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19 April 2007

Quote:
"Friends tell me I am crazy
That I'm wasting time with you.
You'll never be mine."
--Dub Be Good To Me,
Beats International

Canada II -- Montreal

On Thursday, we checked out at 12PM of the Niagara Hilton and drove to Toronto to drop Shawn off. Then we girls started the 500 miles trip to Montreal. I was driving, too, for a stretch in the middle. The trip went very well, with sunshine throughout and not a flake of snow in sight. It really looked more like Mexico than Canada to me.
Our hotel in Montreal was right around the corner of the club, in a quite sleazy area that reminded me of Soho. We had fun trying to find the road and parking the van in a narrow alleyway where is was physically impossible to turn the car. We had so much luggage that it looked like we were moving rather than only stopping for one short night.
Kristine and I quickly checked out the venue, but the box office was not open yet. We learned that tickets were indeed 50 (!) CAN$ because it was such a hip fashion event including a Hugo Boss show. We decided to get ready and go straight to the club as the doors and the box office were supposed to open at 9:30PM.

 Do I look like a slut?

The club was very unorganised for such a prestigious event. People were piling up in front of the doors, and the doorman would pick and choose random groups of people to let in, which was confusing because eventually everybody got in anyway. Inside they made people wait some more before the main doors to the theatre opened. It was quite packed. Darren and James were there again, and a Canadian fan named Simon had come with his boyfriend. Simon was very cute and kept interviewing Kristine and me about our trips and George. When he asked me if Frank was generally nice to fans, Frank just happened to walk by, so I stopped him, but he had no time and told Simon that he's talk to him later. They had never met before. So that probably was a good example of Franks inherent niceness and uselessness, haha.

Marc

The event started with a Hugo Boss fashion show, which of course was totally unexciting. It took me ages to get  glass of wine because one bar didn't have glasses, the other didn't have wine, and the next had only one waitress who took her time. The drink prices were very high, too, given that people had paid so much for entrance already. Most of the people looked like they were somehow "in fashion": lots of skinny girls, models and hairdressers; most dressed in black. Not very exciting either. I talked to a few people and it turned out that the majority did not give a toss about the Hugo Boss show but were there to see George. As the night progressed people loosened up and got more intoxicated and it was hilarious to watch the local VIPs (none of whom I would have known) made fools of themselves, stumbling around on the catwalk, dancing on stage, basically prancing about. One very *beautiful* man was even giving autographs. I asked the girl next to me who he was and she just shrugged her shoulders and said: "He owns some club in Montreal." How exciting! There were performances of a Canadian singer and another DJ, and then Marc came on. He looked rather sexy in shirt and tie. Why he decided to wear a tie was not quite clear, possibly to fit in better with the stylish crowd. The most stylish people were by now milling on the stage and backstage, probably enjoying brief encounters and whatever I do not need to know with the guest celebrity. The blond VIP crowd dancing on the stage to the side of the DJ stand looked more like they were waiting for the bus than partying wildly. It was all rather funny.

Her again...!

George came on not too late and did another 2-hourt or so gig similar to the Niagara set. He was in a great mood and was making a lot of contact with the audience. Not with me, of course. He never looks at me. At one point he was mimicking to Barb asking if she had a compact. Barb slid him her MAC powder across the stage and used extensive sign language to instruct him how to open the case and find the powder puff. He kept the compact until after the gig, and when Barb went to collect it, Frank had already efficiently packed it up with the records and stuff, but George managed to get it back for her.
Simon had prepared banners with messages for George and asked me if I thought they were appropriate to hold up or not. I advised him to drop the "Play your own stuff" message because it might have given the wrong impression, but endorsed the use of the "Turn To Dust" request sheet. When George read it he apologetically signalled that he hadn't brought that particular record, and I reassured Simon that this was an OK reaction and that he was not set up but simply hadn't brought the track. Otherwise I'm sure he would have played it. Another of Simon's signs read "Loyal long term fan is seeking handshake". How cute! I wanted him to hold it up just because it was such a funny way of putting things.

By the end of the set the VIP people had mostly lot interest of passed out and in the front rows appeared a more interesting crowd, including some excitable black rasta men. George started to play some random ragga stuff and his own stuff like Pon De Nasty for his own amusement, singing along. He ended the set with Eve Gallagher's Don't Get Over Me and then just switched off the music and started talking to people in the audience. The 20 or so remaining punters of course took their chance and jumped on stage to get various items signed and their pictures taken. George didn't seem in any hurry to get away, even though Frank kept insisting that they had to go.

We left the club and lingered a while at the back door. When George came out he started talking to Kristine and Barb, whilst I was distracted by a young man whom I tried to communicate with in French. George posed for some more photos, and at the last second even I finally managed to get my picture taken with him and Kristine. That was a first. We asked him what had happened to his YouTube videos and he confirmed that he had taken them down himself because of some security issue with his computer. The connection between the uploaded YouTube videos and a potential hacking threat to his home computer remains unclear, but I will not elaborate on this here.

Montreal VIPs...

She's a model...

... and he's looking good. Eeek!!

It seemed a good idea at the time...

Safari girls

A G-string incident

Like waiting for the bus...

Hopeful autograph hunter

New-found friend

Another admirer

Oh, yes, and here it is.
Isn't he gorgeous?! Isn't he?! My goodness!!
Sadly this perfectly gorgeous photo got spoilt by some blob on the left side... is that a ripped bin bag she's wearing?! LOL

We went back to the hotel, and Barb and I were desperate to get some sleep before the trip back to Toronto the next morning. But Kristine had other plans because tickets for 2 more concert venues had gone on sale. I booked row D tickets for Glasgow online whilst Kristine phoned Aberdeen, but then she decided that row D was not good enough and that she would wait until 5:30AM Canadian time to call Glasgow and check if they still had front-row seats available. They had, so we have front-row seats everywhere now. I guess I will leave the booking up to Kristine from now on because I am apparently crap at it. This means that Kristine will set her alarm for 4AM on Monday morning when the Salford tickets go on sale whilst I won't have to do anything even though I am in the correct time zone!
I didn't get any sleep that night apart from maybe an hour or so which was interrupted by my jumping out of bed at 8 and shouting in panic because my overworked brain had convinced me that I had missed my "flight"... too much excitement!
Nevertheless I was feeling OK the next day and took over the driver's seat for a couple of hundred miles on the way back. The weather was still gorgeous with sunshine and warm temperatures, and we made it back to Toronto in record time.

George was supposed to be on Entertainment Tonight at 7PM so once back at Barb & Shawn's flat we all gathered eagerly in front of the TV to hear the latest celebrity gossip. They had been announcing the programme for a couple of days so we were surprised to find out that they had dropped the report on "life after community service" or whatever it was supposed to be. We wondered what might have happened... maybe George was not interesting enough compared to the Anna-Nicole Smith baby story, or maybe he just didn't make the interview, or they had asked the wrong question...?

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