RATHER THAN SIGNINGS, it is the afternoon performance – the matinee – that is the bane of a road crew’s life. If you are on tour doing the theatres and you suddenly find there’s a matinee going on – the crew hate it. We always ask promoters not to book us into theatres where there is a matinee scheduled, but inevitably – either through oversight or deliberately! – we always end up with some clashes.
Take Canterbury and Postman Pat. It was the early 1980s and we were due to play a show in the Marlowe Theatre. I was at a service station on the A2 heading down to the gig with my singer Ashley Holt. We were in plenty of time so we’d stopped for a sandwich when my phone rang. This was in the early days of mobile phones so there was nothing slimline about this model – it was literally the size of a brick with a military-sized antenna. I think the battery life was about eight minutes. Hardly anyone had a mobile at the time so the entire cafe in the service station was looking at me and listening in.
‘Rick, it’s Doom.’ (Doom was my keyboard tech and studio engineer at the time.)
‘Listen Rick. We got a problem.’
This in itself was not unexpected. Let me tell you about Doom. His actual name is Stuart Sawney. He is a lovely guy, really hard-working and excellent at his job but he became known as Doom because his favourite expression is, ‘It’s all gone horribly wrong!’ If you said, ‘Isn’t this a gorgeous day, look at the sun shining and the blue sky,’ he’d go, ‘Yeah, but it’ll probably rain tomorrow.’ So he is universally known as Doom.
Back at the A2 service station.
‘Hello, Doom. What seems to be the problem?’
‘I’m not happy, Rick, not happy at all.’
‘Really? You do surprise me. Why’s that, Doom?’
‘I’m not happy, Big Ian isn’t happy either (Big Ian – Ian Barfoot – was, and still is, my out-front house engineer). Rick, none of us are happy.’
‘Okay, Doom, I get that you’re not happy. Perhaps you could tell me why?’
‘It’s Postman Pat, Rick.’
‘Right. Perhaps you should start at the beginning . . .’
Doom proceeded to explain to me in his most miserable tone how the crew had arrived at the theatre in the early afternoon only to find there was a matinee show by Postman Pat. Worse still, Postman Pat’s gear was all over the backstage area, there was more stuff in the loading bay and the clock was running.
‘There’s a bright red van on stage and everything, Rick . . .’ said Doom.
‘And a black and white cat?’
‘Yes, Rick, how did you know?’
‘Never mind, Doom. Listen, I’m sure you can work something out between you.’
‘I don’t think so, Rick. Postman Pat has told the theatre he won’t be coming off stage until five o’clock at the earliest. That’s far too late for us to get loaded in and set up.’
‘Okay, but why don’t you reverse up to the loading bay and start getting the gear in somewhere backstage while Postman Pat’s finishing off?’
‘Can’t do that, Rick, Postman Pat’s bloody great lorry is in the loading bay and they won’t move it.’
‘All right, let me speak to Postman Pat.’
‘He’s not here, Rick. They said he’s gone over to the hotel, the same one we’re staying at.’
‘Well, why don’t you go and find Postman Pat and ask him if he could kindly arrange for his stuff to be moved a little earlier so we can start loading?’
‘I’ve done that already Rick.’
‘And?’
‘Postman Pat was asleep in his room and had left strict instructions he wasn’t to be disturbed.’
‘Well, somebody must be around.’
‘Yes, Rick. Jess the black and white cat.’
‘Okay, so did you ask Jess the Cat if he could kindly organise to have their lorry moved?’
‘I did, yes, Rick.’
‘And what did he say, Doom?’
‘He told me to fuck off.’
I have to admit, I was falling about laughing. God knows what the people at the service station were thinking, hearing half a conversation about Postman Pat, Jess the Cat and some bloke called Doom.
Doom somehow got round the problem and the show went brilliantly. I actually felt sorry for Doom because the whole Postman Pat incident had really stressed him out and he’d done rather well getting it sorted. I took him to one side after the show and said, ‘Listen, Doom, you’ve done very well, superb, that was a mess and you sorted it. You managed to talk some sense into Jess the black and white cat and the show was fantastic. I take my hat off to you.’
