The story is not a sad one, but told many times.....

Or: Why I call myself a "Lucky bastard".

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Earl's court, London UK, 22nd and 23rd of June 1999

In January 1999, we were four friends who decided to go to London in the summer. We found out that June would suit us best, so we reserved plane tickets and hotel accomodation. At this time, I had absolutely no idea that R.E.M. about a month later would reconsider their desicion on not to tour....

I just could not believe it when I found out that they were going to have two concerts in London at the same time as I would spend my holiday there! My R.E.M. karma stroke again. I ordered tickets through the fan club, and even if I could only buy tickets for one of the two concerts, I knew that I would get tickets for the other one some way. On murmurs.com I got in touch with a norwegian girl named Cecilie who was going to one of the concerts, and we decided to meet up. I thought it might be exciting, but I had no idea that she would later become a very good friend of mine. I was even more thrilled when Stig told me that in fact he and Ole would attend those concerts as well, and just a week before I went to London, David, a swedish guy who I met in Stockholm mailed me and said he was going too. It could not be any better.

The day for our departure came closer. I met Cecilie here in Norway two days before we went to London, because she would not be on the same flight as the rest of us. When the concert day finally came, we started off by locating Cecilie's hotel. Then we went searching for R.E.M. records in Soho, and we managed to find quite a nice selection. But because Cecilie had a standing ticket, she had to queue up early while Elisabeth and I went to Stig and Ole's hotel, waiting for them. But first we met David, who didn't quite recognize me until I told him who I was. When the two others came, we were ready to go! We knew that a lot of fans would meet up in a pub close to Earl's court, called The tournament. It was really nice to meet so many other fans.

Some of the R.E.M. fans who were at the Tournament pub. From left: Stig, Sarah (from the US), Ole, Kristina and David (both from Sweden)

The atmosphere was quite good, but the music they played in the bar really sucked..... So I decided to do something about it. I asked the bartender if he didn't know that R.E.M. were going to play next door, and if he could put some R.E.M. on the stereo. He said that the music came from the jukebox, and that anyone could decide. So I searched through the assortment, and found Up and Monster. When Lotus came out of the speakers in the whole bar, everyone nodded their heads, and I felt like the hero of the day :-) This was what we really needed to get us ready for the concert!

When we finally entered Earl's court, we bought some t-shirts and went to find our seats. Stereolab was just about to finish their set, and we agreed that we had not missed anything, because it sounded absolutely awful. Although the fan club did their best to get us good seats, none of the seats were very good. They were far from the stage. The only good thing about this is that we got a good view of all the lights, which were really amazing. It was quite simple technology, yet very powerful effects.

I have to admit my hopes were not very high that this concert would beat the Stockholm experience, and even if it didn't, I certainly had a very strong moment for a while. That was when they started playing "Find the river." When I heard the intro, and suddenly realized what song it was, I was so overwhelmed and surprised I got tears in my eyes. It felt like I had this huge lump in my throat, and I said to Elisabeth (though I could hardly speak): "Oh my God, they are playing Find the river!) During this song, I REALLY missed Bill Berry.

I was very anxcious to hear the new song (Great beyond), I was afraid that I was not gonna like it. It's always like that, I want the guys to be successful and not make any bad songs. But it totally rocked! It's quite rare that I really like an R.E.M. song the first time I hear it, but this time it actually happened. It got stuck on my brain for the rest of the day.

It didn't really feel right to sit and watch a rock concert, so during the encores I was standing up. We felt just great after the concert, it was much better than we had thought it would be. Even Elisabeth (who originally was not going the next day), said that she wanted to go the other day as well. And I pointed to the floor in front of the stage and said: "Tomorrow we'll stand right there". I started talking to the guy who sat next to me, and he said he had two extra tickets. So we bought them, cheap. We were ready to go once again...

Afterwards we met up with the other guys in the pub again, and we decided that the next morning, we would snoop around a bit to try to find out where the band was staying, and later meet up at Bill Forsyth's Minus Zero Records.

