Gaffaweb - Kate Bush - MOMENTS - A Red Shoes Collection - 1.5.

MOMENTS

A Red Shoes Collection

1.5. - The Convention in London, 8th May 1994

[ordered by date]

Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 09:34:00 +0100
From: uli@zoodle.RoBIN.de (Ulrich Grepel)
Subject: mail from the Kate Bush Club (Convention)

Hi!

Yesterday I got a letter from the KBC (SAE 3), containing two important sheets of paper:

KBC/HOMEGROUND

C O N V E N T I O N 1 9 9 4

Including a screening of

'THE LINE, THE CROSS AND THE CURVE'

Sunday 8th May 1994

The Hippodrome
Leicester Square
London
WC2
1.00 pm - midnight

We are pleased to announce the details of the 1994 KBC/Homeground Kate Bush convention. Following the 1990 convention in Hammersmith, we hope that this will be the biggest and best event to date. Apart from showing Kate's film, 'The Line, The Cross & The Curve' the day will feature loads of rare video, including a new interview (filmed in Canada) in which Kate talks at length about the film and the album. There will also be a mastermind quiz that everyone can take part in, live music from fans and brand new merchandise that will be available for the first time at the convention. The convention will end with the largest Kate inspired party/disco ever held. Everything you need to know about the day will be included with your tickets.

Tickets are <pounds> 8.00 each. To get yours please fill in the form below and return with a large S.A.E. or IRC to the usual Homeground address (PO Box 176, Orpington, Kent, BR5 3NA) Please make all cheques etc. payable to The Kate Bush Club. Please try and make all payments in Stirling Pounds.

'IT'S REALLY HAPPENING TO YA!'

Date: 09 May 94 02:36:51 EDT
From: Peter Manchester <72020.366@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Convention!

The last bat just flew to roost in front of this morning's rising sun, and I sit in front of my host family's ACORN 3 RISC machine here in London, plugged into my CIS account, trying to use the COMPOSE editor in MAIL and clearly having a problem with it.

I took copious notes yesterday at the Convention, and will eventually have time this week to transcribe them with appropriate elaborations. but for now just this greeting and brief report.

Yes, she did appear. At about 7:45, the stage elevator hove her into view to introduce "The Line, The Cross, & The Curve."

First, however, there was some spillover business from the raffle. One last number needed to be drawn, for the Japanese Gold Record of "Lionheart" I believe it was, and some luckly lad Bill not only got to get up on stage with Kate and shake her hand he had the presence of mind to duck back one last time for a quick kiss on the cheek, which was returned, to the vicarious joy of several hundred of us.

Quick survey of high points as seen from dawn the next morning, with a cup of coffee just barely beginning to set in:

Del Palmer's cool wit and splendid generosity during the auction, he and Dave from "Homeground" on stage together--pumping the bidding at some points (for the great cause of the Great Ormund Street Children's Hospital)--breaking it off at others to the benefit of some bidder who had touched Del as deserving.

Paddy Bush on an unusual box guitar, singing a song that I took to be "the Rain" with transparent joy.

The Top Twenty All Time Homeground Kate Bush Favorites video compilation, as it moved up the Top Ten in particular--incorporating much rare TV appearance material.

The spectacularly entertaining Mike Winter dance group's interpretation of "Ken."

This moment here:

Andy Marvick and I had set off from our perch on the steps of the downstairs seating, left center to the stage, to the third level where there was allegedly food service. It was during the first break, and we were in a bit of a rush. I thought he was right behind me, and having reached the food service window (and realized there was going to be no time to get any), I looked around for Andy and he was nowhere to be seen. I shortly found him on the stairs, holding the arm crutches of a largely lame young man who was slowly pulling his way up using the guardrail. Andy's spontaneous gesture of assistance had clearly been proferred so quietly and naturally that it was simply no big deal.

Well, enough for now. I need to pack and train up to Shropshire for the day. It will take me awhile to digest this, my first ever pilgrimage to see Kate in person. While I got no closer than to breathe air in the same space with her it was worth it. "I hope to see you all again," she said. "Say when and we'll be there," I nearly hollered. But we shall simply have to wait and see.

From: Andy Semple <mty027@cck.coventry.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 9 May 94 10:24:08 +0100
Subject: First reactions!

Not a bad day yesterday at the Convention! Music was good, Kate was there to introduce the film, Del was amusing, quiz was good etc.

The only negative points was the food situation, the hippodrome catered for 400 when they were told to cater for at least 1000!! The other point was the disorganisation of Love-hounds this time, after the last convention it was a little disappointing. I know that people congregated together but something wasn't quite there. In answer to Graham the same team won the quiz as last time. The only Love-hounds I really spoke to were Neil Calton and Stephen Thomas. The film was not bad really although Kate shouldn't give up the day job!! Three new tracks were played, (1) Cover version of Sexual Healing, (2) The man I Love (the Larry Adler thingy), (3) New remix of Rubberband girl. Sorry this is short and confused but my head is still spinning!

Andy Semple

From: Scott Telford <s.telford@ed.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 12:48:28 GMT
Subject: Yet Another Convention Report

Certainly a day to remember!

From the top....

At around 10:45 there were only around half-a-dozen people waiting outside the Hippodrome, include (as I later discovered) IED. The only other Love-Hound I found outside the Swiss Centre was David Smith and together with fellow Edinburgh fan Dmitri Ross, we joined the queue at about 11:20. A larger group of Love-Hounds (Geoff, Vickie, Uli, Kerry etc.) appeared in the queue behind shortly afterwards. Doors opened around 12:10. Most of the Love-Hounds clustered loosely to the left of the central aisle on the stools and steps down to the floor - Andy, Neil and Steve: where were you? Pity you missed us 8-(

Paddy was there performing material from his forthcoming album "Skyscraping" with Colin Lloyd-Tucker (also making an appearance) under the name "Bushtucker" (like it!), Del was there auctioning collectibles with Dave (a one-off signed CD-R of the album went for 600 pounds!), and of course Kate was there, but not for long, only to introduce the film and pick the gold disc raffle winner a second time (it wasn't deliberate that the first one picked was invalid, was it? 8-)

The fans' performances ranged from an acoustic guitar adaptation of RutH (believe me!) to an almost a capella Big Sky with a two-chord electric guitar accompanyment by "Loney Planet", to an excellent Wuthering Heights by "Rare Flowers". The aircraft-carrier-style elevator built into the stage was used extensively.

The "Sexual Healing" track Andy mentions is from a forthcoming Davey Spillane album - yes, there were Uillean pipe in the arrangement! The new US dance mix of Rubberband girl was brought along by Kate herself on a DAT, apparently. Anybody still around when it was played?

Despite at least four different Love-Hounds quiz teams, including a A-team of IED, Doug, Chris and Uli, the quiz was won by The Norfolk Alchemists team again.

