1998 Convention Report!
at the Dome Dub Club... Saturday 17th October
At last October 17th arrived! The day of the Ant Convention 1998! I had been eagerly awaiting this day for many weeks (well, I had been awaiting this day ever since the end of last year's convention!). Nothing was going to spoil it... or so I thought! I woke up on Saturday morning with an awful hangover!! I couldn't believe it! But I wasn't going to let it stop me enjoying the convention. So I got up, and headed for the train. Sitting on the underground train I felt very fragile as each bump in the railway line went straight through me! It was at this point I went through the old 'I'm never drinking again' routine - especially not at the convention!
Eventually I arrived at Tufnell Park and made my way up to the exit. As I'm sure you'll all agree, it is always fun to play 'spot the Ant fan' on the train! The queue outside the venue was almost identical to last year's... and the year before that... Almost everybody knows everybody else now.
There was great excitement once the doors were finally opened. The first room you come to is the merchandise stalls. I am always amazed as how many items are available each year. The stalls offer everything from t-shirts, posters, magazines, and postcards to most of Adam's back catalogue.
After this I made my way upstairs to the main room. This is where the music and videos are played, and where I spent most of my time for the next few hours. During this time, Zerox took to the stage and played a great set - mainly comprising of pre-Kings material. After their set ended, it was announced that Terry Miall was keen to perform with Zerox. So to everybodys delight, Terry got behind the drums and played along to Christain D'or and a couple of others. It goes to show the extent of Terry's talent considering he had not practised with the band before, and probably hadn't performed those songs in years!
Next up were some exclusive videos, including Adam performing Wannabe, and Adam performing 'Beat My Guest' with Dweeb. I then met up with one of my other friends, and he offered to buy me a drink. I asked for a lemonade (bearing in mind that I had given up alcohol a few hours earlier) - but he was having none of it!! So I thought that one small Archers & Lemonade wouldn't hurt... and was totally shocked when he came back to me with TWO DOUBLES!!!! "Go on, get them down you", he said!! So I thought 'Sod it' and took his advice! Having downed the two drinks in a matter of minutes, I made my way to the entrance where I found... Terry! I was hoping that I wouldn't fall over or embarrass myself, as the Archers set in and was making me a bit.. well.. giggly! But everything went fine, I had a chat to Terry, and had the obligatory photo taken with him!
After this I went back to the merchandise room, where some old fan club memorabilia was being GIVEN AWAY - items such as posters and newsletters mainly. After grabbing a few items, I went back upstairs to get on the dancefloor for the last hour.
Bryan Stanton played all the usual favourites, and a few odd ones such as 'Kiss the Drummer' and 'Anger Inc', I mean they are good songs, but not the ones dance to in the last half hour! But nevermind, the music was good enough for me to convince Matt to get up and dance (hi Matt! I said I would mention you and I have!).
The evening was brought to an end with Something Girls - yet another strange choice!!
This convention was one of the best ever. This had something to do with the great atmosphere generated by everyone who attended. But of course this couldn't have been possible without Umesh Mistry - so a big THANK YOU to Umesh for organising the convention! If you didn't attend, then you really missed out on a great experience - make sure you come next year!!