I met them in february
The day I met Reef!!!
See some Photos that we took!
My friend Nathan Mann entered a competion in the first Reef fanzine of 1996, the prize was 4 tickets to a gig of his choice, 4 signed copies of the new album to be released early the next year and a chance to go backstage and meet them! Well he had forgotten about it and in one night of November his whole family was a sleep when a phone call woke his mum and dad up at 2.00am in the morning on a weekday. It didn't wake him up but his mum answerd the phone and someone said "Can I speak to Nathan please," She said not really why who is it, he replied by saying "It's Dom and Kenywn from reef and he's one a competion!) She asked what he had won, they said "tickets I think..." So they told her they would phone him up anouther time to sort it out! The next day at school he told me I didn't belive him. He didn't belive his mum so he dialed '1471' and the last call was at 2.00 am, he wrote down the phone number (which turned out to be Dom's Girlfriends number, so he has it :)!) when he got home there was a message on the answer phone saying sorry for Dom and Kenywn and told him what he had won e.t.c.
It all got sorted out and he planned to go to the wolverhampton gig in Febuary, with ME! our mate and my brother. We went on the guest list and had a great time at the gig and told a few peolple that we were going backstage :) I don't think they belived us! but after the gig we went to where the backstage doors are, but the moody door man wouldn't let us through! But good old Nick Gibbard (some maneger bloke) found us, explained, and took us backstage we went in the dressing room, they were all there and it was great. We got our replenish sleves signed spoke to Jason (Keyboard man who doesn't get a mention on the album :( I still asked for his auto graph) about his mum, to Dom about shoes e.t.c. you now the usuall things! Any way I was this close (about 10mins away) from getting Kenywn's smashed guitar!!! I asked him why he threw it across the stage and he answerd "I didn't like it," so immediatly I said I'll have (as a joke) and to my suprise he said "come with me then," and he took me down to the stage ,where they were packing away all the lights and stuff , he went to speak to someone came back and said "sorry they've packed it away but keep it in contact with Nick,"so I did, but nothing happened he probably smashed it the following night... The whole night was great. We took loads of photo's and no one is allowed to touch my signed replenish and signed promotional copy of Glow....
wow what a day it was..... Amazing you wouldn't belive the amount of peolple I have told "I met Reef!" well they were all well cool as you might imagine!! cheers Reef
oh and my mate Ben got timmys auto graph in replenish by accident who is just a mate of dom's I think :) check out the Reef Fanzine 3 for a picture of dom flushing Nathans head down the loo!
and If anyone reads this that knows Kenwyn ask him where my guitar is he promised me :)
James Sanders!! .
Tims Reef concert experience
hey all i saw REEF tonight for the first time!
The show was in Providence, RI, USA, their first gig opening for third
eye blind. I was in the second row, right in front of Gary...Now i've
seen over fifty concerts, and i can honestly say that i have NEVER been
so blown away by a performance. They played an incredibly tight 40
minute set. They were in top form and really enjoying themselves on
stage. The set list was:
Place Your Hands
I Would Have Left You
Summer's in Bloom
Don't You Like It
Claypits
Come Back Brighter
Wake
Lately Stomping
Yer Old
Naked
After the show, I was fortunate enough to chat with Gary and his
girlfriend. I must say that i have even more respect for him now because
he was very very gracious and friendly and had no ego whatsoever. He was
obviously in a bit of a rush, he wanted to go and have a night on the
town, but still he stood and spoke for ten minutes and waited patiently
while we tried to get the flash on my camera to work. And he even walked
with us down the street to a better lit part of the street so i could get
the picture. I wish i could have stuck around to catch the other guys,
because i'm sure that they are every bit as cool as Gary, but i had to
get back to school. Anyway, i am so anxiously awaiting the time when i
will next see Reef, which is November 14, in New haven, Ct, as the
opening act for Live. It will be a great show, but it just will not
compare to seeing them in a tiny little club and being 5 feet away from
them.
anyway, i just thought i'd share my first Reef concert experience with
you all.
goodnight
tim
"my reef story by
Marieke"- THIS IS HUGE! she is well lucky, this is well worth a read even though it is very long!