After going out to a nearby Chinese after the showing of TLTCTC (the video projector wasn't brilliant, but few are, I think), those of us who didn't have tubes or buses to catch returned, waving tickets at shouts of "You can't go in there, it's a private party", around 10:30 and spent some time with Peter before the Hippodrome shut up shop for the night. IED and I also met one of the Alchemists, who showed us her prize shoebox.

And I still haven't mentioned the freebie free-for-alls (ouch!), the new poster, the ticket poll video top 20, the US Rubberband Girl video, The Pink Mules...

All proceeds and profits were donated at Kate's request to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

Thanks to IED for the nametags and Chris for the rubberbands!

From: s0pdfm@assam.exnet.com (P D Fitzgerald-Morris)
Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 21:54:46 GMT
Subject: Gathering at HG Towers

Hello Friends,

As I sit here I have a great collection of Lovehounds standing behind me, Andy Marvick, Doug Alan , Mark Semich, Chris n' Vickie, Cherryl Aittama. They have to rush for a train so they can't add something to this message, but I just want to say the Convention went very well, and it was great to see all of you.

Note from IED -- All of us here owe a huge debt of gratitude (if not loads of KIT KAT bars, etc.) to Peter and Krys and Dave of Homeground (and Lisa of KBC) for their amazing work.

|>oug says 'Hi!' and we all have to run now, but thanks to everyone for a great KonvenTion (Vickie says 'everyone says hi!' - and we do) (Min -sorry I couldn't reach you, Brit Tel attacked me when I tried to use their phone from HG central. - Mark)

Chris here - Uli, I'll give you a call.

Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 12:05:24 +1000
From: GRAHAM.G.R.DOMBKINS@msm.bhp.com.au
Subject: Talk about tough quiz

Scott Telford sez...

>Despite at least four different Love-Hounds quiz teams, including a A-team of IED, Doug, Chris and Uli, the quiz was won by The Norfolk Alchemists team again.

WOW! Does anybody have a list of the questions?? We send in the gaffa "brains-trust" and still didn't make it?? If you could, send just the questions in first and let us see how well we do ourselves with them before you post the answers.

From: pptjc@vaxk.bton.ac.uk (It's in the trees... It's coming...)
Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 11:54:47 GMT
Subject: Food

Sorry I didn't see any of you on Sunday. I heard an announcement for a meet of RMG bods but was embroiled in trying to grab Dave Cross for a word on the subject of food (the lack of). He didn't believe there was a problem, as they had told the management to expect 1000+ people and he couldn't relax the no re-admission condition. I have to admit that following this conversation, I and an accomplice talked a bouncer into letting us sneak out to a restaurant! Sorry, Dave - Food is a PRIORITY OVERRIDE condition!!! :-)

What else... Oh yes, I thought the "Pink Mules" thing was marvellous. Very well observed humour. I'm sure nobody would have been offended. Come to think of it, I probably enjoyed it more that TLTCATC!

Peter Chow

From: s0pdfm@assam.exnet.com (P D Fitzgerald-Morris)
Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 18:00:49 GMT
Subject: Re: Food

Sorry Peter, but this is a completely unfair remark. Dave had the responsibility of running the entire show. He could not simply break off what he was doing at any one point either to chat or to deal immediately with something that had come up. He pursued the food problem as soon as he could. You should have seen him tear into the Hippodrome manager when he showed little interest in the problem. The hippodrome were told to expect 1,000. Apparently they chose only to cater for 400. We'll probably chose only to pay half the bill.

From: gtp10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Dr G.T. Parks)
Date: 11 May 1994 15:00:28 GMT
Subject: Re: Yet Another Convention Report

[Fans-performances:]

I thought Lonely Planet were excellent - they were technically very good and their interpretations of the KaTe songs they played were interesting. However, Rare Flowers were awful IMHO - almost all that accompaniment was programmed (and virtually identical to KaTe's original) and the singer went horribly out of tune. They might as well have mimed to KaTe's version.

[Love-Hounds quiz teams]

Well, I argued in favour of either one mega Love-Hounds team or the sharing of knowledge between teams, which would have increased our chances of winning. We might have had the problem of distributing the prizes among 16 or so, but at least we'd have had the prizes. I can console myself with the thought that the Love-Hounds B Team (Alanna, Meredith, Mark and myself) did better than the A Team on the last question (name all KaTe's songs with "love" in the title) - we got 5 compared to the A Team's 3.

From: mas@csa.bu.edu (Mark A. Semich)
Date: 12 May 1994 02:31:03 GMT
Subject: Re: Kate's songs with "love" in them

1. Hounds of Love

These are the only other ones I could come up with:

All The Love,
And So Is Love,
Love and Anger,
My Lagan Love,
Oh To Be In Love,
Why Should I Love You

Which is at least seven, but there are probably more of them...

(Would "Hounds Of Love (Alternative)" count as another one?)

Of course, during the trivia quiz, I could only think of *three*!! -I'm ashamed to call myself a Kate Fan... :-)

Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 01:47:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Byrne Manchester <PMANCHESTER@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Subject: The Quiz

After two lovely days in Shropshire this week after the Convention, I have returned to the maelstrom of final exam week, and won't have a prayer of expanding my notes for a post before the weekend. As the day wore on Sunday, I found that the notes I was taking on a couple of sheets of paper in my pocket were becoming something like an Official Minutes for the love-hounds I was seated among, and I want to do them justice before very long.

Meantime, even if out of order, I feel duty bound to comment on points arising in the newsgroup.

[Quiz-questions:]

I know *I* don't have a list of the questions! I was on the lh `B' team (Meredith Tarr, woj, Geoff Parks, me), and it was all we could do to come up with preliminary answers as Peter Fitzgerald-Morris read the 20 questions in a stately but nevertheless relentless way. Homeground will publish them, but probably with the answers, and Graham has a point in wishing to work on the questions themselves. Here's a few that I remember (they have to be asked quite precisely--though none of them were `trick' questions). General proviso: answers should be as complete as possible !

Q. Who directed the 1940 film that influenced the song "The Red Shoes" and the film "The Line, the Curve, & the Cross."?

Q. Name every Kate Bush song that has the English word `love' in its title.

Q. Which Kate Bush song includes the words, "You know that I'll be waiting"?

Q. Who is the historical figure Kate has mentioned as contributing to the theme of the song, "Heads We're Dancing"?

Q. What Kate Bush song was inspired by a film by Ken Russell?

Those are just the ones that come to mind right away--but they give you a flavor for the event. Limit yourself to ten minutes, and with no opportunity to consult anything except your memory, and see how you do!

As to our being skunked again by The Norfolk Alchemists, Geoff Parks points out: [... text deleted ...]

I have to take the fall on this one. There were some 12 or 15 of us grouped together just to the left in front of the stage. About half an hour before the Quiz itself, answer sheets were distributed with the instructions that players should organize themselves into groups of 4, with each group taking a name that they would enter at the top of the sheet. We got ahold of a handful, and it is an index to the confusion of our discussion as to how we should arrange ourselves that Geoff's and my recollections of who were on the `Love-Hounds B' team differ.

