Meeting the Manics - who's "done it"?

[LadyWoodbee]

My apologies if there already exists a thread with the same topic, I only looked back a couple of pages and didn't see one.

So as I'm new here, I was wondering how many and who of you have met the band, how and why and where. By "met" I mean a bit more than a random encounter in the streets, or the usual "could you sign this please, thanks". What I'm interested in are situations when you actually talked to them for quite a while, whether in a professional or a more private environment doesn't matter.

The reason why I'm asking this: during the last ten years or so, there have been numerous occasions where I could have met the band (or parts of it) through friends or acquaintances who work in "the business" (musicians, journalists, roadies, managers, people like that). Most of them know how much the band means to me, so they tried to convince me to tag along to meet them, but I chickened out each time. I'm too scared of being disappointed, I suppose, because almost every time I met one of my "heroes" it was a let-down and quite disillusioning, so there are bands/artists I can't really listen to anymore because of that. I wouldn't want that to happen with the Manics.

Now a friend of mine, who works as a journalist, has been asked do a feature or something on the Manics after the release of Futurology (probably on their next tour), and that friend wants me to come along and come up with a couple of good questions. I haven't really decided yet whether to do it or not.

On the one hand I'm thinking this will probably be the only opportunity for me to meet them in a situation which isn't all "hysterical, drooling fan girl hyperventilates because JDB is standing in front of her"; I could sort of hide behind a "professional facade" or something. On the other hand, it's this requirement to act professionally which kind of puts me off - there's a good chance I'd be too nervous to ask anything even remotely intelligent or to act coherently, which would be extremely embarrassing and also a bit of a problem for my friend.

Also, I can't seem to come up with any really good questions which haven't been asked before. My friend tells me it doesn't matter if the questions seem a bit too obvious or old to me, as I'm a "Manics nerd", but most people who'd watch the programme wouldn't know much about the band in the first place. I'm aware of that, of course, but that wouldn't keep me from feeling stupid asking those questions, particularly with that frown James seems to have on his face in interviews all the time - so hard to read!

Sooo.... Does anyone have anything interesting to tell? Have you met them? Were you nervous, were they nice? What would you do in my place? Say yes or no? What would you ask them?