Date sent: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 14:53:36 +0100
From: Hoogstad
Send reply to: hightown@wxs.nl
To: Jim Sanders
Subject: my REEF story
Hey Jim,
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Okay, this little bit I'm typing after I did the whole story that
follows. Erm, I can't believe you'd want to put this up on your page,
but you'll have to decide that for yourself. It's turned out longer than
I expected, but once I start going about Reef, I won't stop. What
follows is a report of only two days, and if I'd type up the rest,
you'll have to read through another 3 whole days (from summer). Just let
me know what you think before I go on to the rest.... Would anybody else
really be interested in reading this whole story? I don't mind typing it
up though....
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Well, I've got a free afternoon today and my brother isn't hogging the
computer so I'll start typing up my REEF stories. I've met them five
times so there's lots to tell, especially as I'm the kind of person who
rememberes every minute little (uninteresting) detail.
Oh, just to make it easier for me I'll introduce my friends with whom I
experienced all these days. Just so I don't have to say 'my friend
did...and my other friend said' all the time.
So, my friends are: Francien and Chantal
Alright, time to start the first day:
05/02/97
Finally Reef were coming to Holland! After about 10 days of nagging, I'd
convinced Francien to go with me to the radio station in Hilversum. I
was happy she'd agreed to go because no matter hów much I wanted to meet
them, going on my own wouldn't have been much fun. Once we were there we
weren't allowed to go onto the grounds of the station any more than
about 50 yards, where we stayed with the security people. They'd seen a
car coming through earlier with a couple of guys in it, so that meant
we'd missed them arriving. Then the next two hours went crawling by. It
was freezing outside and we were sitting on the cold pavement with my
walkman, listening to the interview they were giving inside. Once the
show was over and the security had told us we were crazy sitting there
waiting (about a million times), we were seriously beginning to believe
that ourselves. Especially Francien as she'd just come along for my
sake. But then I saw a car turn up the street. The security boy in
training told us the car was probably picking them up and they'd be
coming down there soon. Yeah, right! The car I saw was a big black limo.
As if they'd send a car like that for Reef! Hardly anyone knew them over
here! I just didn't believe it, untill I saw the car turning back around
the corner and coming our way. In a reflex I was on my feet and half way
over to the other side of the street, when in the passenger seat of the
car all I could see was a big set of teeth. Yep, it was Dom, smiling
away. So I stopped the car and Dom lowered the window. I asked them if I
could have my picture taken with them. Sure! But the driver didn't seem
so willing to wait. He asked me (in dutch) if I couldn't just take some
pictures through the window, as they were in a hurry to get to a tv
studio. But ofcourse the guys hadn't understood a word of that because
as I was getting my camera out, the doors swung open and 4 pairs of legs
came crawling out. They were ready for a hug and a picture. The driver
couldn't do anything so he'd decided to get out aswell and volunteerd to
take the pictures. Gary made us promise to come to the gig in March. A
promise easy to make. When they were all back in the car and ready to
drive off I saw their 4 heads tilt to the left, so they could just look
under the top of the window and wave goodbye. And as the car drove off I
spotted manager-dude in the very back seat. He'd been there all the
time? Oh well, just five weeks to go and they'd be back....
11/03/97
The gig was going to be in the Melkweg, in Amsterdam. Francien and I had
been looking forward to this gig since the day at the radio station.
Francien had clearly caught the Reef-bug too, and she'd caught it bad. I
had to tape every single thing I had so she could listen to it at home
over and over and over. But she wasn't the only one, my other friend
Chantal was going Reef-mad aswell. It's great having that company. This
day we'd decided to leave earlier for Amsterdam. We'd go shopping for
the day and end it off with a great gig. After about an hour (1.00pm) we
started looking for the Melkweg as we'd never been there before and we
just wanted to make sure we'd be able to find it that evening. We'd
walked quite far already, chatting away, when I spotted a good-looking,
messy-haired guy at the other side of the street, and I told my friends
there was a guy that looked like Kenwyn. But just as I'd said that we
all realised it wás Kenwyn walking the other way. So we shouted his
name, not too loud but he did hear it. Or should I say: he heard
something. Cos he stopped walking and looked around him, looking quite
confused. But when he didn't see any reaction he continued walking. And
all the time we were trying to cross the busy street. Once at the other
side we up behind him and called his name again. Then he spotted us, ran
into a side street along the canal, and with a big smile he pretended to
jump into it. After saying our hello's he explained the others were
either asleep on the bus, or into town. And when, without thinking, I
asked if we could come backstage after the show (I was quite surprised
by the question myself), he said 'ofcourse, just write down your names
and I'll take care of it'. After a couple of minutes we continued our
walk to the Melkweg, only to bump into Gary one street further. It was
like a 'Alright?-have you seen Ken-see you later-bye' kind of thing.