Geoff strongly urged that we form a Committee of the Whole, so to speak, but I was troubled by the fact that the instructions from the stage stipulated that there should be teams of four. If we won, suppose (and it was emphasized that the winning team would receive precisely four of the special shoebox editions of TRS), and 12-15 of us trekked up on stage together, I had a real concern that it would look like No Fair! and the love-hounds name would be disgraced. We really milled around for quite a while on this, with no real progress, until finally Chris Williams turned to me and asked for an ethical consultation. At that point--and with time becoming rather urgent--I proposed that we form ourselves into teams of four, with our `A team' being |>oug, IED, Chris Williams, and Uli. My view prevailed.

In retrospect, I still think I was right--though I was certainly undercut by the fact that the winning Norfolk Alchemists were six. That is still not 12 or 15, however, and anyway, I think the bitter truth is that even if the whole batch of us had been one group, we wouldn't have done any better. Yes, the B team got 5 song titles with `love' in them, over the A team's 3: but the correct answer is 7! NONE of us got the name of the second director of "The Red Shoes" after Michael Powell, though Andy immediately realized that there was a second credit and that his name was the key to the question.

I don't know what the Norfolk Alchemist's secret is--they are six young people, mostly female, and they got 17 out of the 20 questions right-- but they have beat us love-hounds twice in a row now. Next time, I say take no prisoners! Field a team of 4, 5, 6, but let's set up to draw from *our* strengths. Delegate someone to write down the questions (the fact that we were not organized to do that was a major planning flaw). And have two or three of us bring *fast* laptops with things like The Garden indexed for instant access. Maybe (if another 4 years go by before a new Konvention) the machine could support a satellite connection from the floor to a network gate and the whole newsgroup could get online in support!

Anyway, to come back to the sad truth: we fielded our best this time, and they were in fine form too. Several of the questions were devious, but not in any way unfair. In fact, I have to say Peter F-M's quiz was very, very skillful.

Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 14:05:34 +0000
From: nbc@inf.rl.ac.uk
Subject: Convention Report

I will add my impressions of the Kate Convention last Sunday to those already posted.

Being a Sunday I was late to get up and spent the usual slow breakfast with the family. Hence, it was much later than I had planned before I left the house and I did not get to the Hippodrome until 1.30. I therefore missed the chance to meet other Lovehounds in the queue and the start of the programme.

Anyway, when I did get in they were in the middle of showing some video clips. In the darkness the place looked absolutely packed and when the lights did come on later I discovered it was indeed jam full. I think the venue must have been smaller than last year as the only space to move around seemed to be right at the back behind the bar. I looked around but could see no one I recognised nor any banners of posters suggesting there was a lovehounds gathering. I began to despair of finding anyone.

While it was not very busy I took time to visit the merchandise shop where they were selling Red Shoes t-shirts, poster and badges. There was also a "fruit" t-shirt, and the last 2 KBC mags on sale. Near the foyer they were also selling copies of Paddy Bush's new CD "Skyscraping" (which he and Andy Tucker were lating signing).

There then followed some more excellent selections of Kate video clips most of which I had never seen before and looked as though they were taken from a number of TV performances from various places. There were some spot prizes given to people whose ticket number was drawn out and could answer a simple question posed by Dave. Questions were: who played didgeridoo on The Dreaming; who produced The Kick Inside; what profession is Kate's father in; name one of Kate's brothers. Unfortunately, the main quiz later was a tad hardy than that.

During one of the spots for live music (others have described the acts) there was enough light for me to try and spot other lovehounds. From my vantage point I finally recognised the top of IED's head (sorry Andy but it stood out). I could also see a group of people with labels stuck to their chests. I assumed this must be lovehounds or a group of evacuees from Bosnia.

There then followed an announcement that the food had run out, and a bit later there was the first of the breaks from the Convention schedule. I took this opportunity to wander over and see who I could find. I said hello to IED or at least I tried. However, during the breaks they continued to play Kate tracks extremely loud so we had to communicate mostly by hand signals. This would be my main gripe about both this and the previous Convention. Much as I love Kate's music it would have been really nice to have a few moments of quiet so a few of us could actually have talked without shouting at each other. Maybe then we would all have been able to meet each other.

I managed to find Vickie who very kindly gave me a copy of a Happy Rhodes sampler tape (thanks Vickie - I have not had a chance to listen to it yet but will get back to you with impressions). Then I saw the "legendary" |>oug Allen and had a short chat with him and Cherryl, and was able to say a brief hello to Mark Semich. I saw others around like Peter Manchester and Meredith Tarr but did not have a chance to speak to them as at that moment the Homeground and KBC people started to hand out freebies and there was a lot of commotion down the front. They were handing out old posters, flyers, magazines, badges etc. So where were all the other lovehounds - well I guess they I must have been standing close to people like David and Scott without knowing it. I assumed the little group were all Americans.

Round about that time Andy Semple came over to say hi and to say he had met up with Steve Thomas and were positioned dead central. I then went off to buy some raffle tickets which were in aid of the Great Ormond Street children's hospital, hoping to emulate my success in winning a signed video last year. After that the programme resumed with a showing of the TV show Kate made for the BBC (the one featuring the duet with Peter Gabriel).

There was then a short break while they handed out forms for the quiz and asked people to get into teams. I tagged myself onto the team of Andy, Steve and Andy's friend from Coventry. Shortly after, Peter read out 20 questions. These were tough. Although, I got more than last year I was still hopeless compared to Andy and Steve. Even though there were a couple none of us could even guess at I thought the total effort was not bad. I cannot remember the questions now but Homeground promised to list them and the answers in the next issue.

There was then a run down of the Kate top 50 as voted for by people when writing in for their tickets. The top 20 were accompanied by a specially constructed video sequence. Again, Homeground promised to put the full list in a future magazine. Number 1 was Wuthering Heights. My no. 1 - Cloudbusting also featured highly, as did Eat the Music - much to Andy's surprise and my delight.

Other people have mentioned "The Red Mules" - one of the massive number of 3 videos that people had sent in. The other 2 were apparently too serious to show at the Convention. However, "Mules" - made by three long standing KBC members was an affectionate pastiche on Kate's Red Shoes movie. Very funny - spoilt a bit by poor sound quality.

Paddy Bush appeared and played several weird and wonderful instruments before being joined by his partner from BushTucker for a track from Skyscraping.

There was then an auction of Kate goodies conducted by Del and Dave Cross. The stuff they had was amazingly rare and included a white label copy of The Red Shoes, CD-R's of some of the recent singles, and a CD-R of The Red Shoes which had slightly different levels on the master and slightly different art work. The latter went for 600 pounds as two people were bidding against each other. Although most things went for over 100 pounds, on reflection the prices were much less than any dealer would charge considering they were nearly all unique.

The raffle winner was drawn but no one appeared to claim the prize which was a gold disc from Japan for Lionheart. Runners up got goodie bags filled with photos, singles etc. I don't think any lovehound won anything - unlike last time where we had two winners. The quiz prizes (red shoe box sets) were awarded to the Norfolk Alchemists (who alos won last time).

