Meeting the B-52s (you should read this)

First of all, let me start by saying this will probably become quite a long post; well, a longer post, much longer than my usual type. I am not a writer, my first language is Italian, I don’t pretend to be one (unlike some other people out there) and my posts are not meant to be essays or bullshit stories that would bore the crap out of even a Buddhist. My posts are open, straight-forward and real.

This post will be about guess whom? They, yes, the B-52s. It’s always like that, isn’t it? Well…no. At least not anymore. In here I will be telling you about my face to face encounter with them last night as well as some of my theories. Please do keep in mind that these are “theories” and based on things that have happened over the years and not just a 5-minute meeting (although I bet it was even less than that). I will also post about what led me to the conclusion I drew last night.

This month marks the B-52s European Farewell Tour – although they insist it is not actually a farewell – yet, somehow, it is called the farewell tour. Anyhow, when I found out they were coming back to the UK I decided I’d go for the VIP package, meaning I’d get to meet with all of them at the end of the show (or at the beginning). I bought the package in March for £250 (about $300 I believe). Plus, since I could not find the VIP tickets for the London venue, I had to book myself in the Newcastle venue. Last night was the night. I had great a seat (first row) and they were literally in front of me on the stage, I could almost touch them.  At times it felt rather uncomfortable being there as I am not a dancer, I don’t dance and all of  those bloody people around me were just standing and grooving while I was there looking like a total idiot. Kate would occasionally glance at me (she was right in front of me basically) and smile a half smile – a forced one. I had never noticed before – perhaps because I had never been that close to all of them – but Kate would look at me and force a smile, or just look at me as if I was the enemy. I thought it was just an impression at first because she felt uncomfortable, but the thing got real afterwards, at the meet & greet. I was way too close to them to mistake the signals. It was hard to tell whether Fred was looking at me or at the guy right beside me, who kept dancing as if there was no tomorrow. There was a time where I thought Fred was staring at me with this cold look, again as if I was the enemy. However, like I said, for all I know he could have been looking at the guy beside me, since he did it a few times throughout the show. This is a picture I snapped during the show, it gives you the idea of how close I was to the stage:

Again, I don’t want to say he was giving me cold glimpses otherwise I may get another friendly text like I did after the show in 2013, from the guy who came with me (his gf was nice though),  telling me I had some paranoia problem and I needed to talk to a shrink because it’d make you feel so much better. Yeah, fuck off.

The meet and greet happened after the show, at a separate location. I was the second person in line. The guy before me got to speak to all of them and they were very nice to him. Then it was my turn. I introduced myself to Kate playing the same game they play (the I-pretend-I don’t know you-but-I-know-who-you-are kind of game) and then the lady snapped a picture of us all together. Cindy was the only one who spoke to me. Keep in mind I met her last year in London during her solo tour and yet she pretended she had never met me before (!? I know right?!) and she said: “it’s so nice to meet you”. She was lovely though, she asked me if I lived in Newcastle and, like I said, she was the only one who spoke to me. The others turned their face on me and didn’t say anything at all. Sort of saying to Cindy: “this bitch is all yours”. I tried to speak to Kate and when I did, she wasn’t even looking at me. She then just turned towards me and smiled the usual half smile and by then, it was my time to go. Oh, and yes, Fred didn’t say a word. I exited the venue that I didn’t know what to think, really. Only the usual, this time double, what the fuck. Yes, there was a time I sort of snapped at Kate on her Facebook page (Aug 2017, on a picture taken during the solar eclipses where she mentioned Stella Corona), but it wasn’t anything serious and I apologized to her anyway. Besides, since they were pretending I was like all other people in that room, she could have put a little bit more effort to pretend to like me since I was classified as a “fan”, right? So that behaviour made no goddamn sense at all, especially since I have never snapped at Fred for example. 

There you go, that’s my summary of last night’s encounter with the band. Wasn’t expecting that at all, to be honest. It’s not that those two were insulting me or being unmannered…no, they just ignored me. As if I wasn’t even there. As if I was a bad person, an enemy, someone who did something bad to them, the one they didn’t want to speak to. What the hell? I called a couple of people last night and earlier today as I felt rather upset and they all said the same thing: it was really weird.

