Bolanfest 2000 #2

Tillers & Other Guests- BOLANFEST 2000 / Pix page 2

Page 3 linkfor more pictures & memories.

To save time in the inital pages download time I've added a second & third page with more pictures from the "Fest" But it woouldn't be right without at least a few more thoughts on the dayes events. This time from a very tired Ivan!;-)- and in fitting with the pic's from the "T.Rextasy" show I've added some of ZPauls thoughs on that night

** (IVAN) Hello again to all you wonderful Tillers. I just arrived back from England and George's Bolanfest yesterday (Sunday) and needed a day to debrief. Just got home from work a little while ago and now can catch up with e-mails. I forwarded my normal account to Hotmail so that I could read some while I was in England but it topped out after 7 pages of mail and I missed all mails from Till Dawn from Thurs. to early Sunday. Anyway...
Bolanfest, as others will surely attest, was a concentration of international (including delegates from France, Germany, Canada, the U.S, and New Zealand) Bolanic energy at a little photographic club hall on a sidestreet in Oldbury in Birmingham. The funnel for this gathering of "high octane" Bolan passion was George Rab who was also helped by Dave Williams, Michael Green and Antony (whose last name was not revealed to me).

In the end it was not the quantity of items displayed nor their rarity which left the greatest impression with me. (Though all of the items displayed were stunningly rare and most will never be seen again in such a display for a long time. Going from room to room and wall to wall made your head spin. I mean imagine seeing one entire wall plastered with original Marc handwritten lyrics, set lists, poems, etc...; a cabinet filled with rare test pressings, rare releases and rare foreign picture sleeves, and a room filled with tour posters and Marc's original outfits and so on and so on.).
What did stay with me more than anything else was that, through Georges hard, hard work (and don't kid yourself, very few people could have stuck through with this until the end to pull this off the way he did--George is a born organizer, communicator and actualizer) so many of us, from different places, who had only met electronically before, could come together and share our passion for Marc and his music. Most importantly, that we could share this passion by displaying some of the great rarities we had brought, by interacting with guest speakers in a forum setting, by sharing some of the projects that were being worked on, by sharing our pasts face to face, and by sharing each other's smiles and twinkling eyes in the amazing atmosphere of what was going on.
It was important to me that this was done, not in the spirit of a rave up disco setting, with Marc's music blaring in the background and beers being pulled left and right (though the fun of this type of evening has great appeal to me as well) as I understand has been the norm for Bolan Bops in general (I don't really know because we never have them here in North America), but in the spirit of informed discussion. I'm not saying that we need to make a university course out of Marc's legacy (this may, in fact, or may not happen in the future), but, hey, the chance to listen directly to and ask questions of people immediately involved in Marc's life, and to do the same of some of the delegates who had great projects in the works, and to find out first hand about the items on display was great. It simply wouldn't have worked with any more people. Tip of the hat to George and all the groovers who leant a hand in making this a reality.
I don't have Paul's photographic recollection of the events that took place and the items that were displayed. I arrived in Birmingham at 10 AM and the events started at 1PM. I was jet lagged for most of the day but the adrenalin surges of seeing the items, meeting people and hearing the presenters kept me on my feet until T. Rextasy came on and then I got my second wind. Still I crashed when we got back to the hotel about 12 AM...Ivan

(ZPAUL PART 3) **I would like to take a short step back in time to the previous evening when we all went to watch the T.Rextasy gig at "The Robin" as the perfect way to end Day 1 of Bolanfest.
The coach came to pick us up from the Hotel - and we all set off for more entertainment after the most wonderful afternoon. Everyone was talking about what we had seen and the atmosphere was great. I was sitting next to Zac on the coach and it was really good to ba able to spend some time just talking about "stuff". David was in the next seat and other Tillers were close by. When we got to the pub we headed straight for the bar to get some liquid refreshment (George had arranged for a buffet supper to be waiting for us which was a thoughtful and much appreciated part of the planning - on a sustenance level:"Man shall not live by Bolan alone": sayeth the Lord - and George Rab *G !! )
One of the best things about the weekend was that we were able to "meet" fellow Till Dawn members (and other fans) for the first time and get to know each other better. When we had been blessed with cool, refreshing pints of Guiness, lager, bitter etc we sat down at the Till Dawn Table. It was wonderful to be able to chat to Chadders, Ivan, David, Zac, Pierre and Bernard about how we all first developed our passion for Marc Bolan and T.Rex (or Tyrannosaurus Rex). We must have spent at least an hour and a half putting the world to rights talking about which were our favourite tracks, which songs would have made great singles etc. . . you know the usual sort of stuff.
We even discovered that some Tillers are not "real" fans because they don't have the four-way gatefold copy of Zinc Alloy (Zac, Chadders, shame on you both *GGG !! ). What made it worse was that Ivan could have had 3 copies for about $9.00 each in 1974 !!!!!!! Some of the pics that were posted to the list by Ivan and Pierre over the last week were taken during this part of our "get together".
Anyhow, it was a pleasure to be able to sit and chat like old friends when we had only just known each other (in person) for a few short hours. Ivan, I hope you and your daughter enjoyed the rest of your stay in England - it was great to meet someone who is so dedicated to keeping Marc's memory and legacy in the public eye in such a wonderful way with your website etc. . .etc. . ..I hope that along with Michel and the others you are able to make the Canadian Bolanfest 2001 become a reality.
We then went in to see T.Rextasy play another tremendous "live" set. As always the band were extremely professional - very tight, great musically and full of energy. They had the crowd going from the start. Me and Dave Do were boogieing away like only Tillers know how !! The set list included Cadilac, Children of the Revolution, 20th Century Boy, Hot Love, Get It On, Jeepster, Telegram Sam, New York City, Born to Boogie. I Love to Boogie - Amazing !!! A real treat - and a FANTASTIC way to end the Saturday night. If it was not part of George's orignal masterplan to have a T.Rextasy gig as part of the Bolanfest weekend it was a very very happy co-incidence !!
At the end of the gig it was nice to be able to chat (albeit briefly) with Irving and his wife and boys (although the youngest chap was rather tired *GG - asleep in his mother's arms !!). And Ivan I hope you've still got that T.Rextasy poster that I took off the wall for you - did you get it back to Canada in one piece ??
After the gig we all went back to the Hotel and stayed up far too late into the night and got drunk tsk tsk. . .you'd think us mature and sophisticated bright-young-things (that includes you Zac. . .and Chadders . . . .and David . . .) would know better than to stay up until 2.30 am when we had Day 2 of Bolanfest to come - - -but it was such a brilliant night that I don't think any of us wanted it to end - nights like that don't happen very often, do they ?

Keep on Rocking Tillers and as always thanks for sharing your pix and memories of this once in a lifetime event!

Rickster & the Gang..........enjoy !!