Del then introduced two new pieces of music - Sexual Healing from the Davy Spillane album, and The Man I Love from the Gershwin tribute album. Both very good.

There was a showing of a Canadian filmed interview with Kate talking mostly about the film and the album. It ended with a showing of the US video for Rubberband Girl. It ended with Kate appearing from beneath the floor on the rising stage platform. (Surely she should have come down from the sky!). She looked rather uncomfortable with about 1000 flashbulbs going off and had to squint for most of the time. She thanked everyone for coming and raising so much money for charity. Talked a bit about the film and asked people not to be too harsh as it was her first attempt. Told us she thought we were all marvellous and thanked us for all the letters of support etc.

She then drew another raffle winner as the first ticket was declared void, presented the prize and then disappeared to wherever godesses spend their nights.

A showing of the film then followed but as I had already seen it at the film festival and my bum was aching and my tum was empty I decided to head for home since I had to get up early the next day for a meeting at work.

The programme had been so packed there had been no further chances to meet other Lovehounds. I probably have missed something important but I have gone on far too long and there will be other reports coming up I am sure.

So a good day - many thanks to Peter, Krys, Dave and Lisa for all the work they put in. My suggestion for next time is have a few more breaks and turn the music down real low so people can meet and talk.

Neil Calton

Date: Thu, 12 May 94 12:03:54 EDT
From: Andrew B Marvick <abm4@columbia.EDU>
Subject: Convention

IED had a wonderful time in England and wants to thank again the Homeground crew for their stunning show of generosity and Kately spirits both during and after the convention. IED had an absolutely marvellous time at Homeground Towers in the company of Peter FitzGerald-Morris, Krystyna, Pami, Mark Semich, Chris'n' Williams and Vickie Mapes, |>oug /\lan and Cheryl Aittima. IED was permitted to hold forth to his heart's content, with minimal ribbing from his polite hosts and friends, and what more could IED ask for? Anyway, he is quite confident that |>oug will never show anyone that video record he made of the occasion, so IED's reputation is safe...

Love-Hounds was not particularly disorganized at the convention, as Andy Semple asserts -- there was a loud shout from our spot when our name was mentioned by Dave Cross on stage. Anyway, it's always embarrassingly easy to find the American contingent(s) at Kate Bush conventions. It's IED's suspicion that a lot of the philocanines who had earlier announced their intention to attend, apparently didn't make it. Too bad, they didn't get their nametags! Many thanks to Peter Manchester for keeping a detailed written record of the event as it unfolded -- no easy feat when sitting in near darkness among a close press of Love-Hounds, all the while braving powerful onslaughts of draft, chill, and decibels.

In defense of Love-Hounds Team A, who did not meet their full potential during the convention quiz (er, a precise score is not available at this time, sorry), Peter F-M told IED that the quizmasters' express aim was to frame each question so that it would strongly suggest one answer while in fact requiring another, much more obscure one. IED agrees that it would have been better had all Love-Hounds in attendance pooled their intellectual resources for a common goal. One unfortunate result of combining IED with three equally well (or indeed, far better) versed afficionados of KTrivia was that the team wasted many precious minutes considering the wealth of subtle tricks which the questions concealed, leaving insufficient time to write out complete answers. The suggestion was made and enthusiastically seconded that next time (2008? 2019?) the Love-Hounds should set up a portable satellite link and access the vast philocanine database, also transmitting realtime minutes of the proceedings to all those unfortunately unable to attend in person.

It was wonderful to meet so many Love-Hounds and to see so many old friends. Let's hope we can all meet again sooner than is likely. Take care, everyone.

-- Andrew Marvick (IED)

"IED, ergo QED"

Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 02:41:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Byrne Manchester <PMANCHESTER@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Subject: Convention summary

The day's events began at 1:10 with TRS played loud, accompanied by flashing strobes and clouds of stage smoke. After the song, the lift in the center of the stage rose with Dave, Lisa, Peter, and Chris, who greeted us, announced that Kate would show up to introduce TLTC&TC, and ran down some of the countries from which conventioners had come: Japan, Finland, Australia, Sweden, France, Israel, Italy, Canada, and last mentioned, the US--and in that connection, a passing reference to "some love-hounds" being in attendance. It was announced that the profits for the day would be for the benefit of the Great Ormund Street Children's Hospital.

The first two videos were the trailer for TLTC&TC, and a short documentary on the work of the Children's Hospital. (It was about at this point that the group of us sitting on the steps of the lower level, just left of stage center and precisely at the focal point of the ceiling speakers' midrange horns and treble drivers, perceived that the audio volume was not just loud but punishing, and began scrabbling for wads of paper to stuff in our ears. Kleenex worked for me.)

Following those videos, the first live performance took place. This was an interpretive dance for MoP by Marcus Echo, from France. It was in a style related to Kate's choreography for "The Man With the Child in his Eyes" and "Moving": seated on stage, at the entrance to a circle of candles, composed mostly of arm and upper body gestures. I found it teetering between precious and very affecting, with the latter prevailing in the end because of the dancer's real attunement to the song.

This was followed by a 40 minute compilation of rare (some not so rare) videos: a lip-synch of HoL with Paddy and the band, at the end of which the male accompanist from Kate's video entered and the two of them danced as in the video; the "Rocket Man" b&w video; "Delius"; what looked like an early study for "Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake" for the Tour; a "Hammer Horror" very much like the Hammersmith show, except with Kate lip-synching the vocal; a fascinating live "Room for the Life" from the camera that was following Kate at the Hammersmith show, using what looked like the big stage `egg' familiar from "Them Heavy People," except seen from the other side, where it was lined with red satin, with Kate reclining in it as though in bed; "Warm Room" from the same camera, Kate at the piano; a totally great "Coffee Homeground"; "Symphony in Blue" with Kate at the piano; "The Kick Inside" from Die Eftelung video; an unfamiliar "Running Up That Hill," lip-synched with the whole band on a metal-framed stage; "Reaching Out" made into a video with clips from HoL, TD, TBS, L&A, Babooshka, SiG, TSW, CB, EtM, WH, Breathing, and TGaT.

Live performances followed. My notes here, scribbled in the dark (or worse than dark; darkness interrupted by colored strobe) read "Connai Ailey". This was a person who soloed with electric guitar, strumming the chords to Roy Harper's "Another Day." That was it; just an `instrumental'. He did follow the changes all the way through, for what it's worth.

At 2:30 there came the first break. This is when Andy and I went searching for food, found ourselves stranded on the third level when the first boxes of posters and pamphlets from the KBC and HG treasuries were being spilled onstage to the groping fans below us. Andy saw something rare spilling out over to the right: "Oh, that's really rare, that's worth something!" he exclaimed in dismay. "It's not rare any more," I pointed out to console him.

