Herma
The next morning we had breakfast, and us four did some sightseeing and some shopping. Since Modena is not such a big city we easily caught up with the others again.
Some of the girls had met this very nice man who works for Pavarotti and he had told them that he would be able to get them in to the rehearsals. Never the three or four musqueteers
they wanted to ask the man if he would let their friends in too. This is so great being with our group, all looking out for each other. Such a shame some were not around at the time
especially Ludo, who had worked so hard for us.
Anyway, near the Novi Sad Park we went for a bite to eat and there he was! At the restaurant, what a coincidence. He said sure some names could be added to the list and we had to
wait outside at a certain place, where we would be picked up.
Bianca
Monday morning we split up, some went 'sightseeing' and some went shopping. We all met up at the Novi
Sad park again, where rehearsals would start at 4pm. Would George be there today?
Now totally
accidently, ( I know... it sounds unbelievable, so I'm not even going to begin to describe it because no one
will believe in that much coincidence anyway, but it really was like that!) we met our 'Pavarotti' guy again
several times that day, first time nowhere near the park even! Anyway... since we had heard from other
fans before that a 'select' group of audience was admitted, we decided to give it a try and ask if he could
get us in for the rehearsals. He couldn't promise us anything, but he would try.. he would meet us at the
main gate at 4pm. First we had to give him 4 names maximum, but ughhhh... that was hard to choose, our
group was so big! :( He must have seen our despair... in the end he managed to get 11 of us on the
guestlist, and Jewel managed to sneak in with us, insisting she belonged with us! Hehehe, security didn't
really want to let us in (we had been standing there for a while), but they had to.. since our names were on
the guestlist! :o)
Jeannette
The thing is that we run into our Pavarotti man a couple of times that day and to cut this story
short, he got us entrance for the rehearsals that day...meaning inside of the gates.
Fantastic ofcourse. I still am very gratefull for that, because that day turned out to be great.
Herma
And it happened! I could not believe it. Sitting there legally, I felt all the time that someone would come up to us to kick us out. But no way, ofcourse we were there by his kind
invitation.
I was a bit afraid that George wouldn't like it, but it was not like we were the only ones there. There was quite a crowd there, I don't know. People who worked there had brought their
kids. Some of the parents from the kids from the choir, people who clearly belonged to some of the star's entourage. None of George's though, as far as we could see.
It was great to see everybody rehearse and ofcourse seeing George sing so close by was like gold. I cannot describe it. Usually ofcourse he is much further away when he is
performing. We could make pictures and just enjoy the whole thing. I felt like THAT was the concert for me. Ofcourse I went to the show, but seeing the rehearsals was the best part! I
would not have minded driving twice as far, just to see this.
I felt we were really lucky, especially since George didn't rehearse the day before. Most people rehearsed twice, George only once and we were there!
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Jeannette
Being at the rehearsals, inside the gate was great. There were a lot of people between the gates.
The first gate being the main gate where Cornelia and Kris were standing the day before; the
second gate being the entrance of the park. The space between the gates was the entrance of the
university and because it was Monday (and therefore the university was open), people were
lining up one open barred gate closer to the park than the day before, when the first gate
was closed.
The weather was nice and warm, and we missed a caterar...again a day without enough to eat and
drink.
I think we saw most of the artists rehearse: one song by themselves and one song together with
Pavarotti who was there all day.
I liked the part of Aqua, although I'm not a fan, but their version of Funiculi Funicola
together with Pavarotti was such a surprise, I think most people liked it.
As well, Irene Grandi (an Italian female singer) was great. I never heard of her before and
although she sang in Italian, I really, really liked it.
And the Eurythmics, and Savage Garden and ofcourse Enrique Iglesias...wow..he looks amazing
from close :))
Kristine
The rehearsals were actually one of the highlights of the trip. We had
great fun and enjoyed it enormously. And of course we knew that George
was
probably annoyed to see so many people in there... It didn't stop us from
enjoying it... lol I think part of it was that we were all together
again,
and enjoying something that brought us together in the first place!
A definite favourite of that day and also the most anticipated artist
was
George, of course. He was the only one who hadn't rehearsed yet, even
though EVERYBODY else had already been rehearsing for couple of days.
Well..
if George thinks 30 minutes of rehearsals is enough for him, what can I
say... ;)
Crowd just moved to the front as soon as George walked on stage... Had it
been dark, I think he would have seen as many flashes in the front row
as
he saw at the concert the next day...
