue opened at 12:00 hrs but I arrived at 13:00 hrs. and
soon I met Peter Freestone. It's always nice to meet this kind
person.
The Peter Freestone interview session was about to start. He
answered questions from the audience and told some funny
memories about Freddie. Some details he told us had some deeper
emotional impact. These moments are to be cherished.
Hanny was congratulated by the guests and the audience for
running the Dutch Queen Office for 25 years and gifts were
presented. She also got personal postcards from Brian and Roger,
and was really moved while reading them aloud. Jacky Smith who
runs the Official International Queen Fan Club was present also
and stood by her side (together with Anja who had secretly
arranged the realisation of the presents for Hannie). To
celebrate her 25th anniversary Hannie said: "Let them eat
cake!" and two very huge cakes were presented and we all
got a piece of it.
The presentation of Greg Brooks is always very special because
he always brings Queen material to listen to. Some very rare
demos!
This time we could listen to FACE IT ALONE, a rare demo
of PARTY and some great takes of the recording of SOMEBODY
TO LOVE.
I think that in total we listened to 8 different demos of
various songs. Just great.
Some nice items could be won during the lottery and also the
auction had some special items, such as a pair of jeans, signed
by Brian, a pair of shoes, signed by Brian also. (sold for 420
Euros)
One of the contestants of the Karaoke was a guy who sang
BARCELONA together with Karin ten Cate. She's the lady who has
been touring around the Netherlands with the Rock Opera
Barcelona, performing the complete album. What a great voice. I
bought the dvd of the Rock Opera Barcelona from her and she was
willing to sign it for me.
The finale was, as said, a live concert of tribute band Miracle.
Johnnie's voice (leadsinger) disappointed me at first but after
a couple of tracks he got better and better. the overall show
was fantastic with a great light show, smoke and fireworks. I
must say the musicians of Miracle are just phenomenal. No
exception! Guitarist, bass player, keyboards and not to forget
the drummer, they were all really phantastic. Miracle announced
a very special guest: ROBBIE VALENTINE, he performed a couple of
songs together with Miracle.
We met a lot of friends there, André, Mark, Paul, Steven,
Cathrine, Maaike (the 7 of us are the steady close group of
friends that visit Queen events over the "world".) I
also met Barbra, aka YourValentin (Queenzone). Luckily she
recognised me because otherwise we probably wouldn't have met!
I had a little chat with Jacky, Peter and Greg.
Also some people I only knew through e-mail approached me
so we could finally meet in person. We talked with more Queen
fans of course and had some very nice chats.
And this is what these kind of meetings of conventions is all
about: meeting friends, making new ones and enjoying the music
of QUEEN.
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