Soon intermission was over and live performances resumed with Glen Vickers doing RutH on guitar in a sort of a shuffle, and a second song that I didn't recognize. Del Palmer was spotted arriving backstage. This was followed with a "by popular demand" playing of the 1979 Christmas special (with Peter Gabriel's "Here Comes the Flood" edited out), during which Andy caught some well-deserved Zs.

Live music returned with Phil and Barbie--"Lonely Planet"--doing two songs; my notes only record "The Big Sky," with the comment "phrasing ok." Then the sheets for the Quiz were distributed, and the love-hounds group began the discussion about how to organize themselves that I have previously reported. While people were organizing themselves into teams, the very wicked and entertaining video by Paul Thomas, "The Pink Mules," was perpetrated. This was followed by one of the high points for me, the Mike Winter Group dance interpretation of "Ken": 2 men, 4 women, in unisex business dress, performing with wit, energy, and precision.

There was a short lull. Then the Top Forty from the Homeground poll of Convention ticket buyers, each of whom were asked to name their top ten all time favorate KB tunes, was announced. Numbers 40-21 were read out, but for the Top 20, a compilation video was played, with each song getting more and more complete play as we approached Number One. This was EXTREMELY well done, with lots of very rare material from TV appearances used to supplement the official videos of songs that had videos in the first place. I took down the Top Twenty list, but Peter F-M specifically said "don't bother making notes, this list will be published in Homeground," and I regard myself as justly placed on notice and won't transcribe it. Suffice to say that, considering just the Top Ten, 4 come from HoL, and 2 each from TKI, TSW, and TRS.

Somewhere in here the actual Quiz was administered; perhaps right after the countdown? Anyway, the next Event was the appearance of Paddy Bush about 5:50, raised up by the center stage lift, playing a soulful line on a huge wooden recorder-like instrument that must have been ten feet tall. He set that aside, took up a rectangular guitar that someone said was Madagaskar and sang "The Rain," communicating a joy that gave me deep insight into where Kate Bush isoming from. He was then joined by Colin Lloyd Tucker of Skyscraping, singing a song whose real title I have not looked up yet, but which I noted down as "We're the Scribblers."

They were followed by "Rare Flowers," two young women, one on electronic keyboard, the other the singer. They first did "The Red Shoes." IED, who had not heretofore manifested himself, materialized and wrote on my note sheet "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS REALLY HAPPENIN' TO US!" I concur. It was amazing. They followed with "Wuthering Heights," which was fresh in our ears because of its--let me say `prominent'--place in the Top Twenty countdown. I shall say that this was ill-advised, and leave it at that.

Another intermission followed, after which Del Palmer joined Dave onstage for the auction. I have already commented on the very humane conduct of this event, to which Del contributed so much with his composure and warm intelligence. For the record: [in GBP]

A little Red Shoes box: 110
The While Label pressing of TRS 250
A call sheet from the film 50
The CDR for MoP 140 [CDR = CD-Recordable]
A promo for MoP 45
A signed Shoebox for TRS 150
One of two existing CDRs for TRS 600
A US lithograph of the TRS poster 130
An invitation to the TRS release party 40
A USA TRS teeshirt 30
USA badges for TRS 15, 20
CDR of TRS (the single release)(Del did it) 150
Del's backstage pass for Comic Relief 20
Del's backstage pass for the BPI 10 Feb 86 20
Promo Canadian CD for SiL 20
Actual frames from the cutting of the film 130, 100
RBG tracksheet 70
Del's Tour program from 1979 140

This last was the single most likely of all the items auctioned to acquire a collector's item value far beyond its auctioned price. It was a real gift for Del to give it over for the auction, and an even greater generosity for him to let it go for the bid that was accepted.

The results of the Quiz were then announced, with the now well known fact that the Norfolk Alchemists won, with no other team even in sight in the running.

There followed playings of two new KB contributions: her vocal for "Sexual Healing" from the forthcoming Davy Spillane album (sorry, but as this was playing I found myself commenting "this is so lame!"); and her contribution to the Gershwin album, "The Man I Love," which I found totally compelling. Together with "Home for Christmas," this latest effort by Kate in a 40s mode strikes me as SO successful that I would urge her to take the hint and do a whole album of Big Band Era covers. Sinead was not up to it; Kate is.

There followed the full unedited tape of an interview Kate did for Canadian TV, where the interviewer was a little inarticulate but Kate gave him the benefit of the doubt and had more to say than in any of the other interviews I've read from the TRS release promo appearances. It ended with the video for RBG, during which Hippodrome security people unobstrusively took up positions around the stage.

When the video ended, at about 7:38pm, the riser in the center of the stage lifted Kate Bush herself into our view, and All Rose. As mentioned, Kate drew one last raffle ticket, spoke of how happy she was to see us all, hoped we would like the film, looked forward to seeing us again.

The film then played, and with that the formal program ended. Comment on the film is a thread of its own, to which I will not now contribute.

I will say this. At one point when she was there among us, Kate said something to the effect that she had not yet recovered from the urgency and effort of completing "The Line, the Cross, & the Curve" six months ago. I very much agree with the comments (I am not in an editor now where I can dig up and credit the author) that it is too bad that she didn't throw herself with the same abandon into "The Ninth Wave," which really was a coherent concept grouping of songs. But focusing just on her effort this past fall-- to get herself again into dancing shape, to deal with practical emergencies involving timeframes and budgets--I was deeply touched by her willingness to come out and appear for us at this Convention. I registered Kate as deeply desiring to back away from her public career right now. She was far enough from fighting trim that it must have been a big concession for her to appear for us. She wore the manish tuxedo she has used a lot recently, with its ample trousers and draping jacket, and used no artifices to hide from the unforgiving stage light her coming up on 36 as a woman who likes her smoke and chocolate. Perhaps there is even more going on for her than we are aware of.

We love this woman for her work, and she extends herself to meet us. This is all very rare and wonderful, so let us prize the friendships that we make around her.

From: Scott Telford <s.telford@ed.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 10:27:09 GMT
Subject: Re: The Quiz

Peter Byrne Manchester writes:

> I don't know what the Norfolk Alchemist's secret is--they are six young people, mostly female, and they got 17 out of the 20 questions right.

According to the one IED and I spoke to later, most of the answers came from a single member (whose name I forget) who just has the knack of remembering trivia from the back of album sleeves and the like. No laptops, no satellite links, just memory....

Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 11:52:14 +0000
From: nbc@inf.rl.ac.uk
Subject: The Quiz - Who directed The Red Shoes

From: Peter Byrne Manchester, Subject: The Quiz

> NONE of us got the name of the second director of "The Red Shoes" after Michael Powell, though Andy immediately realized that there was a second credit and that his name was the key to the question.

Actually, the correct answer WAS Michael Powell - I believe Peter F-M was wrong. It is true that the credits of Powell and Pressburger's films always said "Written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger". However, Michael Powell was the director and Emeric Pressburger was the writer. When the question was read out my initial reaction was to tell Andy Semple to write down both names but then I said no because Pressburger did not direct (he only directed films after he split from Powell).

