The Who Convention

Gentle Giant  by  Irish Jack

All I know. All I know is this much. This much that tells me my nose isn't long enough. My height isn't heigh enough. My hair is rotten. And I don't have a girl friend. Other else that I know is that looking back on a lot of the photos displayed here from the Who Conventions I attended that it wasn't so much the people who played on the stages that remain so memorable as much as the people I met down on the floor. Yes, I performed sometimes brilliantly, sometimes badly, to those who shut-upped and listened but to a performer sometimes there is no better hell than the sound of extraneous voices coming from the balcony. Yes, it was the people I met on the floor who thrilled me the most. They came from far and wide to pay homage to 'the only band that ever mattered'.

They came from across the Atlantic with AWESOME accents. They came from middle Europe with smiles and deft articulation of how the internet works (a bit like the Americans). Some as well, many in fact, came from the UK. Some from just around the corner from the old "Palace In The Air"  =  Shepherd's Bush. And some came from faraway places in England where only trains and fish lorries stop in the middle of the night and people walk by grey buildings at eight in the morning on their way to the mill. IF they still have a job !

One of the fantastic people I had the pleasure of meeting besides all those lovely Americans with the AWESOME cameras and the lovely Europeans was a man of some 16 stones with a sweep of long oily hair brushed back over his ears to create a slippery mane down his back and who I noticed was wearing a ferocious black tee-shirt with those fantastic words emblazoned across his hidden nipples...LED ZEPPELIN!  Somehow he asked me to sign the Convention programme. This I did. Then I shook hands with his wife. Then he bought me a pint of badly poured Guinness. Then he recited for me a litany of shows where he had queued for hours in search of a ticket to see 'the only band that ever mattered'. What made him so different and refreshing and made me warm to him was the fact he didn't mind telling me not about all the times he had seen 'the only band that ever mattered' = The Who; but his was a litany of concerts where he was unable to secure tickets. There was something about this man, this butcher's assistant with tattoos, something raw and innocent in the sense that I felt uneasy and yes, a little ashamed, that HERE was a true fan (like so many others) unlike me, here was a man who had come from the other end of England on a crap train with his wife and had never met a single member of the Who..I never had to buy a Who record or album. My dream was never to meet any of the band, circumstances had robbed me of such a wish. I never had to queue for a ticket at five in the morning. THEY = 'the only band that ever mattered' = The Who, made sure I had all the trimmings. Sometimes even hotels and a ride in the limousine. But this man with the Led Zeppelin tee-shirt he was for real. In a way, I envied him. I envied what I couldn't have. And what I couldn't have was to be innocent of The Who. Blast the Who for making me feel like that.

The next morning after the Convention I woke with my head feeling like it was held between a vice and I hated my name. I hated who I was and what I had become. But all that cleared after an hour…  Within that hour as I thought back on the fantastic people who had performed on the stage and the very many wonderful people I had shaken hands with and got photographed with, I thought about the butcher's assistant, the gentle giant in the Led Zeppelin tee-shirt, by now in the crap train on the journey home back to the grim walls and the mill. There went a man of bronze, I thought, while I could only handle fabric.  --  August 2010

Many thanks to Irish Jack for donating this lovely collection of photos from past conventions. Please click on the thumbnails to view the full size images and Jack's captions.

Back to Past Conventions page.