For those who don’t know, the header comes from “Love to be Loved”. And if you didn’t know that, shame on you!
My fellow Solsburians…
Eleven years ago, I went online for the first time and the first thing I did was try to find Peter Gabriel fan sites and newsgroups. Once I saw how fun and informative Gabeweb was, I decided to join in with my own fansite, Solsbury Hill.
To my surprise, it became somewhat popular, and over time, the site became my passion. This "hobby" of mine allowed me to meet some of the coolest people and do the most fun things.
I met up with this great family from Chicago and we spent a few days at the Grand Floridian and we held our own private Solsburian Convention at Disney World. I met a PG fan from the Netherlands…and we wound up vacationing together in each other’s countries. When PG went on tour, I went to three concerts in three cities. I had three groups of people who had never met me before let me stay at their houses so I can see these shows. One woman from New York let me crash with her to see a show, and later on, we saw three of PG’s summer tour shows together. And my favorite story of Solsburian comraderie, when I found out that PG was holding a press conference in New York and I snagged and invitation, I made a last minute plea to some New York fans for a place to stay so I could go, and someone who I barely knew came through for me, allowing me to have a special Gabriel Golden Moment.
And that’s just the live, in person stuff. There were also late night fan chats, early morning fan chats, and marathon-length e-mail exchanges. I received tons of rare and unusual PG recordings, articles and pictures, mostly from a really awesome Italian contact who wanted to share these gems. I talked some fans into dragging around a plush kitty around the UK for a few PG shows, and they annexed the actual Solsbury Hill in this site’s honor.
I had a lot of PG fans give me inspiration and feedback, and I even had occasional and interesting contact with some of Gabriel’s webteam. (For the curious, you can some of those stories here.) The Hill even got recognized by Peter Gabriel himself on occasion when a fan asked him about it in an online chat. I also got to stump Gabriel with a question about his cd rom called Eve during an online press conference Q&A. You bet I was walking on sunshine for a month…
I’ve had lots of help with the forums in the form of volunteer moderators and administrators, as well as frequent posting Solsburians who help answer PG related question and just make the forum interesting and entertaining to read.
All in all, this website has been a very fun, rewarding creative outlet for me.
However, over the years, I’ve gradually lost interest in writing for the site. Why? I’m really not sure. After experiencing all of the above, I feel guilty about the fact that my heart is no longer in it. I still love Peter Gabriel and his music, and I still have interest in the Gabeweb community. But while gabrielized has always done a great job at keeping up with blog posts, I feel that my lack of participation as the site owner is letting the Hill grow stagnant, and I don’t want that to happen. So I chose to hand solsburyhill.org to someone else in the hope that it will breathe new life into the Hill.
In the first years of solsburyhill.org, I’d get a lot of people writing me with the question, "What does the song ‘Solsbury Hill’ mean? What’s it about?" I admit, I’d get a little annoyed when I got asked this, because I knew what people were *really* asking: What does Peter Gabriel say that the song means?
The answer: It means whatever you think it means. If PG wanted everyone to parrot his thoughts, he wouldn’t write songs the way he does.
I now admit that Gabriel did say something about the song that seems particularly relevant right now. He said something along the lines of that “Solsbury Hill” is about letting go of who you are for what you might become. I don’t know if I’ll ever become anything other than what I am now because of this, but hey, I gotta take that chance.
I thought about thanking everyone by name, but that would be too many names, and this post would read like a telephone directory. But I’d really like to thank Ralf, for without him, this site would’ve died completely a long time ago, gabrielized, for being the number one writer for the blog, and my moderators, StacieDee and mrsratbag. And thanks to all of those who have participated in the Hill over the years. You know who you are.
I also wish the site’s new webmaster, Jakks, the best of luck in running the site. If anyone would like to help out in anyway, especially in writing for the blog, just send him a note and he’ll get back to ya.
So, I’m signing off! Live long and prosper!
You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home…
Gabrielfully yours,
Mac Cat, Director of Coffee