[Peter F-M - can I have a consolation prize :-) ]

> I don't know what the Norfolk Alchemist's secret is--they are six young people, mostly female, and they got 17 out of the 20 questions right.

Well they were saying that it was one of their female members who was the principal expert.

I did half-heartedly think of loading The Garden etc. onto my Powerbook, but I was not sure they would let me in with it. Anyway, given the length of time available to answer the questions it would have been hard to do all the look-ups. There is no substitute for actually knowing the answers. Also, I think there would have been something not quite right (not cricket you know :-)) about winning thanks to technology. The Alchemists won fair and square.

Neil

From: s0pdfm@assam.exnet.com (P D Fitzgerald-Morris)
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 17:29:47 GMT
Subject: Re: The Quiz - Who directed The Red Shoes

nbc@inf.rl.ac.uk writes:

>Actually, the correct answer WAS Michael Powell - I believe Peter F-M was wrong. ...

I am not a film buff myself so I can only take as gospel what the various film guides and reference books say. And the credits on the film itself. These confirm that the directing credit was "Powell and Pressburger".

It may be that actual roles were split. The official credit is however to the pair.

From: Stephen Thomas <spt@cs.nott.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 13 May 94 10:50:53 GMT
Subject: Re: A convention question

Chris Stratford writes:

>By the way, did anyone else think the music was just a touch too loud (and slightly distorted in places)?

I thought it was *much* too loud, a heavily distorted. IMHO this was the only thing that marred a wonderful day. Apart from that, and the food problems (which were not HG's fault), the day was very well organised. Thanks to all involved.

The highlight of the day, apart from when Kate made her appearance, was when Del and Dave auctioned off all the stuff. I kept thinking what a wonderful used car salesman Del would make!

Keep well, Stephen

From: pptjc@vaxk.bton.ac.uk (It's in the trees... It's coming...)
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 14:01:30 GMT >
Subject: Re: Convention Report

> Other people have mentioned "The Red Mules" - one of the massive number of 3 videos that people had sent in. The other 2 were apparently too serious to show at the Convention. ...Neil

Hey! I produced one of the other two programmes that didn't get shown and I can assure you that it was not "too serious". It was also only 60 seconds long and yes I *am* slightly peeved that it didn't get shown!

But I'm not one to hold grudges (MUCH) and even though it was a couple of weeks hard slog to produce, I'm not bothered.... GRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr... :-)

Date: Fri, 13 May 94 18:46:03 EDT
From: woj@remus.rutgers.edu (lasagna breeze)
Subject: Re: Convention summary

kudos to peter for keeping such meticulous notes and recapping them here. even if I had thought of scribbling down the happenings, I doubt I would get around to summarizing them until, oh, sometime after KaTe's next album was released. ;)

some comments on his comments:

> Following those videos, the first live performance took place. This was an interpretive dance for MoP by Marcus Echo, from France. [...] I found it teetering between precious and very affecting, with the latter prevailing in the end because of the dancer's real attunement to the song.

I agree. initially, I thought it this was a bit corny. I'm not a dance critic but I felt that much of the choreography was either blatantly obvious or didn't express the senitment of the lyrics; his habit of mouthing the words also detracted from the performance. however, in the last part of the performance, he picked up a candle everytime KaTe mentioned a name and extinguished the flame when he put it back down. as peter said, this was particularly affecting.

> This was followed by a 40 minute compilation of rare (some not so rare) videos: [...] a fascinating live "Room for the Life" from the camera that was following Kate at the Hammersmith show, using what looked like the big stage `egg' familiar from "Them Heavy People," except seen from the other side, where it was lined with red satin, with Kate reclining in it as though in bed;

or as though a womb. as ied and I discussed afterwards, this (or a similar video) has made an appearance in the "live in germany" video clips. ied felt that this was a different clip but I think that it is identical to the one that I have. I haven't had a chance to go back and compare though.

> Live music returned with Phil and Barbie--"Lonely Planet"--doing two songs; my notes only record "The Big Sky," with the comment "phrasing ok."

i was very impressed with lonely planet. the arrangement of their covers were strikingly different from the originals even when you accounted for only one electric guitar providing the instrumentation.

> There was a short lull. Then the Top Forty from the Homeground poll of Convention ticket buyers, each of whom were asked to name their top ten all time favorate KB tunes, was announced. [...] Suffice to say that, considering just the Top Ten, 4 come from HoL, and 2 each from TKI, TSW, and TRS.

what I found interesting was that the top five were all *singles*. granted, this can be understood but I was disappointed that there were not more album tracks up there in the stellar reaches of the top ten.

>Anyway, the next Event was the appearance of Paddy Bush about 5:50, raised up by the center stage lift, playing a soulful line on a huge wooden recorder-like instrument that must have been ten feet tall. He set that aside, took up a rectangular guitar that someone said was Madagaskar and sang "The Rain," communicating a joy that gave me deep insight into where Kate Bush isoming from.

i'm fairly certain that the guitar that pad was playing was a kabossy which erudite love-hounds will recognize as being a key instrument in "eat the music." the tune that he played thereon had many similarities to "the red shoes" and almost seemed to be an inspiration for that song. dunno exactly what the woodwind instrument he played is though; it had the appearance of a primitive bassoon and did not sound unlike that either.

> There followed the full unedited tape of an interview Kate did for Canadian TV, where the interviewer was a little inarticulate but Kate gave him the benefit of the doubt and had more to say than in any of the other interviews I've read from the TRS release promo appearances.

you'll note that this interview was conducted by someone from musique plus, quebec's version of much music. I think that explains why his english wasn't exactly perfect. surprisingly, this seemed to help the interview more than not as some of his questions, if phrased by a native english-speaker, might not have yielded the same answers.

woj

Date: Fri, 13 May 94 22:51 CDT
From: chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)
Subject: *Actual* Konvention thoughts...

Chris here, answering a bunch of various posts...

Dr G.T. Parks replies to Scott Telford:

> I thought Lonely Planet were excellent - they were technically very good and their interpretations of the KaTe songs they played were interesting. However, Rare Flowers were awful IMHO - almost all that accompaniment was programmed (and virtually identical to KaTe's original) and the singer went horribly out of tune. They might as well have mimed to KaTe's version.

I was hiding on the floor trying to shield myself with the people in front of me. My reaction was "I thought *I* was a nervy bastard!" Wuthering Heights is one of the most difficult to sing songs ever written, right up there with Shadowlands and The Star Spangled Banner. The dance troupe doing Ken was great.

Peter Byrne Manchester:

The second director was the screenwriter and was credited as co-director. Andy did have his last name right, but had Irwin rather than his correct name (not mentioned for those playing along at home.)

>I don't know what the Norfolk Alchemist's secret is--they are six young people, mostly female, and they got 17 out of the 20 questions right.

