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Web pulls hard-core Stones fans together
Thursday, March 11, 1999 Gene Collier, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- This bar, the Bottom Line, is generally closed on Sundays, but for this private Glimmer Party, it's open at 3:30 in the afternoon.
The Guinness flows, the DJ plays only the Rolling Stones, including some bootleg tapes, and among the clientele, everyone feels as though everyone knows his name, or at least his screen name. It's what happens when the Internet magnetizes Rolling Stones fans during a tour. It's almost enough to make you think the whole computer age is worth it.
"We get together in almost each tour city and host these Glimmer Gatherings in which we take over a bar for a pre-show party," Jill Barry says over a Corona at a back table. "We meet people who we've been talking to on the Internet but have never seen. We have people fly in from France, England, Japan; it's the biggest group of diehards you'll ever meet."
This slice of cyberspace society is based in the Web site they call undercover (www.netaxs.com/~rzepelaa/undercover), but Web sites devoted to the Rolling Stones number in the dozens. One is devoted exclusively to Keith Richards. None of it is terribly unlikely. The Stones, after all, were the first major rock act to broadcast live on the Internet.
"Through the wonderful world of computers, I've met so many people I have so much in common with," said Don Lancaster of Annapolis. "I started chatting with a guy from Philadelphia, who told me about another guy who's practically my neighbor. It's rewarding to be with people who feel the way you do about something. You feel comfortable. You feel welcome.
"They've taught me so much about the band. I've been to Toronto and Detroit for shows, and this week, two in Washington, one in Pittsburgh, two in Philadelphia."
Yeah, they're serious.
Next week, there's a 65-car caravan from Shirley Birenz's house in New Jersey to the Philly shows.
"It's like a universal attitude," Barry said. "The people you meet, they could be 16 or 60. In my office [she's in charge of Game Day operations at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium], I polled my co-workers about whether I should go to Toronto to meet this guy I'd never met except online. He had an extra ticket. It's exactly what you're not supposed to do with the Internet. In my office, the opinion was overwhelming: Go!
"It was great. Everything was fine. He was a perfect gentleman."
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