Fangirl Friday – When Fandoms Collide

January 21, 2011 at 6:00 am · Filed under Fangirl Friday ·Tagged Chicago, Duran Duran, fandom, Fangirl Friday, Gigi Salem, House of Blues, JC Chasez, Mickey Mouse Club, Nick Rhodes, NSYNC, Simon Le Bon

Welcome to Fangirl Friday, episode one. Today is a sort of hodge-podge, pot-luck day, with fandom taking the reins. Anything I’m a fan of, I’ll talk about here. Now, to be honest, I had a whole other blog planned for today. It was descriptive, funny, and had  nothing whatsoever to do with music. Oops! So on my best friend’s good advice, I put it away in the “maybe later” pile.

“Well pooh!” I grumbled. “Now I have to pull a new rabbit out of the proverbial hat.” Before I could get a good pout going, her chuckle sounded over the phone.

“You have a ton of music-related fan stories. In fact, why don’t you talk about the first fandom event we shared?” Laura murmured, her smirk so loud my eye twitched. Then I thought about what she said.

After picking my jaw up off the floor, I started to grin. She was SO right. The weekend she and I first met was full of wonderful fandom moments, like accompanying her to her first Duran Duran show. The very first, though, was our adventures outside a Chicago radio station.

It was the afternoon of Friday, August sixth, 1999. Dark days for Durans and Duranies alike, even though it was the time when Laura was just entering the fandom. I was twenty-five, she was twenty-two, three months and eleven days shy of her twenty-third birthday. We had met on the internet and it was the first time we’d seen each other face to face.

Only two members of the original five, Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes, were in the line-up of the band. Or, as many of us like to affectionately call them, Ego and God. They were playing the House of Blues, and we had also heard that they would be visiting a local radio station. Because the show was general admission, we knew we’d have to stand in line most of the day to get a decent spot. Even so, we couldn’t pass up the chance to maybe meet the band.

Like good little Duranies, we got dressed up in our concert gear that included (for me) black velvet, white feathers, and glitter. We were a bit confused when we got to the radio station, thinking we might have gotten the wrong building. Sure there were several other females in concert gear, but none of them looked to be out of high school. Some of them didn’t even look like they were old enough to be in high school. What the everlovin’ heck?

The doors opened and five guys emerged. The teeny-boppers went nuts and mobbed them. Four of them were unfamiliar to me. But when I caught a glimpse of the fifth, I froze with the shock of recognition…of the back of his neck.

“That’s…that’s JC Chasez from the Mickey Mouse Club,” I stammered. At the same time, Laura said, “Oh my God, it’s NSYNC!” My heart was pounding and I just stood there, trying to remember how to breathe. I dimly heard Laura snapping pictures with her camera. None of those were more than the backs of their heads, sadly.

Once the limo had driven off, Laura and I stared at each other and giggled. The dust settled, bringing a handful of women our age and older as the younger girls dispersed. We were still giddy and chatting about it when a very tall, familiar-looking man emerged and nearly trod on me. To be fair, I’m only 5’4″ and he’s over six feet tall. It’s amazing he was able to swerve around me at the last minute.

Laura and I grumbled until he got about ten feet away and turned. We both nearly dropped on the spot. It was Simon Le Bon! One of the very men we’d come to see! I was writhing in shame as she took pictures. I’d been a Duranie for fifteen years at that point and hadn’t recognized him, yet I recognized the back of the neck of someone I’d been a fan of six years before for only a short time!

Granted, I’d actually met JC in person once, when the MMC did a Target tour, and had never seen Simon so close. It was too early in our friendship for Laura to tease me back then. By the time we were close enough for her to do so, I had redeemed myself as a Duranie, but that’s a story for another time.

So what about you? Has a minor fandom ever intruded on a major one? Do you have any tales of missed opportunities? I want to hear your stories, please!

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