Fcuk me, that Willo knows how to make friends, doesn't he?

http://www.happyfanclub.it

Monday, 24 July 2006, 9.30 pm

These are the last few words that I post to this website, to which I dedicated all my passion as a Fan of Bob Geldof.

I promised that I would explain the reasons for this decision and why my last words posted after what I think was the all-time low in the artistic career of the singer I rated the most were so strong.

I received many messages from you in these last few days. I replied to some of you, but, since I cannot reply to all of you, you will find below all answers.

It is useless to remind all dates and periods building up my “career” as a fan of Bob Geldof (you can find these on pages HFC History), I give you just three numbers:

21 years ago, 1985, Live Aid, when I first started to be interested in BG

14 years ago, 1992, when I first met BG

12 years ago, 1994, when I commenced with the Fan Club.

Since BG launched only one original song records in the past 14 years, it has always been very difficult to support this artist who was only vaguely interested in music. However, despite a few critical moments, I was always there, in the hope to see my favourites singer again on stage. Over the years, I met Bob several times, and he was always supportive to me and my fan club, and during our last meeting in Trento in 2002, he asked me to help Ian and Tina with the opening of an official website. I did this immediately, writing a review of the concert and sending them various materials helpful in developing the website. After years of fanzines and when my website was no longer adequate to meet my needs, I decided to buy the happyfanclub.it domain (and it is only because I respected the artist so much that I didn’t buy a “bobgeldof.it” or similar domain, but this is another story). But, after a while, Mick Owen passed away and, I don’t know why, everything started to change… Tina and Ian began to be on the run… I spare you a series of minor stories relating to the organisation of prizes awarded to BG in Italy or the organisation of concerts, etc. However, the most significant episode was the following.

June 2005, more than a year ago, Ian and Tina got in touch to have the reissue of BG solo discography. At this point, please make and effort and see what happened
(story of the materials).

Well, now you have an idea of what these people are like… Meanwhile, on 28 April, Music Live Club called me saying that they were organising two concerts of BG in Italy at the end of July. As usual, I surfed the net to find any related information… but nothing…

However, I got in touch with them. They were really nice, but they unfortunately didn’t have a clue that, despite his international popularity, BG does not have so many people admiring him as a musician. I immediately pointed out that the place chosen for the concert was too big, but it was no longer possible to change it. As the weeks went by, there were the elections here in Italy and it was not possible to put up posters advertising the concerts. After a few months, I noted that the specialised magazines did not publish any of the dates for the concerts…. The first few posters were put up in many cities of northern Italy in the second half of June. Unfortunately, after just one week, they were covered by posters advertising the Flipout Festival (which, by the way, proposed Paul Weller on stage on the same day as BG concert in Milan and the following day in Rome.. destiny??). Meanwhile, I tried to do my best to support the concert. I organised a prize competition and asked All Music to prepare a special on BG on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Live 8…. But they were not interested!!!!!!!

I also had a great idea that could have made Bob concert in Milan an event of a lifetime…. But when I proposed it to Willo, the manager of Bob, he answered as follows:

From:  "Happy FAN club"
To:  "Darrell Willis"
Date:  10 May 2006, 03:29:00 PM
Subject:  Bob Geldof Italian Tour

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

Dear Willo,
I’m Eddy I have been contacted by "Music Live Club" to give support at the promotion tour of Bob.

At the moment I am organising a competition linked to two show of Bob in Milan and Rome and I am asking the support from other musical website to promote the tour.

Today I have spoken to Cisco the ex lead singer of Modena City Ramblers, a famouse Italian band that had a collaboration in 1994 with Bob, infact he wrote with them the song "Il Bicchiere dell'Addio"

Cisco just left the band to persue a solist project but he is very keen on Bob.

Since 1994 the Modena City Ramblers have performed on tour the "The Great Song" and "Il Bicchiere Dell'addio".
These two songs are the most important part of the Ramblers' show and are very apprecciated from the Italian audience.

I was thinking of the following possibility  if Bob agrees with it to organise a duet with Cisco during the Milan concert on July the 21st.

Every time I had a chance to meet up with Bob we have always talked about his  experience with the Ramblers and he always made a nice remarks on them asking about the Ramblers.

This will be a perfect occasion to celebrate the great return of Bob in Italy.

Please let me know what Bob think on this matter in order to finalise /organize this with Cisco and to make a proper promotion.

I believe that this will be a great way to make the Milanese' show a great event unmissable.

Please for any queries do not hesitate to contact me.

Best regards
Eddy

Willo replayed:

  From:  "Darrell Willis"
To:  "Happy FAN club
Date:  16 May 2006, 11:48:47 PM
Subject:  Re: Bob Geldof Italian Tour

no to having anyone do a duet with Bob
So I asked:

From: "Happy FAN club"
To: "Darrell Willis"
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 8:32 AM
Subject: Re: Bob Geldof Italian Tour

> thanks for the replay
> I hope you asked to Bob!
> see next july
> your friend
> eddy

Willo:

From:  "Darrell Willis"
To:  "Happy FAN club"
Date:  17 May 2006, 11:48:15 AM
Subject:  Re: Bob Geldof Italian Tour

i do not have to ask him its my decision
 

There is nothing to do… Failure is unavoidable and, for sure, it’s what they want!!

I am so disappointed…. But there is nothing else I can do…. Iacovone’s agonised phone calls only add to my distress and I am starting to wonder whether it is possible that Bob is unaware of all this? I would like to talk to Bob and inform him of this situation, but I’ve been unable to get in touch with him for many years now, due to all “filters” I have to go through… I tried in December 2005, when I went to London to see one of his many concerts that did not take place…. Another trip in vain…

21 July, 9.00 am, Cadorna train station waiting for my friend Iolanda. The idea was to go to Malpensa airport to pick BG up, but we eventually decided to wait for him at the hotel.

