Started at noon, Duane Steele opened and played for an hour, was great. They played vid's and changed the stage from 1-2 and then Shania came out at 2pm to a huge ovation. Ther was a presentation of awards to Shania, and awards from Shania to the pres of mercury polydor Canada {i think} for a diamond award for 1 million sold in Canada.
While Shania was thanking fans and others, some people started chanting "sing!" over & over. Very soon after Shania responded with a funny "What excatly would you like me to sing without music?" After further chants, Shania gave in and suggested "No One Needs To Know" and then broke into a beautifull accapella version of it, and hitting the high notes so easily. I saw the footage taken of it, and the tv sound gave absolutley no justice to her, as per being there.
16,000 people attended Shania Fan Appreciation day, and only 250 were
gauranteed autographs with an first-come first-serve wrist band system. Talking
to the Backstage Pass employee, I learned that when he came to set-up, the line
was full already. He came to set-up at 8:00am! So I of course did not get an
autograph, as the drive to toronto was about 3 1/2
hours, we got there
about 10:30, with absolutely No chance of an autograph. Later it was announced
that Shania will try to stay a little longer, so they went through the line and
randomly gave aout about 50 more wristbands, still no luck. The limitations of
autographs were because of her appearnce at Bill Clinton's birthday party the
next day! She stayed as long as she could.
My friends dad {who so kindly drove us, thank you SO MUCH!} was wandering around the CNE grounds while we awaited Shania, and came back just in time to see here arive in the back/right of the bandshell. He saw her get out of a New-yorker like limo, with a black top and chrome strip on the side. She then went over to a group of physically challenged fans and spent time with them, very nice I think. He then actually got to see her come out on stage, as my friend and I were siting on the benchs, near front, and when she came out absolutely everyone stood on the bench's to see. Needless to say, my 5'2" body was at a SERIOUS disadvantage! He didn't have this problem. Eventualy it calmed down, especially when she started atographs. I accidentally got many shoulder and head shots of fans with my dads camera. We then squeezed up to the front, and got to stand on the first bench! This is when the pics started getting good.
All I can say is that absolutely NO pics, videos or anything do her justice, she is just so beautifull in person! Dad's camera has never seen better days I tell ya. I also tried to squeeze into the herd of people right in front of the stage, not the best idea, as I told you earlier about my height : ) I did get a couple of good pictures though.
Down in the herd : ) I was standing beside a guy who kept calling "Eileen" Shania's given name. He said that he had dated her earlier in school, high-school or colledge I dont remember. Shania did have a few glances over to us, I'm guessing at him, with a funny look on her face. Was he telling the truth, and Shania recognized him? That was neat though.
Now is the time to thank Brad, my good friend who "enhanced" my life by getting his dad to brive us to Toronto, and by noticing a very short line, and arguing enough to get me to join it. I thought it was the origional line for autographs, well it turned out to be the picture line they set-up to allow a group of people at a time to go right in front of the stage, between it and the barrier that held the "herd". The line got very long soon after we joined it, great timing. This brought you about 5-10 feet away from Shania as she signed autographs. Even though you are a level lower than Shania, you get great pictures, hopefully the scanner worked well and you can see this well enough. If I didn't have to manually focus, most of the pics would have been awesome. Some did get out of focus. We had maybe a minute or two to take pics until the large and "friendly" security dudes kindly ushered us out : ) no, they were good about it, and no-one was being an idiot, it was a very smooth event.
There was a break for Shania, so we did also, got drinks and shade,
you should
have seen me the next day, can you say lobster! Shania came back and did a
question period, where guys walked around with mic's and picked people to ask
Shania a question. Many were normal questions, and also a little girl just said
that it was her birthday the day before, and said happy birthday to Shania for
her upcomind birthday. Shania said thank you and asked if she could sing the
little girl "Happy Birthday". Well she did and I can tell you, she
absolutely destroys Marilyn Monroe in singing happy birthday. It was
beautifull! One of the other questions was weird, it started off by saying he
was ojibway and I thought it would be more trash talking about whether Shania
is actually ojibway, but it turned out to just be asking whether she will be
using the ojibway type of music or image in her new song/video's. She responded
by saying her dad told her not to use that side for entertainment purposes.
We decide to leave later, we were really tired, lack of sleep the last night, and were burnt good. Now the eerie part, on the way to our hotel after dinner, we caught up to a New-Yorker limo, with a black top, and a chrome strip on the side turning off the 401 toward the airport! The time was perfect, Shania was to be there from 2-6 maybe, and it was about 6:15pm when we saw this limo, very possible Shania on her way to the US to prepare for next days Pres Clinton's party! Excact same limo my friends dad saw her get out of! What a great ending to a great day!
Pictures are my own, if used on your page, please link back to here. Thanx very much to Awesome Inc and Mrs Huyck for the scanning of the pics, even though Netscape doesn't display these to well, they still look great, especialy in real viewers!
Updated 10/10/96