Bianca
As for the other artists... well, I really enjoyed most of them! Because of the rehearsals the day before and
this afternoon we got familiar with all the songs. I simply loooved Darren Hayes and Pavarotti rehearsing 'O
Sole Mio'! Ohh.. and Enrique of course, he sounded and looked really yummie! :)
Ahhhh... it was wonderful to be there, finding ourself a nice spot at the VIP seats and getting a nice preview
of the show. :) We enjoyed the various artist that were rehearsing and just the fact of being part of the
lucky few people being there. Though there was tight security everywhere, people were really relaxed and
lots of them were taking pictures during the various sets. We were saving our films, as George had still to
come...
Tracy Chapman was great also, just like the Eurythmics.. and Skunk Anansie.. really, I think from all the
charity concerts I went to lately, this was the line-up I enjoyed most. Only Zucchero somehow annoyed me
a bit with his "Jajaja Zazaza" microphone testing which seemed to go on forever late that night.. LOL
Irene Grandi... she really rocked the place, I never heard of her before but liked her immediately.
But the biggest surprise of the artists for me was Aqua. Of course I knew them.. and I didn't think I would
like them very much. Well... on contrary, they got on stage radiating so much JOY and FUN... it was hard
not to like their songs.. their 'Funiculi Funicula' duet with Pavarotti & the childrens choir got stuck in my
head for days... not that I cared, lol, it reminded me of all the sunshine & fun we had in Modena! :)
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Jeannette
When George came on stage, it seemed like all the people there (there were a lot...I don't know
how they got in...quite a few of them were family of the childrens choir I guess) were approaching
the stage to see him.
Even the male singer of Aqua sat himself in the chairs in front of the stage, just before
George came on stage; he was more or less sitting next to us. I didn't see him after George
had performed, so I guess he sat down just to hear George rehearse.
I'm not sure whether George really liked it that there that much people present during
his rehearsals. I mean, he was rehearsing and there were a lot
of people there who saw him doing a not perfect performance there. Ofcourse a rehearsal is
never perfect, that's why it's called rehearsal and that's why the songs are done over and over
again. Not that we minded :D We got to hear his songs at least three times.
George looked great: he was dressed in black (what a surprise!) and was wearing some sort of a
black see-through shirt under his jacket.
It was so nice to see that Pavarotti was obviously happy to do a duet with George. All in all,
the rehearsal took about 30 minutes.
What a great day!
Kristine
The funny thing was to see Ludo, just out of the blue, walking up to us at the rehearsals! I remember I was saying to Paulette at one point what a shame that
Ludo is not here with us, after all the work she has done for us, organizing everything... We didn't know where she is and had she arrived... And there she was,
inside the stadium, all smiles, walking up to us... She said "Hey, I knew you are here!" I asked, "How in the world did you know we are here?" (cause she said she
hadn't been at the hotel yet, she went straight to the stadium, so in fact she didn't know for sure if we all had arrived at all). She said, "well... I know George is
most probably going to rehearse here and today. If you are not at one side of the stadium and you are not on the other side of the stadium, there's just one more
place where you can be - inside the stadium". Hmmmm... We are so easy to figure out, eh?... ;) ;) ;)
Bianca
Another big surprise of that day was seeing Ludo at the rehearsals! *Grin*.. we all were curious as to how
the hell she got in, knowing how tight security was, and how much trouble we had getting in ourselves, even
though our name was on the guestlist. Well, her 'getting in' story was a great one, as you can read on this
page. :) Anyway.. it was so nice because the whole gang was together again, waiting for George to do his
set.. it was after 7pm when our patience got rewarded and George Michael finally appeared on stage. Of
course most of us walked up to the stage to be as close as possible. It was great.. and it was like being in a
dream to be so close to the stage and see and hear him doing his rehearsal set. To me that definitely was
the highlight of the trip! Ohh... and so sweet, after he finished his set, the childrens choir asked him for a
pic with them, and he went standing in the middle of them.. allowing them to take many pics with him.
Ludo
Most of my friends had already arrived in Modena.
I drove all the way from Genova by myself and headed straight for the Novi Sad Park because I knew
that was the day when George would be rehearsing. I arrived at 3 pm, on a real hot day, and went to one
of the entrances of the park. Some security boys started wooing me and I must confess I tried to flatter
them as much as I could. In fact I wanted to get in. From where I was standing I could see the stage and
some lucky audience sitting in front of it. I could hear Skin from Skunk Anansie rehearsing and I kept
biting my lips trying to remain patient while I was shaking inside with wild desire to be let in.