This turned up to be a good idea, since Bob lost his flight and did not arrive on time… we spent several hours waiting for him in the hall of the Baglioni Hotel.

When he eventually arrived (at 4 pm) he was destroyed since the day before he went to Johannesburg for Mandela’s birthday and decided to rest for a while in his room.

We spent some time with the other members of the band, but they soon had to go for the sound-check.

It was only after 7 pm when Bob came to the hall, all dressed-up for the concert. He wasn’t very excited at the idea of chatting with us, but I insisted since I wanted to clarify some issues. This is what we said:

EV: “Bob, I’ve been facing problems with Ian and Tina from your official website for a while now”

BG: “I don’t care, this is your own business!”

EV: “Ok, I have a couple of e-mails that I would like to show you”

BG: “I don’t care”

EV: “Ok, so now I would like to know what you think about my website, the fan club”

BG: “I don’t care about you website, or about the official website, nor do I care about many things concerning myself.”

EV: “Why do you have an official website that does not represent you and is never up-to-date?”

BG: “Ian and Tina wanted to do this thing and I told them to do what they wanted! I cannot check everything is said or written about me, otherwise if I find something that I don’t like I want do it my way and I cannot do everything! I don’t read everything is written about me, otherwise I would go nuts!”

He left me nonplussed! This person had nothing to do with the BG that I’ve been known for 14 years!! He hung around the hall with his sunglasses on and his hair ahead… and I suddenly thought of “Pink”… Alan Parker was right!

The discussion then took an even more persecution-complex look:

BG: “I am not interested in myself, in my music.. why should I? I only have four fans”

EV: “And these are all that you will find at the Arena tonight!”

Meanwhile, we went outside the hotel to wait for the cars that would take us to the Arena. I then decided to move the conversation to other issues and comfort him a little bit..

EV: “Bob, you know me. I’ve never been one of those fans who cry or tear their hair out when they see you, but I’ve always admired you mainly as an artist and then as a person”

BG: “Yes, and so?”

EV: “All those years all I wanted to do was to support BG as an artist. I know you are good at many other things, but what I liked the best was your artistic side. You wrote excellent songs. You are and ARTIST”.

BG: “Ok, and so?”

EV: “We don’t have time right now… we have to go to the Arena.. can we talk later?”

BG: “Sure”

This conversation lasted for about 20 minutes and my spirits were destroyed. When I arrived at the Arena I bucked up a bit when I saw Ian and Liz coming from the UK, Reka from Hungary and Carla from Northern France as well as all other people who I’d been knowing for a while.. Claudia, Guido, Silvia, etc….

I think you read all about what happened at the Arena from the newspapers all over the world… there were 50 people of the public, three televisions (RAI, Canale 5 and MTV) and several journalists… The flop could no go unnoticed…

However, I would like to finish my report before explaining my reasons…

The few people attending were disappointed but would have nevertheless liked to see the concert… They called him any sort of names in Italian and English… but they were his “FANS” and when, after five minutes, Bob announced a free concert in Italy in September… well, the same people who were shouting at him five minutes before, asked Bob for autographs and took pictures with their “hero”.

When I decided to go home and went to say goodbye, Bob then asked me to reach him at the hotel… he wanted to talk to me.

Ok, I went to the hotel, but when I arrived he was in a room with other people.

EV: “Hi Bob, here I am”

BG: “Have a seat”

EV: “Bob, if you want to talk, let’s go to the other room that is quieter… I go there and wait for you”

BG: “Ok, I’m coming”

I spent some time with Robert, Alun and Naill… after 10/15 minutes I went back to the other room and caught his attention.. but nothing happened… So I decided to go home.

Iolanda, who had always been next to me in the case I needed a translator, decided to stay longer for a drink at the bar of the hotel and when she decided to go, Bob asked her where I was:

BG: “Where is Eddy?”

Ioland “He’s gone home”

BG: “Ok, I go to my room.. I’m tired”

This is a summary of what happened!

Now my considerations.

Bob, I understand that anybody can have a bad day. But when this happens to me, the next day I usually look for the friend or colleague to whom I’ve been unfair and find the opportunity to apology.

You couldn’t to this.. I am not one of your neighbours and I knew this so I came to the hotel because I thought that you realised you had been unfair to me… It wasn’t the case… You preferred to stay there with other people talking about Africa despite the fact that you wore your “musician” clothes that night! The following day your manager asked Ian and Tina to look for me and get my mobile number… It would have been so easy to ask you, considering that I gave you my mobile number for the umpteenth time that night, not considering that my e-mail address still works and I didn’t get any message from Willo.

I can no longer believe in or support a person who no longer respects himself. You cannot be a depressed pop star, a spoilt millionaire, a victim, an unrecognised artist, because you are 55 years old, you haven’t been first in the hit parade from more than 20 years and, considering your wealthy conditions, these are not problems: it’s just foolish! I take the liberty to tell you this because I respected you for your dignity over the past 20 years!

I’m no longer 16 years old like I was in 1985 and considering that I am no longer a teenager you may understand that this is not one of the bad moments of a disappointed “Fan” (and I’ve always hated this word). I’m a man now, I’m 37 years old and I found it grotesque to support a totally indifferent person.

You are no longer able to manage your public image or, better, you don’t WANT to manage it and this, for a celebrity, is suicide! As a result, you surround yourself with people who believe in what you believe and who do nothing to improve the situation… on the contrary, they send you in Italy to put up a bad show for the nth time..

I only hope that you will read these words one day (and not only a part of the text reported by one of your collaborators) and that they can give you the right stimulus to start again and write a good record… if not, please stop playing music and taking the piss out of those 50 fans that you have… believe me, they don’t deserve this!

Eddy