The morning of the Birmingham leg of the Oxygene 7-13 tour.
I was woken at about 7am by the sound of one of my flat mates banging on my door and shouting 'Phone !'
Now, I was meant to be up in about an hour to go to University anyway, but I'm not the most awake person in the morning, so I stagered up stairs to the phone.
'Hello ?' I asked slowly, expecting a friend chained to a lampost in the city centre or a report of a drunken rampage-to-come.
'Hi !' said a voice far to awake for 7am, 'It's Dave here, from the UK Jean-Michel Jarre fan club. If you'd like to meet with Jarre, can you be by at the Hyatt hotel, Birmingham at 4 this afternoon ?' 'OK, I'm awake now,' I said, waking up suddenly at the words 'meet' and 'jarre', 'what was that again ?', I continued, getting pen and paper. Dave recounted the details again.
I thanked him and he went of to inform more of the masses.
Being a friday, I was meant to be gong to a whole suite of lectures at University. Instead I fairly ran into the computer lab and begain E-Mailing.
While there Andrew Ward from the mailing list arrived. I gibbered at him for a bit and he dashed off to find me a copy of a CD to try to get signed.
A few more frantic E-Mails later I was dashing off to the main train station.
I arrived there, brought a ticket on the next train to Birmingham, using plastic- heedles of cost- I was going to be there.
I arrived in Brum and instantly relised I had no idea where to go, beyond the name of the hotel. Oops. Never fear- that was a tourist information office wasn't it ? Excellent ! They pointed me in the direction of a bus stop a few minutes away.
I waited and finaly a buss arrived. I checked with the driver and he said he didn't go there.
After this happened a few times I went back to the station and acquired a taxi.
The driver was a typical talkative chap, but did turn out to be a bit of a fan, so when we arrived he left me off 50p of the 3 pound fare, caused, I'm sure, by him taking a short cut through a traffic jam. It felt very impressive stepping out of a black cab in front of a glass faced, obviously very posh hotel. I was about an hour early, so I hung around with the other fans who were waiting nervously.
Untill the mailing list people started arriving- some of them out of the hotel itself (you know who you are ) !
Anyway, we chatted and convesed, occasionaly checking that CD's were in reach, and in my case, that my Newton was ready.
All at once, we saw the lift descend down the side of the building. And in it we could see someone slightly taller than average, with longish black curly hair. Could it be Jarre himself ? A few minutes later we saw the figure and a good looking woman enter the bar near the entrance.
It was him !
Sitting down for a cup of tea and cake before going off.
He must have got bored waiting for the TV crew to arrive, 'cause he downed his last drink and came out to met us.
To say he got swamped would be an understatement ! We all crowded round, and he good naturly tried to get round all of us !
He signed my Newton, and both the CD's I had. I said Merci and he replyed Thats OK. That felt really amasing- as did his PA trying to drag him away with a cry of Jean-Muchel, we must be going. Jarre just shrugged and said Hold on a minute.
Some kind people were able to take photo's which are here
Me and Jarre, as Jarre signs my Apple Newton.