The Gatherers
Friday 25 January at 7.30pm
National Radio 101FM
or listen live online at www.radionz.co.nz

You can also grab the podcast from the Radio New Zealand website at radionz.co.nz/popular/music/talk – search on “G”.

Yaay!

We’ve got video from The Gathering 97/98, The Gathering G2000 and The Gathering G2 – and mighty fine it looks too. Thanks a million to Iain for making such high-quality copies for me to put on Google Video.

I suppose my personal favourite is the G2000 Havoc! “shopping trolley” interview, where Mikey and Newsboy took me up to the Domain, put me in a shopping trolley, and wheeled me around for a couple of hours while we chatted about everything Gathering. I could not believe how many people saw that show, and for months (even years) afterwards, if I ever mentioned it, people would go “Oh my God! Was that you??? I remember that episode so well!”

I still don’t quite know how that all happened. I know I wanted to do the interview outdoors, somewhere nice and nature-ish, which is why I suggested the Domain. And I remember Newsboy already had this shopping trolley idea – although I have no clue why – and he was really, really keen on it… so we compromised and did both. As you do. The only tricky thing was that the bumps on the ground as I was wheeled over the grass tended to make my voice go all jigglyjoggly – you can hear it if you listen carefully.

That was such a fun afternoon! Mikey and Jeremy are really really nice guys – I always enjoyed doing Havoc! interviews – and that particular afternoon I reckon we were all really on form.

I seem to remember one or two of the Gathering crew not being particularly happy with that interview – I think they thought it was too silly, or not respectful enough – but I like it. It turned out to be the most memorable interview we ever did – and I think it’s a Very Good Thing to be able to laugh at yourself once in a while…

Enjoy!

I’ve also updated The Gathering documentary 97/98 page with new links to previews and reviews in the media.

There’s also a scan of the G2 flyer in the G2 Gathering artwork section. Thanks to Ritche Nelson aka DJ Domino for sending the scans to me. I’m still looking for any other artwork for that year – were there stickers,  a poster, or a booklet for that year? Do you have them?

Here’s how to send us stuff if you have anything that can fill gaps in the website.

Thanks heaps.

I’ve also added some of Ritche’s photos to the site – you can find them here (G2000) and here (G1). Enjoy.

If someone – anyone – has any big, dramatic photos of G2, I’d love to see them – as Dave Isdale kindly pointed out that the photo I have on the front page of the website for G2 is actually G1 – oops! I’ll take it down as soon as I find one to replace it…

Other new stuff on the site – the Trance, Hardcore, House and Ambient timetables for G2 are half-complete (thanks to Ritche sending me a scan of The Package from G2) – I need cities and DJ/live info for these zones (for all zones actually) if anyone can help.

Still working on the additional media coverage I’ve unearthed – I truly had no idea there was so much… maybe all done by the end of the weekend… and then I have to put together the  scans of The Package from G2, and put the flyer up and and and…

Fantastic! Keep it coming, folks!

Actually one of the funnest things (as well as the satisfaction of building up our archival collection of media coverage) was checking out the newspaper headlines that we’ve gathered along the way.

The first category, of course, is the many puns and the re-using of the words “gather”, “gathered” “gathering”, “gatherer” and all variations thereof – newspaper editors really love their word-play, don’t they?

The first pun appeared in an article about The Gathering 96/97 – Gathering entrances good-natured crowd (entrances/trance – geddit?). For The Gathering 97/98 the Nelson Mail wrote an editorial entitled Gather here again, please. About The Gathering 98/99 we had Ticket sales gathering momentum, Gather again, and Gathering forces. G2000 saw Start gathering friends, and Gathering momentum. G1 included Gathering momentum (again! They sure liked that one!), Shall we gather by the river?, Gathering their wits after three days of raving, Gathering boss needs to gather funds, and Gathering Debt$ by the truckload (ouch!). And for G2 we had Gathering all dance fans, and Gather round one and all. Phew!

I was thinking that it would often be possible to identify which of the six Gatherings was being referenced, just by the headline.

The Gathering 96/97 would be the trickiest, as we only had a small amount of coverage that first year. My favourite would probably be Police praise party-goers – just because it’s a rather unexpected news story, and because it was the first of many times that the peaceful nature of The Gathering was remarked upon and praised by “the grown-ups”.

My favourite headline of The Gathering 97/98 is Huge crowds jam road to Gathering, with a special mention to Gather here again, please – the first because it succinctly describes both the growing popularity of the event and the pain-in-the-ass that was the road and the traffic queues – and the second because it exemplifies the huge amount of support we received from those living in the Nelson/Golden Bay area, especially in the early years.

The Gathering 98/99 is probably best represented by the full-colour full-page feature articles in the Nelson Mail, the Christchurch Press and the New Zealand Herald – At The Gathering, Dance ’til you drop – and more, and Club Takaka. Cool!

G2000 was all about the drama, I suppose. Being listed in Mixmag’s The 100 best parties on the planet was pretty exciting. More exciting to the media, though, were stories such as Hundreds of fake tickets to Gathering in circulation and Attack rumours probed. And after the party it was all Gathering revellers evacuated, Headmaster hailed as hero, and Evacuation ends dance festival. I guess the Christchurch Press feature article headline Rhythm of the rain pretty much sums up G2000.

In the run-up to G1 we got Valley site for this year’s Gathering (and variations thereof), then Cheaper rival to Gathering party (and variations thereof), and then afterwards we had Man evicted as his girlfriend ‘freaks out’ (and variations thereof), Drug abuse widespread – Gathering survey suggests 93pc indulged and Ecstasy most popular drug at Gathering (and many variations thereof) followed by Survey of Gathering drug use doubtful – organiser (and variations thereof) followed by The Gathering faces crippling debt crisis (and variations thereof). Doh!

G2 began with Dance party gets green light despite being in red and Digweed drops in, moved through Partygoers have drugs tested, and Competition grows for Gathering dance party, and ended with Gathering future in doubt, Gathering in strife, Gathering faces oblivion – and finally – Goodbye to the Gathering. *sigh*

Rather than ending on that sad note, I’ll give you my all-time favourite newspaper headline – from the Nelson Mail in an article written by one of their journalists who made the pilgrimage to The Gathering for the first time for G2 – Summer of my disco-tent – which all of you fans of Shakespeare will recognise as a play on the first words of the first soliloquy in Richard III:

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York

Clever… very clever!

All these news articles – and many, many more – will be available for your viewing pleasure as part of the new Gathering archives website which is nearly nearly ready to go online. Only a few more days now, I promise!