Having an unusual taste in music brings you together with other people. Today it is, in fact, easier to find like-minded madmen than 20 years ago.
In the end of 2005 I was looking for information about the Genesis coverband Seconds Out; they were to play in our town. Nothing easier than that: Start up the laptop, google the band and read independent reports from the extensive it online forum. At that time I had been in a long-term relationship with a jazz fan and wrote (when my university courses allowed it) reports about art events in the local press. I had not updated knowledge in prog rock for years, and my only Genesis ally was a school friend. I was curious about hearing the old Genesis songs live (born in 1979, I was obviously too young to have heard those Gabriel songs live on tour) and I was not disappointed at the show. On the contrary – I was totally euphoric!
I stayed in the online forum, for there was so much to learn about the favourite band I had lost track of. Surfing the forum is like a virtual meeting of a minority that is spread all over Germany, and there even were some English entries. I read personyl entries of fans, followed their lives, as it were, exchanged chat software addresses and made friends with people I had never met before, amongst them two students who were eight years younger than myself and called themselves Zaebba and Jack Sparrow.
I still have a copy of the first chats; in fact, my first written conversation with Jack Sparrow extended for two hours and went long into the night:
One day he wrote that he was going to visit an aunt who lived nearby and asked whether we would like to meet up. Of course I would! That was the opportunity to watch my old video cassettes of Genesis documentaries that I had arduously recorded or swapped with a like-minded person. So we did – and we hit it off perfectly. My boyfriend was abroad for an internship. After that it was a rollercoaster of emotions. In the end I split up with my boyfriend and the big happiness of Jazzeke and Jack Sparrow was ready to begin.
A year later we were in the stadium together to see the band who were indirectly responsible for bringing us together: Genesis! It was a dream come true. We also met other members of the fanclub. Christian and many others we had previously met at the fanclub event 2006 in Welkers. At the Musical Box shows (these guys play in a different league than Seconds Out) we always meet the same fans from the online forum, and they actually drop us a note before. Other encounters with Genesis aficionados from it are more random, e.g. at Yes or Porcupine Tree shows.
„How did you get to know each other?“, is the classic question for a couple. We could say, on the internet. It would be more correct to answer, in the Genesis fanclub. Listening to music and going to concerts is still our common hobby. We could not imagine having completely opposite tastes in music. In the meantime we have moved in with each other and are thinking about our wedding. When that takes place there has to be music by Genesis and a deputation from the fanclub.
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