| Fan Story - Marieke Vink | |
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| Author: | Marieke Vink |
| Date: | |
| Source: | |
| E-mail: | m.vink@wxs.nl |
| Website: | |
Hi everybody I am 23 and I am from Holland. I think the prize for 'Weirdest intro to Mary Black' must go to me. It involves a broken CD, a near-death experience, an apple pie and a concert without my parents. No idea just yet? Let me explain. One day I was cycling along Holland's beautiful cycletracks in a big city called Hilversum. Cycletracks are put there to make sure cars don't kill you when you go to work (I can hear you all in America and Australia. All jealous of this wonderful thing!!) Anyway, I am a music freak and I think I know the name of every woman who sings! So I was cycling along and I spotted A CD on the road. It was broken. But I always take a look at CD's on the street (So many of them around he!) Whilst trying to pick the thing off the street, a moped nearly ran me over but i didn't stop in my attempts to see what was out there. It was a CD-single of "Babes in the wood". I had heard the name Mary Black vaguely as part of my "If it's a woman, I know her name" -hobby but I had never heard her sing. Obviously, my CD player wouldn't eat the busted CD. A week or so later, I was making apple pie on a Saturday. Two blocks from my house are some studios where every Saturday afternoon, a radioshow called Leidsekade Live was recorded. Singers, bands and other people came to perform live in front of an audience. Free entrance so I used to go every single Saturday because I like to see music being performed live. That week I was late because I was waiting for my pie to be finished. So when it finally was, I rushed down to the studios. When I got there, there was a woman singing Babes in the wood. I couldn't remember where I had seen or heard that title before but I really LOVED the singer (Great voice, great looks) After that song (unfortunately the last of the set. Bloody apple pie!!) I walked up to Mary and told her I loved the sound of her voice and that I missed the rest because of the pie in the oven. She thought that was really funny and invited me to her show that evening. I told her I had no ticket. A guy standing next to me immideately offered me his spare ticket. I went to Utrecht that night and was sold forever. It must have been one of the first shows Mary did in Holland (I think it was 1992) because there were a lot of people of say 40+. (These days, she has a much wider audience than the Easy-listening fans because Celtic is Fashionable) I was the youngest ( 17 at the time) and a nice lady asked me if I was with my parents because I was so young to like Mary's music!!!! Anyway, since then, I have been to all of her concerts in Holland. I met her once in Holland and Frank Gallagher told me that if ever I was around when she was playing, I could get in free. So when I was in Dublin last year, Mary did 5 shows and I went to see 3 of them. Brilliant to see her perform in her native Ireland!!!! I met her afterwards and she was really surprised that I would come all the way from Holland to see her 3 times in 5 days. (I would have done 5 in 5 if I had had the guts to ask free tickets 5 times!!!) My friends love her too although some of them have complained about their birthday present: They all get a Mary Black CD from me:o) A different one every time obviously. So, this is my little weird story. Through Mary I learned to love Dolores Keane, Nancy Griffith, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Frances Black, Eleanor McEvoy, Sinead Lohan and many more of the likes. I study journalism and I hope to move to Australia in October (Not a smart move because she hardly ever plays Down Under. She does this May and she will be in Holland again in 2000 but then I won't be here anymore.) Hope this will do love Marieke