Just a little while later we'd finally reached the Melkweg. And just as
we came round the corner Jack got out of the bus. He went up to the
front desk and came back with a piece of paper he gave to us. On it was
the name of a street and a swimming pool and did we know the way. Well,
we could point him to the street, but when he asked us if he had to take
a cab or if he could walk...hmm, we asked a passer by and it was quite a
distance, but you can walk. And off he went. After all this we didn't
feel like going back into town anymore, so we decided to hang round the
Melkweg, chatting to whoever felt like a chat (just about the whole crew
I think). Once in a while one of us would go round the corner to a shop
to get something to eat and somehow, every time we'd bump into one of
the lads just coming back. Chantal had half her Twix nicked by a very
hungry Gary, and Francien stumbled upon a tired but satisfied Jack (the
walk had been quite far afterall so he'd taken a taxi back). At about
4.00pm Dominic finally came back from the town, with some familiar-faced
guy at his side. He came up for a chat and when we told him we were just
about freezing to the pavement he said: "Wanna come inside?".
Well, ofcourse, why do you think we'd tell you we were freezing, that
had a reason. Thanks for asking!! So Dominic and his friend took us
inside the venue where it was nice 'n warm and that's where we stayed
all day. Throughout the soundcheck (where we found out Dom's friend was
Jason, the keyboard-player, so thát's why I thought he looked
familiar!), the support-act's soundcheck (who were pretty amazing and
really nice guys too), dinner, more food and drinks and everything.
During the soundcheck we requested "Good Feeling", but they wanted to
save that for the gig. A couple of hours later it was almost time to
open the doors. Through the windows of the heavy black doors we could
see lots of cold faces waiting to come inside. Just before the first
people entered we sat down with our backs at the front of the stage,
just to make sure we'd be at the front -> because the place was sold
out.
The support-act played an amazing set (They're called SILKSCREEN, so
look out for them), but we were all waiting for Reef to come on. And
finally, after a long day, the gig started. The place rocked and when
Good Feeling started all Reef-eyes were watching us. Yes, this was a
party!! Jack had some problems with his guitar, but that wouldn't spoil
the fun. My first Reef-gig, and it was amazing (mind you, I probably
would've called them playing 'ba-ba-black-sheep' over and over again
amazing too). After the show Jamal -the tourmanager- took us backstage.
Lots of people wanted to follow us under that curtain, but they were all
pushed away in a pretty rough way (which I thought was pretty cruel).
Once up the stairs there was the dressing-romm door. But it was closed.
Could we just walk in now or what were we supposed to do? Jamal was gone
and it was just us three left. We decided to barge in and when the door
opened we were welcomed with a collective 'heeeeeeyyyyy', followed by,
'come in', 'sit down', 'grab a beer', 'do you want a banana?' ->(???).
Dom and Jack were on a roll making fun of people. There was a dutch girl
who probably had a bit of a party with lots of alcohol throughout the
day, cos she seemed pretty...drunk. She walked up to Dom and almost took
a seat on his lap, then started out with two words English and followed
that up with a whol big blabber of Dutch. Not making any sense to me, it
certainly didn't make any sence to him. The expression on his face was
hillarious! Jack was standing behind the girl pulling silly faces and
the girl didn't even seem to notice everybody was laughing at her. Dom
looked at us like 'what is she saying'? So we told him to just say 'yes'
to everyting. So there he was, nodding his head to this girl who was
almost sitting in his face. When she was gone I remembered I'd brought
my replenish-booklet to sign, and as it feels so stupid after spending a
whole day with them to ask them to sign it I thought I'd get it over
with quick. But Dom, being in his creative mood, started drawing half a
butterfly against the centre of the page, coloured it in, and quickly
closed the booklet so the other half would get the butterfly aswell.