Now, let me continue this with the conclusion I drew while walking back to the hotel, in my dress, under the pouring rain. I kept asking myself why, why would they act like that? Clearly, they would only do it if I did something bad to them. Really bad. There was something that hurt them more than anything else: Ricky’s death. As I was standing there, hiding inside a bush on the side of the road trying to find shelter from the pouring rain, I thought: what if I am somehow involved in Ricky’s disappearance? Well, not me per se rather, another version of me. All these years I have been too blind to see that they don’t like me after all. I was too concentrated on trying to find the answer that I didn’t see the most obvious thing: I am un-likeable. It all became very clear last night, when they were acting exactly like my friend did when we had a fight and fell out. Like I said, with the exception of Cindy. But Kate was really cold, her looks were somehow cold up on that stage, including her occasional half a smile.  Even Fred’s looks were cold but like I said, maybe he wasn’t looking at me. That time when I thought he was looking at me, he kept staring, coldly, with a look that said “You shouldn’t be here.” It was so unsettling, he would not stop staring and eventually it was too much that I had to look away. He then looked somewhere else. Maybe that guy was right: I do need a bloody shrink but I swear, it all looked so goddamn real last night, it couldn’t have just been an impression.

Yes these looks exactly:

Anyway, someone once told me (Kevin Moore) that there is a rumour out there saying that Ricky Wilson didn’t actually die: he was taken, he was brought away…with them. If that was his choice or not, I don’t know. This is just a rumor but it is out there. If that is the case, then we can see why they’d be upset. He was their dear friend, and these people took him away. Apparently, in their eyes, I am one of them too. One of the “bad people”, I am in the mix even though I am here living my normal, boring life and got nothing to do with the people who perhaps took Ricky away from them.

How did I get to this conclusion? Well, it was a process that starts with an article published last year in one of those online magazines related to music. Here is the link:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/doyouremember.com/80539/b52s-kate-pierson-opens-up-about-ricky-wilson/amp

As you can see in this brief article, the B-52s speak about Ricky’s sudden death in 1985. They say that no one knew Ricky had AIDS until literally a few days before he died. Only one of them knew actually, but he didn’t speak somehow even though his best friend and fellow member of the band was about to die. This is all so weird. They say they didn’t notice much (except that he was getting thinner) and then one day Ricky didn’t show up for the rehearsals and that’s when they learned he was terminally ill and a few days later he died. I am not a specialist and true enough, back in the days HIV patients would die quickly from AIDS, but this sounds rather weird to me. Nowadays, thanks to the advance in therapies, HIV patients can hide their status very well. Hell, they can go years and years having such a low viral load that they are pretty much almost “healthy”. Back then, no way. Someone would have certainly noticed a lot more than just him “getting thinner”. His symptoms would have been quite obvious very quickly it is hard to believe that no one noticed that much or asked anything at all, considering how close they all were. Perhaps the press may not notice, perhaps the fans would not notice but the ones close to him would have noticed more a lot sooner. I highly doubt that they’d need to get a call from his death bed before they’d realize there was something seriously wrong with him especially since he’d apparently had the disease since 1983. Again, this is just my opinion. I am allowed to it, especially after last night.

Also, there is another article from 1985 that says Ricky Wilson had died of cancer (perhaps AIDS related which makes it even more unlikely to be missed):

https://www.apnews.com/2a1688d13c0611028728d05792c32624

Not sure why they were trying to hide that he had died from AIDS-related complications since the band had never done that, but there you’ll have it. I found it online.

I must also add that – and I may be wrong here since I am not really a hardcore fan – I have never seen anything, like fundraising, from the band for any HIV cause. Not that I could see recently, at least. That’s what usually band members do after one of them dies from AIDS. There is an HIV foundation by Queen, for example, in honor of Freddie Mercury. Again, maybe the B-52s do donate, and they don’t say it, but I haven’t seen them raising awareness. Just saying.

Other thing: back in the London concert in 2013, right before the song “Love in the Year 3000” they played a little “joke” about the “people from the future”. In this joke Fred basically described these people as dishonest and careless, people who don’t give a damn about others. I was at that concert too, by the way.

Here is a part of that joke (unfortunately this video is cut but you can catch at least the last part) filmed it by someone who was at that concert (it is in the first couple of minutes then it’s the song):

                                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElEtQ6AlcS4

I do have a recording of the whole night but it’s unfortunately on a CD. Could have been a random thing, but, again, it was weird. Clearly, he is not a fan of the “people from the future” and you can tell from that video.
That concert was also pretty weird; they knew where I was sitting as I had messaged Kate with the seat number a few days earlier. At the other shows in Birmingham or Manchester they'd come out to meet people (there were plenty of pics in the FB group from fans documenting their encounters). in London, they just completely disappeared. 