The next day we went to Stig and Ole's hotel quite early. I called Stig and he said we could come up to his room. But I forgot to tell him that I had my three travelling companions plus Cecilie with me, so he got quite a shock when there were suddenly five girls standing outside his hotel room! After a while David came, and he had some good news. He had been walking around, and when he sat down to eat his lunch in a small park outside a fancy hotel, he had met Peter Buck! So now we knew where the band was staying.

Once we got this information, we girls decided to go straight down to that hotel, and we would meet David and Stig at Minus Zero later. On the way down, we met Ole, who had just gone for a walk. (And we thought London was a big city......) We told him the news we had, so he came along with us to wait and see. We found a place to sit, about 20 metres away from the hotel's main entrance.

Here we are, (except for me who took the picture) waiting outside the band's hotel. Anne-Grethe, Monica, Cecilie, Elisabeth and Ole.

I can't say it was very successfull, we sat there for about 2 hours, and the only one we met, was Joey Waronker. But at least I got a picture with him, and that was something I didn't already have. Ole left us after a while, but we would meet him later that day. After a while, a familiar lady was outside the hotel, it proved to be Sue, but we didn't recognize her! But as we would soon find out, she had recognized us.....

Then we headed for Minus Zero, where I spent a lot of money. Even if this was my second visit to Minus Zero, I was just as confused as the first time. Luckily, Stig and Ole were there with their expertise, and they helped me sorting things out. I found what I mainly came for, a dutch edition of Chronic town.

Cecilie left us, because she had to go back to Norway. Elisabeth and I had to leave after a while, because we wanted to queue up early to get good spots. When we finally got there, it was only 3 hours left until the doors would be opened. There were about 50 - 100 people in front of us, so our hopes were not very high that we would get in the front row. When we got in, we managed to get a spot around the 4th row. But before the concert started, everyone had to sit down on the concrete floor, so that nobody would get squeezed before the show had even started. So I had a plan. It was to really pay attention to when people started getting up, and then rush towards the fence as fast as possible. It worked. When people started to stand up, I was very quick and just rushed forward. We ended up in the 2nd row.

This was the very first time I had been that close to the stage at such a big concert (about 15000 people), and I was nervous that I would not be able to take the pressure, but it was not too bad. In such a situation, it's really an advantage not to be skinny. Of course, we were right in front of Mike Mills ("as usual"), and we made eye contact with him several times. The show was amazing, I had the time of my life once again. They played some oldies this time too, and it is quite cool to sing along to songs that not everyone knows unless they are R.E.M. heads like myself.

After the concert I felt quite weird. I was totally exhausted, totally in heaven and totally full of energy at the same time! I couldn't wait to meet the others in the pub again, and tell them about my experience.

This is me, right after the end of the world....... Picture taken by Elisabeth.

More pictures from Earl's court and London

Everyone was really exited, and we scandinavians decided that we would try to meet the band. We realized that hanging around the concert area was not the way to do it, as we supposed that was what everyone else would do. So we waited for about half an hour, took a cab to Stig and Ole's hotel, and walked down to the band's hotel. We thought that by now the band would have been eating dinner or something, and that they would head back for the hotel soon.

We were right. Two black vans pulled up, and Mike and Michael came out along with Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow. When Michael saw our T-shirts from the concert, he gave us compliments. He said that he had never seen someone wearing the T-shirts from this tour, and that they really looked good on us. He even touched Elisabeth's shirt, and said "nice texture". It is really weird that he had not seen anyone wearing the tour T-shirts, considering that this was after the 5th concert on the tour. This proves that he doesn't meet a lot of fans after the concerts. He was in a very good mood, and he wrote us autographs this time too. He signed my Up CD. As for Mike, he had signed the CD for me in Stockholm, so instead I showed him the picture of him and me from Oslo. I told him where it was from, and asked him if he could sign it for me. I thought that would be cool, to have not only a picture of him and me, but a signed picture as well. Of course he signed it. He even smiled and said that the picture was nice. Can this guy ever be mean? I think not.