Yes, really nice Dom. Then Francien had a photo from the radiostudio's
with all of us on it. She wanted them to sign the back of it, but that
didn't really work out that way. On seeing the photo Dom an Jack called
out an 'Ooooh' and started drawing on it. Dom drew some things a
butterfly has on it's head on Gary's head, and gave him some tits and
Jack drew some textballoons above everybody's head. The rest I'll leave
to your imagination, but boy, did they have fun. After they were done we
went into the hall with Dom for a Dominic-photoshoot. I don't think I
have to explain we didn't get much normal pictures as he kept sticking
his face in the camera or pulling some other stunt. And then Jack
decided to come out to the hall and join in. After a while someone from
the venue came up to tell us we all had to go. The guys still had to get
their stuff out, so we said goodbye to them all, only to bump into them
again outside. A little while later we said goodbye again, but almost at
the same time Jason, Dominic, and some of the crew decided to go find a
pub and have a drink....and we were invited. Dom went off for the burger
king first, and once the rest of us had found a pub someone had to go
and tell Dom where we were. And that someone was us. Alright, we'll skip
the story of Dom's eating-habits (146229 fries at a time), and move on
to the pub. Jamal ordered enough beers for the lot of us and put them on
the table -> 'enjoy'. Okay, we will. We were in the pub till 2.45am,
where Dom and I had a very interesting chat about Placebo....not! We
both love them but couldn't think of anything any more, no songtitles,
no melodies, nothing! I felt half retarted, but I wasn't the only one.
Jamal came by again with little reef-buttons for the three of us. At one
point we were almost falling off our stools because of the sleep we
needed and Dominic apologized for wanting to go because he was so tired.
Well, that was perfectly okay ofcourse, so we left with him, saying
goodbye to Jason and crew. Now we still had to walk back to the station
for about half an hour. Dom didn't have any money left to pay for a taxi
and it was a 'bit' too far to walk with us. So he asked if we would be
okay, and said they'd be bakc soon to do more gigs. Said our goodbye's
for the millionth time that evening and as we wanted to walk of two guys
came up to us to ask us something. Like an overprotective daddy Dom
turned around to see what they wanted from us and if they'd walk past.
And that was the end of a very tiring, but fun day with Reef...
Marieke
the extra added bit!
Date sent: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 11:34:55 +0100
From: Hoogstad
Send reply to: hightown@wxs.nl
To: jim.sanders@mcmail.com
Subject: OOOPS!!! This is the right mail
Ooooooooooooooh,
Sorry for that first mail. This the right one. I'd left some spaces in
the first one trying to find the right words but I'd sent it off before
I realised I hadn't changed that yet....
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
17/06/97 - Den Haag
Alright! Shortly after the gig in Amsterdam I found out they were going
to be back VERY soon, and...for three days in a row!!! We'd decided to
just buy a ticket for the 18th, cos that was when they'd be in Utrecht
(where two of us live nearby), but as the dates came closer quickly
Chantal and I had soon decided we'd be going to all three gigs. Francien
would spend two of the three days studying for exams (which I should
have been doing too...).
So, this first day was just Chantal and me, and we'd bought no tickets.
We remembered the guys were at the venue extremely early in march, so we
left for Den Haag at about 12.45 and arrived at the venue at 1.30.
No-one was there, no bus, nothing. One of the venue-men told us they'd
be arriving at 4.00. Right, so we went into the town-centre, but wanted
to be back by 3.30 because those venue people almost always get it wrong
(on purpose). And how right we were! We were back at exactly that time
and what did we see when we turned the corner? Gary just stepping out of
the bus, followed closely by the others. And did they remember us? Yup!