Unfortunately my security friends didn’t seem to catch my drift, so I decided to move to the opposite
entrance, to see if I could get in from there. Nope! The security people there were even stricter than the
previous ones. Very sad and disappointed, I decided to give up, thinking to myself it had been a nice
dream, though it was over. Then I saw that the entrance of the park was located right in between 2
buildings that looked like some kind of university. So I took my chance and entered the building which
looked right onto the arena. I went upstairs and watched a bit of the rehearsals from the window.
Then I went downstairs and crossed a dark abandoned big room, which had a small door open to the park.
Workmen kept going in and out of the room, carrying tools and fixing things. At one point they stopped
coming in and I realised there was only one man left inside; he was turning his back on me and I thought
“It’s now or never”. So I bent down a little, passed thru the small door and slowly walked towards the
audience area. I was shaking and trembling with emotions and fear of being stopped and caught, but I
forced myself to walk with “nonchalance” and sat down on the first available seat. Whew, I was sweating!!!
When I finally recovered from the shock I spotted my friends, sitting a few rows ahead of me and then I
knew it was destiny’s will that had made us all meet there.
They had met a guy the night before the show, whom had let them in for rehearsals, and I - well, I had to
thank only my courage for giving me the strength to cheat that way. But, hey! It was all for George!
We watched George rehears the duet with Pavarotti and the solo track and we melted like ice when we
saw him so close to us! I was standing right beneath the stage and he was so charming, so gorgeous,
so attractive that I thought that I was the luckiest girl in the world. In my opinion THAT was THE show.
The real concert was nothing compared to that moment of happiness!
Jeannette
At the end of the afternoon, early evening, we thought the rehearsals had finished, but we stayed
for a while and later on that evening, the rehearsals continued. No George this time, but some
of the others did their songs once again.
We stayed until late and got our chance to say thanks to the Pavarotti man who gave us entrance
to the rehearsals.
Bianca
For a while I had been expecting George to
come back to rehearse some more, as 'Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me' didn't really go perfect and
being the perfectionist he is I thought he might give it another shot... but no such luck, oh well... we had a
great time anyway enjoying all the other artists and only left around midnight.. catching up with Jewel (who
had left earlier) and Stefan, wo had arrived that night. Time for more wine! :)
Jeannette
At that time we were starving. Most of us hadn't eaten all day. Meanwhile our group was enlarged
because of the presence of Ludo (who had her own amazing story of how to get into rehearsals) and
Jewel, whom we got in although she wasn't on "the list".
Outside of the park we met up with Stefan from Germany as well, who had been looking for us
all day, wondering where we were... :)
Kristine
We closed the day with altogether dinner. Remember,
we were in Italy? No food after Midnight. We managed to find a place that was still open and that was
willing to serve 13 people, but we got more wine than food, cause of course kitchen was already closed!
It was good to see so many of us together again. (Hopefully someone has some good pictures of that
dinner, cause I was SO out of film in my camera!)
Ludo
That night my friends and I went to dinner so late at night that some of them fell asleep on their chairs
(no names, of course), whereas Paulette, Nathalie, Bianca, Stefan and I kept drinking red wine and
talking nonsense. What a night! I also remember driving my small car packed with 6 people (one of
them nearly sick) and coming across Carabinieri (Police), who, fortunately enough, decided not to stop
us. Else I would have likely been in prison, by this time, charged with illegal driving!
Jeannette
We already experienced that is quite difficult to find something to eat that late at night the
day before, but we managed to get a table in a restaurant for 14 persons. Water, cheese, meat
and wine...again...
Some of us were very tired; Nicole, Jewel and Sonja were half asleep, others were too active,
like Bianca and Stefan ;-)
Herma
After that we went for drinks and food, which again was hard :). Everything had closed by then, we could just get some bread and some cold meat on it. Usually I get very grumpy
when I don't get fed on time, but hey, I am getting used to our crazy schedules it seems. And anyway who needs food after that??
Again we were back at the hotel late and not ready to sleep yet, more talk and too little sleep.
Jeannette
Jewel being the only one not staying in our hotel, left early. The rest of us - 13! - had to
find themselves a way back; note that busses didn't drive and we could have taken a taxi or
two, but as we had two cars (Herma's and Ludo's) the thirteen of us managed to get ourselves
into two cars. Don't ask!