Actually I want upstairs and *found* the leader of the Norfolk Alchemists, a slight, pretty, red-haired English girl named Amanda Greenaway. On behalf of Love-hounds I offered our congratulations. In truth, she was the entire team. The rest of her team wrote the questions down, scribbled the quick answers and produced a clean copy. I brought her downstairs to meet the Love-Hounds, particularly an awed Andy Marvick. She offered to not enter next time, but we urged her to please compete, that we would try to do better and needed the competition. We asked *how* she did it, and she said that she really didn't know, but she did own to a really good memory that could be considered "photographic." If we *really* want to win ... all we have to do is give her a computer and an account and make her a love-hound!

> Several of the questions were devious, but not in any way unfair. In fact, I have to say Peter F-M's quiz was very, very skillful.

Great questions, better than last time. One of the nasty ones was the same as last time (the complete name of Kate's Roy Harper duet You .) The main one that no one got last time was a bit UK-centric, about some public event that Kate as supposed to appear at, but didn't.

Actually we don't need a laptop. A complete copy of all of Kate's lyrics, credits (Who did the Shoedance mix? No, "some cretin" is *not* a complete answer) and a special list of "IAQs" (Infrequently Asked Questions.) If someone had brought all the CDs we would have gotten another two questions right.

One thing to remember though - the quizmaster is reading this...

Oh well. We did need a scribe. One other thing, we handed our sheet in *far* too soon. If we had known that we could have spent almost another twenty minutes pondering I'm sure that we could have won, especially as we came up with at least two more "love" songs, one other correct answer and realized that we had written one question down wrong. Hell, I had the correct answer to the name of the co-director of The Red Shoes in my possession. This month's issue of Empire magazine had reviews of books about the co-director of The Red Shoes in a bag!

Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 02:09:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Byrne Manchester <PMANCHESTER@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Subject: Convention footnote

Chris Williams reminded me of the single most glaring omission in that summary: on entrance at the Hippodrome that noon, we were given a number of posters and other artifacts that are best transported rolled up into a tube, but there were no rubberbands. I mentioned this to Chris, and with characteric vigor he went off, and shortly returned with a bagful of rubberbands! He was our official Rubberband Boy for the afternoon.

Date: Sun, 15 May 94 19:44:44 EDT
From: KonvenTion Fan <vickie@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: Convention

Thanks and thanks again to Peter, Krys, Dave Cross and all the Homeground KBC crew who made the KonvenTion so *SO* wonderful! Also thanks to Peter & Krys for hosting a warm, friendly and interesting gathering at their home on Tuesday. Last, but not least, thanks to Geoff Parks for hosting the party in Cambridge on Saturday. You all made it one of the best weeks of our lives. You're all very wonderful! It was a special pleasure to meet all the Love-Hounds I did, and my regrets to those of you I didn't meet. It was all fun, but chaotic.

If anyone is curious, Chris and I did make it to the showing of TLTCTC at Lee Valley on Friday night and it was wonderful to see the film, and quite a few other Kate videos on the big theater screen. One of the most interesting things we noticed was that RUTH had a different ending from the one we've always seen before. Instead of the panning "arrow" shots, the video ended with Kate and the other dancer (blanking on his name) rolling together on the floor. It's the first we knew about there being a different ending for that video. It's unfortunate, but there were only 9 people total in the 230-seat theater. At the KonvenTion, I chatted with Del Palmer about the film, and he seemed to think that it might very well be released on video in America, though I won't count on it until it's actually in my hands. We'll order a PAL copy when it comes out in the UK.

Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 14:24:09 +0000
From: nbc@inf.rl.ac.uk
Subject: Convention Quiz Questions

Andy Semple asked me to post the list below of Convention questions to this list as he is having trouble mailing out at the moment.

Andy remembered 19 of the questions and I have added the 20th and amended the wording of some of the others - so unless we are both having memory problems this should be pretty close to the list at the Convention.

So many thanks to Andy for putting these together - now you can all play at home!!

Neil

-----------------------------

From Andy: Convention Quiz

-----------------------------

These are not in the same order and the wording may be significantly different than PDFM's originals!!

Who directed the 1948 film 'The Red Shoes'?
Name all of Kate's songs with the English word 'love' in the title?
Name the location used for the 'Cloudbusting' video?
Who was 'Teddy' as mentioned "spinning in the chair at Abbey Road" in 'Moments of Pleasure'?
Who mixed the recent 'Shoedance' mix of 'The Red Shoes'?
Which of Kate's video did Roy Harper appear in?
Which Go West song did Kate provide backing vocals for?
Which song has the lyric 'You know that I'll be waiting'?
Which song was inspired by 'Cerve Cerve' (forgive any spelling mistake!)
Which song has the lyric 'You and me babe against the world'?
Name the track off Roy Harper's album 'Unknown Soldier' which Kate duetted on?
Name the guardian angels mentioned in 'Lily'?
Who played guitar on 'Big Stripey Lie'?
Which of Kate's Video did Albert Einstein appear in?
Who originally recorded 'Lord Of The Reedy River'?
Which Kate song did Hue And Cry cover?
Which Kate track was inspired by a Ken Russell film?
What is the name of a person mentioned in one of Kate's songs who comes from Iraq?
Which Kate song mentions 'Bolan and Moony'?
Who was the inspiration for the song 'Heads We're Dancing'?

Well I hope you enjoy them, it goes without saying that FULL answers are required to ensure full marks!! Be careful on question 11 what you think is the full answer may not be the full answer!

I reckon looking back on it that my team got 14/15 depending on the strictness of marking, so we were still miles behind the winners even if we did get 14 or 15.

Regarding my earlier comments of the disorgansation of Love-Hounds, the loudness of the music made it virtually impossible to communicate, this didn't happen at the previous convention, hence my comments!

Anyway I would like to thank all the Homeground team and the KBC for a very good day.

Andy Semple

Date: Mon, 16 May 94 21:01 CDT
From: chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)
Subject: Re: Quiz questions

Did *two* of the questions deal with Roy Harper? One other thing (although this may begin to sound like sour grapes) it was almost impossible to get every answer if you were not into Roy Harper. The full title of You only appears on the actual label of the record, not on the cover, and frankly I wouldn't be able to recognize Roy Harper in any video. The leader of the winning team Amanda Greenaway is a big Roy Harper fan.

Date: Tue, 17 May 94 14:02:36 EDT
From: Andrew B Marvick <abm4@columbia.EDU>
Subject: Convention quiz

KTrivia: IED is greatly impressed at the feat of memory performed by Love-Hounds who reproduced so nearly completely the list of 20 questions asked by Peter FitzGerald-Morris at the Convention. He feels compelled to correct one detail of which he is aware: in question no. 9, the name of the song on which one of Kate's songs is based is "Sovay , Sovay", not "Cerve, Cerve" or variants thereof. IED believes that "Sovay, Sovay" is a traditional Irish ballad, but he won't say any more about it, as that might give away the answer to the question...

-- Andrew Marvick (IED)

Other Irish songs Kate fans may want to track down: "O Waly Waly" (sp.?), "She Mov'd Thro' the Fair", and "The Twa Magicians" -- no doubt there are many other relevant folksongs, as well.

Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 22:47:00 +0200
From: uli@zoodle.RoBIN.de (Ulrich Grepel)
Subject: Re: Kate's songs with "love" in them

Well, I think we all forgot one that we were even presented that day:

All The Love
And So Is Love
Hounds Of Love
Love And Anger
My Lagan Love
Oh To Be In Love
* The Man I Love ************
Why Should I Love You

Date: Mon, 16 May 94 15:45:47 EDT
From: KonvenTion Fan <vickie@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: Convention

> Arrgghh! You met Del! Don't suppose he gave any hints on the current status of his relationship with Kate? (he asks pruriently 8-)

:-) Nah, I didn't ask him. We talked a bit about Happy Rhodes (she had just been played on the main sound system, and I gave him a sampler tape) and about the film. I told him that we had seen it in the theater, told him how much we enjoyed it and how sorry we were that there were only 9 people there. I also told him that all the ticket stubs said "The Lion, The Cross, and The Curve" :-) and asked about a general or limited theater release in America (besides the showings that have been held already) and he said the chances were practically nil, but that there was no worry, because it was soon to be released on video. In America? I asked. I believe he said "very likely" though my brain was addled and I don't want to put direct quotes into his mouth.

Del was very, very friendly and was in a place where anyone could go up and talk to him. I think he really likes the interaction with the fans. He told me that he likes going to these gatherings because he meets so many people and sees so many familiar faces.

I spent more time running around the parameters meeting and talking to people than I did watching the stage. As a result, I missed most of the live performances and the quiz, and much of the auction, but I met and talked to Del, Lisa (from the KBC), Debi Bowes (the wonderful artist who contributes to Homeground and to Take To The Sky, the UK Tori fanzine), all the Take To The Sky folks (what a *gorgeous* fanzine!), not to mention Peter, Krys, Dave Cross, Pami and lots of other wonderful people. I was able to hang around other Love-Hounders who couldn't make it down to where all the other LHers were, such as Steve Fagg, Stephen Thomas, Alanna (who did get her Kool-Aid & Cap't Crunch, though we forgot grape) and probably others that I'm sorry I'm forgetting.

I avidly watched all the rare video stuff, including the Top 20 countdown, the Canadian interview and most of TLTCTC. I found a great place to watch the stuff I wanted to watch. It was an area behind the stage that was open, but practically empty. Most people thought the "place to be" was in front of the stage, but the cool thing was that you could see the video just as well, and far more comfortably, behind the screen. The video was reversed, but it hardly mattered, really. It still *looked* better, because all the ambient light was in front of the stage. The extra darkness from behind made the images sharper and clearer. Chris and I watched most of TLTCTC from back there, stretched out. I had to bring Chris back there to show him how nice it was. I don't know if anyone else would have come if I'd tried to explain it. "What?? Behind the screen? Are you crazy?" :-)

(CYA time)

Just so it's clear, the area was *not* closed off to conventioners. I don't want anyone to think that we were in an area that we weren't supposed to be in. Anyone could have gone back there, it's just that very few did.

If there was one problem with being back there, it's that I really only saw Kate's back while she was on stage. My plan was to take photos of the screen while she was there, but when she came out I was just as excited as everyone else and went over to the rail to see her in rl. I was going to take some rl photos, then go back behind the screen for the "close ups" but before I knew it, Kate was finished and gone. :-( As far as the photos go, it ended up not mattering anyway, since I lost the bag that had the camera in it. Chris had a camera too, but somehow none of those photos came out. Boo hoo, we came away from the KonvenTion without any photos, so memories will have to suffice. We should have brought 3 or 4 cameras, but who knew? You'd think 2 would've been enough :-)

Ah, I'm rambling...I didn't start out to make this "yet another convention report" (sorry, but why did it seem like people were sick of hearing about the Kon after only a few posts?).

We had a great time.

Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 00:02:00 +0200
From: uli@zoodle.RoBIN.de (Ulrich Grepel)
Subject: Re: Convention summary

Peter Manchester wrote up all the events, and I think I can add some stuff:

> At 2:30 there came the first break. This is when Andy and I went searching for food, found ourselves stranded on the third level when the first boxes of posters and pamphlets from the KBC and HG treasuries were being spilled onstage to the groping fans below us. Andy saw something rare spilling out over to the right: "Oh, that's really rare, that's worth something!" he exclaimed in dismay. "It's not rare any more," I pointed out to console him.

Was that the Bill Duffield benefiz concert programme? I thought about the same...

[auction:] > Del's Tour program from 1979 140

> This last was the single most likely of all the items auctioned to acquire a collector's item value far beyond its auctioned price. It was a real gift for Del to give it over for the auction, and an even greater generosity for him to let it go for the bid that was accepted.

You forgot the most important thing about Del's Tour program: It is signed by ALL band members.

> When the video ended, at about 8:38pm, the riser in the center of the stage lifted Kate Bush herself into our view, and All Rose. As mentioned, Kate drew one last raffle ticket, spoke of how happy she was to see us all, hoped we would like the film, looked forward to seeing us again.

Peter D F-M: Admit it, no chance, the first ticked that noone claimed was faked. Half of the time that Kate was on stage was used for the raffle ticked drawing and handing over the Japanese gold LP for Lionheart to the lucky thief (thief of a kiss that is). What would Kate have done if the ticket wasn't invalid in the first try? Maybe she'd have sung a song? ;-)

Bye, Uli

From: Douglas Alan <nessus@mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 12:38:04 -0400
Subject: The Con

Hello! I'm back from England. I had a blast at the Kon, meeting many other Love-Hounds, and driving down narrow, windy English country lanes at 60 miles per hour on the wrong side of the road with a line of cars tailgating me!

> [Graham Dombkins:] WOW! Does anybody have a list of the questions?? We send in the gaffa "brains-trust" and still didn't make it?? If you could, send just the questions in first and let us see how well we do ourselves with them before you post the answers.

In order to be fair, you'd have to reproduce the environment too. First, make sure that you are so excited you can't think straight. Second, make sure that there are lots of flashing lights blinking from all directions to distract you, and cold air blowing on you. Thirdly, have the questions read off so fast that you barely have time to write the question down before the next question is read off. Fourthly, only give yourself about ten or twenty seconds to answer each question.

I think that the A team was also at a disadvantage in one sense, because I think we are all the type of scholar who remember where information can be found, rather than remembering every detail of the information itself. If we'd had a bit more time, and access to our libraries and computers, we would probably been able to get all of the questions right. One particularly frustrating question was the question of which of Kate's songs have the English word "Love" in the title. This was frustating for me because it is the type of the question that I could answer in ten seconds if I were sitting at my computer. Or given half an hour I could answer it by going through every album in my head and writing down every song in order and circling the songs with "Love" in the title. But my mind doesn't free associate well enough for them all to just pop into my head in a few seconds, especially when excited and distracted--it tends to get stuck on a couple of them in a tight circle.