We were greeted with a couple of big sloppy kisses. After a little
chat one after the other left for the town centre. Chantal and I stayed
back to have a bit of a doze in the hot sun on a sort of wooden box
outside the venue. Heaven! Jamal joined us for a chat and
asked us if we were going to come all three days. And with one of those
typical Jamal grins he said we were crazy. Yeah, we know. Did we have
tickets? Nope. So he wrote our names down for the guest-list. We shoved
a whole big bag of 'dropjes' (= dutch liquorice) in his face and told
him he should try it. Alright, bad move, cos from then on he passed by
us without any other reason but to get a whole handful of dropjes. He
even learned to say the word so he could ask for it himself. Our supply
of dropjes slimmed very fast. In the meantime Chantal and I were still
lazing in the sun, this was the way to spend summer! Then one by one the
guys started coming back from their shopping trip. Oooh, the perfect
opportunity for Dom to kick my butt when he turned the corner. The 'box'
was hardly big enough for two people to ly on, my back fitted on it but
my bum was just sticking out a bit. Perfect target, I know. Then Gary
followed shortly after with a grin on his face as if he was saying "hey
ladies, it's me, Gary-man and I'm back!!", and then he tripped over a
loose tile. Now I know it's rude to laugh at somebody, but you can bet
your life that's exactly what we did!!!! We ignored all Dom and Jay's
warnings about our faces getting a little red, it was just all too
comfortable there. When it got later and the sun started to turn away
from our spot and the guys had done their soundcheck etc, we got on our
feet again and turned the corner. Only to realise the doors were already
open and people were going in. We told the lady behind the counter our
names and she gave us two little tickets to go inside. But when we
walked off we were called back. She had two plasic REEF-passes for us
aswell, for after the show. The show was absolutely amazing once again
(ofcourse). We were enjoying Jack's typical dance moves to the fullest.
Kenwyn was totally into his guitar thing, Dom was drumming away and Jay
was doing his Jason dance -> swinging his hips from side to side. Half
way through Gary jumped off stage and into the crowd to do his little
'come dance with me'-thing. And everybody did, almost squashing Jamal
who had to follow him with the mic.cord. A few songs later
he must have realised either he was going to have some bottles of water
left after the show, or the crowd were getting a bit hot, or he was just
into a bit of mucking about because he started kicking them into the
crowd making as much people wet as he possibly could. I think I'll place
my bets on that last option. After the gig we got our jackets and made
our way to the backstage door where just about the whole venue was
waiting, hoping to go in. People were trying to push open the door and
on the other side people were trying just as hard to close it again.
Somehow we made it to the front of the crowd and were almost stuck with
our face flat against the door. When it was pushed open a tiny bit once
more I could only just wave my pass so they could see it before it was
closed again. Someone pulled the two of us through and told us where we
should go. The door was open and Jack and Jason were both sitting on a
couch. We each plonked down beside one of them and the four of us were
just sort of half sitting/half lying there. Ken and Gary were at the
other side of the room eating everyting available. We had a drink and a
chat and then two young english totally overhyped girls came out of
nowhere. They practically stormed into Gary and Kenwyn asking for
autographs. Then Chantal asked Jay where Dominic was -> "I can hear him
coming, he's coming". Boooooy, did those girls giggle at that! I can
still remember the sight of Chantal and Jason sitting there, looking at
them like ... "erm, yeah, right....?". They turned to Chantal laughing.
"You don't get it do you? He's coming!!! Haahahahahaaaa" and then they
turned to Jason hoping he'd laugh with them. But he didn't. Well, at
least two people in the room thought it was extremely funny. A little
while later Dominic returned from the shower. Jack almost flipped when
he saw my watch (I'd made a REEF watch out of some old dumpy thing,
stuck the logo inside on the background). Billy was called in to see and
he
got out his camera to take a picture of it, maybe he could do something
with that. Jay started telling me I should ask for at least 10% of the
profits etc.... yeah, right! At the end of the evening when we were
about to leave we were standing in the hallway with Jamal and Jack,
joking about a bit. Chantal asked Jamal if we could join them backstage
again the next day. Then his face turned from smily to angry and he said
with his voice raised: "Absolutely not!!!!"... and then continued with a
smily happy face and a little soft voice: "cos you've got fluff on your
face...". Alright, that was good enough for a good laugh, especially for
Jamal who laughed the loudest. Then I decided to tell him we had a
picture of him from back in March where he looks as if he's got great
difficulty on the toilet. That dimmed his laugh a little, but it just
made Jacks explode! Jamal promised to put us on the backstage list for
the next day and we said goodbye. Jack made his way to the bus and we
left for the station, only to see them again a couple of hours later in
a whole different town.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Marieke
hightown@wxs.nl
© 1997 jim.sanders@mcmail.com
If you have had a reef experience then e mail me it and I will put it on this page