I can’t recall whether I wrote this somewhere on this blog, but I did say that I believe John Titor is Cindy’s son. Not this guy here – obviously – but the alternate version of him (an older one) in another universe. You would think that, if anyone has the right of being upset about Ricky, that one is Cindy since he was her own brother, but she doesn’t seem like it at all. She was lovely to me, she has always been. Why are the others pissed then, and not her? Well, it is hard to tell but I personally believe that it was a hard battle for her. Think about it: her own brother was taken away by another version of her own son and his people. Her own son. One is her brother, one is almost like her son. Would you be upset the way the others are? I don’t know. The people who took Ricky away have nothing to do with the other members, ergo why they feel the right to show their unhappiness. Besides, it is apparent to me that some of them have a hard time separating people who come from different realities, since this is how they feel about me.

Now, last point on Cindy’s son: the members of the band have known him his whole life, basically. He also has his own little band. They have never used this guy’s band as their opening band on tours (not sure why, perhaps there is a specific reason). He doesn’t follow them on Instagram and they don’t follow him. He only follows Cindy and she follows him. Same thing on Facebook: the only member of the band he has on his Facebook is Keith, that’s it. I don’t know him, I don’t know how he feels about all of this because I have never met him. He retired years ago. I may be wrong but I am under the impression that there is something going on. I am clearly “persona non grata” here, and that’s all I know. Perhaps that was true: I shouldn’t have been there. Truth is, they can get rid of this guy but they can’t get rid of me easily without looking bad in front of the other fans.

Regarding last night and the events, I was able to reach out to another guy who did the meet & greet and he confirmed that he was able to speak to all members of the band, although very briefly:

I may add more if I manage to reach out to other people, but this alone gives an idea of what I am talking about.

One last note is dedicated to the “Trism” song which came out in 1983 and was played on the radio – according to people on The B-52s group on Facebook, throughout 1984, my birth year. That song has completely vanished. They never play it anymore, it’s never on the radio, you name it. I have 2 theories about this song. 1) this song wasn’t written by the B-52s. It was written by Cindy’s son and given to them in 1975. If you recall the original John Titor postings, he said that he visited his “grandfather” in 1975 and also his family. The B-52s then put it into music and distributed it once they became famous. They did say here (recently by the way) that they used to have people they knew write songs for them back in the days of Trism (Whammy is the actual album name):

2) this song is no longer played because it’s nothing but a reminder of the people who took Ricky (Stella Corona, one of the temporal drivers as well?). That’s why it has disappeared over the years. It disappeared shortly after Ricky’s death in 1985. Well I believe it was played less and less starting from then.

I hope this gives a “rational” explanation as to why I drew that conclusion last night, under the rain. Regardless of what people want to say, last night felt like a huge disappointment but, in a way, it helped. It gave me the closure I needed, and also gave me some answers about this whole thing. I don’t know why this keeps happening to me, but I did nothing. I seem to be meeting a lot of people who are pissed at me and I don’t even know why. I don’t know Ricky, I have never met him and it wasn’t nice – if this was the reason – to put in me in the mix as well. I can’t help it but getting this nagging feeling that they look at me and see them. They look at me and think “you are all bad people”. Last night explains so much: the times they were hiding, the questions they have always refused to answer on the “Trism” song, the avoidance, the secrecy. They probably want to keep things secret – yes – but I also believe that they don’t want to talk about it because they hate it. Me being there is nothing but a reminder of how Ricky is gone. In their eyes, I am one of them, I am one of the people who took Ricky. If I am right (IF, of course, these are all theories) then I cannot exclude that I was also there when Ricky was gone. Or they simply see me as one of them and those are my people. I have no freaking idea of what’s happened, I know nothing about that so I don’t know why I was treated the way I was last night. I was so happy to be there, little did I know they didn’t actually want me there.

There may be another explanation for last night – surely – but it is not obvious to me. This is the most obvious one, the one that makes more sense. Feel free to draw your own conclusions. As I told my friend last night – and he agreed – I don’t think I’ll ever go see one of their concerts again. Perhaps a concert with Cindy only (if she releases another solo album) but not a concert with all of them. I will no longer be able to be there knowing that I am not wanted and I am only reminding them of a pretty bad chapter of their lives.

It looks like Major Bennett is going to have to step in and handle this, like a man would do. It’s easy to hide behind a woman and let her deal with crap, isn’t it? You’re just pissing me off so much I can’t even begin to describe it.

I am going to end this article with the picture of me with the B-52s last night. Here is me squeezed between Fred and Cindy. At least, we were all pretending exceptionally well in here.

With disappointment,

Stella