The Palers' Convention, 16 June 2001
First, brief report
Here's a preliminary, sketchy report on the Palers' Party, added in a brief excursion to a Manchester Internet café ... where we found Palers logging on to find out what they'd experienced the night before!
- we had a wonderful party with a quiz, live amateur music, a highly amusing talk from Jonas ... and superb company
- our guests of honour were Procol Harum in person ... who socialised, signed, posed for pictures [see right], and latterly jammed (to the closing riff of Pilgrims Progress) a while on the Palers' Band gear, then by request performed The Dead Man's Dream.
- we have a wonderful item from Gary to auction ... a beautiful suit made for him in 1977 by Bambi Ballard ... the ornamental tail - coat in which he played Procol Harum's final 1970s' tour ... watch for this at eBay (while continuing to bid for the Simple Sister score ...)
- we spoke at midnight on the telephone to Chris Copping, who was just getting up in Melbourne, Australia, and discussed his verdict on the Faux Procol lyrics ... which one contributor described as 'a Solomon-like solution to a ton of good material.'
- Sunday morning sees crowds of tired and happy Palers congregating in pubs and cafés in the vicinity of our Procol Base Camp, which so closely adjoins the venue of tonight's gig that you can hear the band rehearsing
- Diane kindly sold Shine On merchandise at a Convention Discount, and Michael Ackermann had Whaling Stories gear for sale too.
- Hundreds of photographs must have been taken and we hope to receive the best of Palers' snaps for publication in the pages of BtP in days to come.
Roland and Jens (shown here, blearily uploading this page, in Manchester) would like to thank everybody who contributed so much to the success of the evening ... there are many names, but Jesse James deserves special mention for his devotion to the soundboard ... and the many talented musicians who gave such a lot of time and energy to playing in the third, international Palers' Band ...