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.: A Meeting with Julian
by Catherine Stanton
I have been a Julian Lennon fan for over ten years now. I remember hearing
"Valotte" for the first time. I was on my way to school with
my dad and my brother, and it came on the radio. My dad remarked that
it sounded just like John Lennon. Sure enough, after the song went off
the air an announcer said that the artist was Julian Lennon, John Lennon's
son. At the ripe old age of 14 I didn't even know John Lennon had a son.
I didn't even know he had ever been married to anyone but Yoko Ono! For
me everything "Lennon" was either Beatles or post-Beatles music.
My father loved the stuff, but I wasn't exceptionally crazy about it.
Photo by Diane Randall
I really began on the road to Julian Lennon "fandom" when
I started watching music videos. He was adorable! I rushed out for every
magazine I could find in stereotypical teenage crush fashion, looking
for any picture I could get of Julian Lennon. I brought Valotte
on tape and listened to it until the tape practically warped. When CDs
became the rage, it was the first CD I actually purchased. My father really
enjoyed feeding my hobby of collecting Julian Lennon memorabilia. When
I was home sick with the flu and bronchitis, he brought home Stand
by Me, a video of Julian on tour. When The Secret Value of Daydreaming
came out, he called up some people he knew back from his days of working
at Capital Records and arranged to get me a set of advertising posters
they used in record stores. I was thrilled.
Then most unfortunately, Julian disappeared for a few years. He returned
with Mr. Jordan, his third album. By this time I had gotten over
my teenage crushes (or so I thought) and had taken down all of my posters.
(I had moved to a new house.) And I pretty much just listened to the albums
on an irregular basis. I had a summer job where I basically did nothing
but sit around in an empty office and answer the phone when it rang once
or twice a day. I read a lot of newspapers. While rifling through a particularly
unassuming issue of The Atlanta Journal, I turned to the events
section and found that Julian Lennon would be appearing in concert at
Chastain Park in only a few weeks! My first instinct was to pick up the
phone and excitedly call my dad. I had no idea how to get tickets to Chastain
Park, so I asked him if I could, and he did.
What I didn't realize was that once again he had managed to pull a few
of famous "dad" strings (whatever they were) and called in a
favor to get me backstage passes to actually MEET Julian Lennon. He didn't
tell me this until the day of the concert! When he did, I screamed. I
was thrilled beyond belief! In the weeks since I had heard about the concert,
Mr. Jordan had gotten all the air time on the stereo in my car;
it was practically all I listened to that summer while driving.
We arrived a Chastain Park a bit early for the concert. Julian had played
at Six Flags many years earlier, on the outskirts of Atlanta. Six Flags
had a very large outdoor concert stage. Chastain Park is completely different.
A very small venue, it has seating for only hundred of your closest friends
and fans, and it's very near the posh Atlanta suburbs. Going to a concert
at Chastain Park frequently meant packing up a picnic and eating at table
while watching the show. It's not a place for a really rowdy crowd.
My father and I went up to the doors to the backstage area and were
given our actual passes. (I still have mine to this day tucked away in
a photo album.) When we got in the first thing I saw was Julian standing
down on the other end of the hallway, comfortably chatting with people
around him. That was when I was rendered speechless, an affliction that
unfortunately stayed with me most of the time I was back there. It was
a most definite first!
Julian was tan, muscular, and much shorter than I thought he would
be! His hair was cut short, and he was wearing a black tank top with jeans
with boots. My dad gently pushed me over towards him, reminding me that
he was, after all, "just another person; he won't bite." I had
a completely silly grin and shook his hand. He seemed very soft spoken
and asked if I wanted him to sign anything. That's when I managed to eek
out something that remotely sounded affirmative and then realized that
I didn't have a thing for him to sign! My father, being much more intelligent
than I and having a slew more foresight, handed me his program bulletin
and whipped a pen out of his shirt pocket. Julian asked me my name, and
I said "Catherine," but it was apparently too loud to hear.
So I spoke up a bit and said "Just Cat," not wanting to have
to spell out Catherine. (Is that with a "c" or "k",
an "ine" or "yn"?. So Cat seemed easier.) He autographed
my program and posed for a picture with me that my dad took, and then
I moved over to the side to watch him talk to other people who had gotten
backstage passes. I was really just content with being this close to someone
whose music I had admired for so long. Just observing was a great deal
of fun. Eventually it got closer to the time for the concert to begin,
and everyone was shooed back offstage. When I got back to my seat I still
had a permanent grin plastered on my face and did for the remainder of
the evening.
The concert was wonderful and enjoyable. He did a lot of his older music
and a very good live rendition of "Mother Mary."
I was amazed at how speechless and quiet I was when I met him and kind
of disappointed at that as well. I had wanted to meet Julian for a long
time and figured when I did that I would have something witty or at least
coherent to say. And beyond that, here I was at the ripe old age of 18,
getting ready to graduate high school and go to college. Surely, I was
adult enough to be over these old crushes, but apparently I wasn't!
The rest of that summer I continued to wear out Mr. Jordan on
tape, and I went out and purchased another cassette and the CD as well.
Help Yourself came out a few years later while I was in college,
and I even still catch the occasional Julian Lennon vocals on songs like
Toy Matinee's "Turn It On Salvador," and "Things She Said."
All of my friends are official Lennon scouters, pointing me in the direction
of anything he's even remotely affiliated with so that I can continue
to get my Julian fix!
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.: A Totally Tubular Experience!
by Rachel Salit
On Saturday December 30, 1995 I was riding on The Tube (subway) in
London. My friend and I were out to go sight-seeing. Two men got in our
car. I did not pay much attention until my friend nudged me. There, sitting
on the other side of the car, was Julian Lennon.
I sat there staring, my mouth wide open, trying not to do anything stupid.
My friend sat there and laughed at me. He got off at our stop. As we were
going up the escalator my friend kept trying to grab his butt. After a
quick speech by me on not grabbing the butts of people you don't know,
she stopped. We stepped off the escalator. He went his way, and we went
ours.
I had seen Julian Lennon, the man I have had a crush on since I was
six years old. He was my first concert, concert t-shirt, and crush on
a star. It was the most memorable day of my life.
London's Underground
.: When My Daughter Met Julian
by Susan Ponder
In August 1999 Julian Lennon visited New Orleans during his tour. My
six year old Kailee, is an admirer of Julian and found out that he would
be at the House of Blues. On the day of the show I suggested that she
take her copy of "I'm a Little Teapot" in which Julian provided
the voice for the teapot. We arrived at the House of Blues and there was
quite a lot of activity outside the stage door. I asked one of the gentlemen
standing outside the door if they thought Julian would mind autographing
her copy of the film. They went back and checked with him after his sound
check. In approximately 5 minutes, Julian comes out of the stage door
along with a beautiful girl named Lucy. He autographed Kailee's video
and also chatted for a few minutes from everything about the video to
his mother's artwork. He also sang a few lines of "I'm a Little Teapot"
for Kailee, which absolutely made her day! We have lovely memories of
that day. Thanks, Julian!
Julian Lennon fan Kailee
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