A Missed Opportunity

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In 1996 I went to a Party in the Park festival with some of my friends. At the tender age of 15 I was generally a stadium rock and Brit Pop enthusiast and had started to go to concerts – my first being Bon Jovi, supported by Van Halen and Thunder at Cardiff Arms Park for the These Day’s tour in 1995, followed by Blur at the GMEX. Despite my general rock persuasions, I also had a perhaps stereotypical penchant for boy bands and teen-focused male singers. Take That tickets had always been impossible to get and they were on the verge of splitting up, so when I saw that Peter Andre would be performing I jumped at the chance to see him. 

I remember it being a beautiful day, and I was looking forward to singing along to Mysterious Girl and screaming about how gorgeous he was. Unfortunately, when we arrived there was an announcement that he wouldn’t be attending that day as he was ill, along with a voice message from him apologising to fans. I was gutted. 

As part of the concert we saw a performance from a girl band that were hotly tipped to be the next big thing, and they performed the single that they said they would be releasing soon. At the end we were handed flyers with their image on and were asked if we wanted to go and get autographs at the side of the stage. I went along and awkwardly said hello to all five of them, but didn’t bother getting their autographs because I didn’t think we would hear anything from them again. 

The group was the Spice Girls and the song they had just performed was ‘Wannabe.’ 

The Spice Girls.

Urgh. 

I had missed out on the opportunity to get ALL FIVE autographs from one of the biggest girl groups of all time. You can imagine my expression when Wannabe was released later the next year.

I found an old newspaper article about this recently…

At least I can say that I have seen them perform in concert, I suppose.

Incidentally, I did get to see Take That in 2006 when they reformed at Milton Keynes. My boyfriend at the time got us tickets as a surprise, and even though he wasn’t the world’s biggest fan, he let out a bit of a shout when Million Love Songs was performed. It turned out that his saxophone teacher (we both studied music at the same Conservatoire) was the guy who came out on stage to do the sax solo for Million Love Songs, and he didn’t know. 

Again, urgh. 

I’ve still haven’t met Peter Andre though.

What about you guys? Have you missed out on something that could have been big, or have you seen someone in the early stages of their career who is now incredibly famous?

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29 thoughts on “A Missed Opportunity”

  2. Hi Suzie! It’s a hindsight thing, isn’t it? The one time that happened to me was in an airport in Vancouver, British Columbia. I was traveling back from Hawaii and had a stop-over in Vancouver. As I walked about a guy was walking towards me and looked right at me. I gave a slight smile and kept walking. Then I realized it was Bryan Adams! He was alone and I turned around, hesitating as to whether or not I should go up to him. And I didn’t. Bryan Adams is from British Columbia, (maybe a visit home)? *biggest sigh* Cher xo

  3. Lady Gaga stayed at the hotel back in the beginning of her journey to super stardom while performing at a club across the street at the casino.
    No one thought anything of it until much later.

  4. I saw Van Halen in the 80’s in Detroit. Got drunk! Michael Anthony tossed his sweat towel to the crowd, a guy and gal grabbed it. Guy raises fist, girl let’s go. Yep… sorry you missed those opportunities Suzie. 😮

  5. Yes, but not exactly a music venue. I was invited to attend a recent (years, not months) US Marine Corps Birthday celebration at a hotel in San Francisco by the guest speaker, a retired four-star Marine Corps General and decided not to go because I don’t do well in crowds (something I go out of my way to avoid). When I declined the invite and explained why in an e-mail General John Allen replied and said he understood because he also had PTSD and hated crowds.

  6. I worked at the E! cable network here in the US and was lucky enough to get pics and hang out with some big stars – but it didn’t occur to me to get anything with this young female single group, Destiny’s Child, since I didn’t know any of them in advance. And I got a picture with N’Sync once, but not a solo with you-know-who…oh well!

  7. I think we all have experienced moments like this, I’m sure. But at least you can say you actually saw/met them before they were big! That’s pretty cool too.

  8. Years ago, back when we still bought music in stores, the cashier was handing out cds from a new artist. I listened once, wasn’t impressed, and gave it to a friend who liked jazz.
    The new artist?
    Michael Bublé 🙂

  9. In 1975-6 I used to go, most Saturday nights, to a seedy old venue called The County Rock, in Northampton. There I saw people like AC/DC and Judas Priest when they were up and coming. We used to go to the pub nearby and look in the paper to see who was on that night. One night, in autumn 1976, we saw that a band called the Sex Pistols were one. None of us bothered to go, because it was ‘that weird punk rock stuff’.

    Oh how I wish I could boast that I was one of those who saw the Sex Pistols when they were up and coming, too! The Spice Girls, however, I am fortunate to have missed 😉

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