The two Mike's went inside the hotel. We were talking to Scott and Ken for a while. And Sue (who was there too) said to Elisabeth and me that she had seen us outside the hotel earlier that day. I asked if she remembered us from Oslo, and she did. She also told us that Peter were staying with his family in another hotel. I was disappointed when I heard this, because now I only missed his and Bertis' autograph to have completed the Up CD.

Ole and Stig went back to Norway the day after, but we still had a few days remaining of our London holiday.

Two days later, R.E.M. was going to play at the Glastonbury festival. I figured I had to be outside their hotel early in the morning if I should have any chance of seeing them one more time. I didn't want to go to Glastonbury, I am not that "festival kind of person". And I was also running out on money.

So I went to the hotel once again, and I had my three travel companions with me. I said that they could work as paparazzis, if the band turned up. When we had been there for a while, a guy named Phil came. He was a fan too, and we talked to him for about two hours, when things started to happen. First Sue came out of the hotel. I approached her, and she was very surprised to see us, as she thought we had gone back to Norway along with Stig and Ole. She said the guys would come down in about an hour, as they were leaving for Glastonbury. She seemed to be busy, she was on the phone all the time. Suddenly we noticed a rack containing some clothes beside the hotel entrance. We looked a little closer, and it was actually Mike's nudie suits! Phil said that what we should do, was grab one of them and just run like hell....

After a while, a man with a small child in a carriage came walking towards us. We didn't really pay attention to him, as we were studying the tour programme we had brought with us. Suddenly he asked if we liked the tour programme. I didn't realize who he was until he started asking about the concerts, if we had good seats etc. Of course it was Bertis Downs! I don't think very many bands have a manager who actually approach the fans...... He said that the guys would leave in about half an hour, so that we didn't have to wait for forever. He signed my Up CD, but first he had to ask me if I was really sure I wanted his autograph.

We waited for about half an hour, two black vans pulled up, and ....tada!.... Peter Buck came out, along with his wife Stephanie, Mark Williamson (the security guy) and Joey Waronker. Peter was the one I was actually waiting for, as I "needed" his autograph for my Up CD. Phil, Elisabeth and I approached him, we shook hands with him and he signed the CD of course. My friends Monica and Anne-Grethe took their jobs as paparazzis very seriously, but they didn't want to go too close to take pictures. So Mark Williamson approached Monica and said that if she wanted, she could go closer to get better pictures. I think that was a very nice thing to do, most security guys would do the opposite thing. Monica finally asked Peter if she could take a picture of him, and of course he let her do that. Then we went back to our place in the sun, to watch him from a distance and wait for someone else.

Suddenly Mike came out of the hotel. He was in a hurry, looking extremely stressed. We yelled out "Hi Mike!", and he waved to us and said "Hi". He was about to get into one of the vans, when Sue said something to him. We could not hear what it was, but she must have told him how long we had been waiting, because he suddenly came walking towards us! Is this guy nice or what? He did not look like a rock star at all. His hair was wet, he had not shaved and his shirt looked like someone had thrown it on him. He said he was in a hurry, but he took the time to write Elisabeth an autograph. I thought that I would show him how good and polite fan I am, so I said: "I didn't bring anything for signing this time, so I'd just like to shake your hand and say thank you!" And so I did. He said that he really had to go now, so he hurried back to the van and got in. The vans left immediately. Sue did not go with them, but she said she had been talking to Michael, and that he would not leave yet. (We found out later that he had taken a helicopter ride with Cortney Love to Glastonbury, while the others went there by train from Paddington station.) So we decided to call it a day for this time, and we said goodbye to Phil, thinking that we would never see him again. But we were wrong........

The story is not a sad one....... PART IV

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