With a wicked glint in his eye, Doom said, ‘Thanks, Rick. I’d love to be backstage for Postman Pat’s next matinee, though!’
‘Why? What have you done?’
‘Well, let’s just say that Postman Pat’s bright red van might smell for a few weeks. The dressing rooms were locked all afternoon and we couldn’t get in them to use the toilets.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘Might have done.’
‘Oh God . . . you wee’d in Postman Pat’s van.’
‘You’ll never know but it could have been worse. Big Ian had a curry at lunchtime and only just managed to contain himself.’
Fast-forward to the opening night of my Classical Connection Tour a few years later. I was due to play in Yeovil at the Octagon Theatre but I was running early so I arranged to play a game of golf with a friend before going to the venue. By the time I got to the sound check, it was Big Ian’s turn to square up to a favourite children’s character.
‘I’m not happy, Rick. Doom’s not happy, none of us are, Rick.’
‘Why, Ian? What’s up?’
‘Ever heard of Fireman Sam, Rick?’
‘What?’
‘There’s a matinee, Rick. Fireman Sam. It’s full of kids, we can’t get anywhere near the stage. Worse still, there’s only one big dressing room so you’re in there with Fireman Sam.’
It turned out that Fireman Sam and his various friends were all actually frustrated Shakespearian thespians.
We decided to make the most of a tricky situation. We couldn’t set up our gear until they’d finished, but truth is, we didn’t have much for this particular show and so we decided to make the best of a bad job and booked seats for Fireman Sam’s matinee performance. We even bought ill-fitting yellow plastic Fireman Sam hats for a quid each (they were actually made for four-to-six-year-olds and so they perched rather precariously on the top of our heads). Six grown men in bright yellow plastic fireman’s helmets then took their seats amongst all the mums and very excited kids, most of whom were also wearing yellow plastic helmets.
It was hilarious. The would-be thespians weren’t sure if they were at Stratford or Yeovil, if the truth be known. There seemed to be a lot of, ‘Alas, poor Yorick, pass me the fire hose’ going on and we were in stitches. Fireman Sam was more akin to Fireman Hamlet than to any kids’ character. Every now and then among the ‘Quick! There’s a fire on Pontypandy Mountain!’ you’d hear a little snippet that sounded like Henry V or King Lear. The kids were completely bewildered but didn’t seem to mind. They cheered Fireman Sam’s every movement and hung on to every sentence, even though none of us understood a bloody word.
At various points, one of the props would explode with a few firecrackers and the crowd would gasp, Fireman Sam/Hamlet would rush to the rescue and save the day, then every kid would clap frantically as if he had actually saved the theatre from burning down. However, towards the end of the show one of the pyrotechnics wouldn’t go out and the box it was in actually caught fire. The flames were only about six inches high but Fireman Sam/Hamlet shat himself! He was leaping around the stage shouting, ‘Fire! Fire!’ but everyone just thought it was part of the show. We were crying from laughter. Eventually, while Sam was dancing round like some sort of deranged elf, a theatre attendant came on with a tiny fire extinguisher and put out the flames in about two seconds. The kids were totally bemused now, they could see this fire but didn’t understand why Sam wasn’t putting it out. Quite a few were devastated, and more than one shed a few tears.
Then about a minute later, the sound of sirens was heard in the street outside and a real-life fireman stormed on to the stage and sprayed even more foam at the small amount of wispy smoke still coming out of the stage box. Meanwhile, Fireman Sam/Hamlet was standing there, shoulders drooped, head hung in shame. Kids were crying and so were we . . . with laughter!
To be fair to Fireman Sam, my own live shows are never particularly straightforward. Take the shows for my album 1984, which I released in 1981. Ahead of the game, you see.
That album was done at completely the wrong time for what was happening in the music business. To record this big extravaganza – a concept album with orchestra, choir and the kitchen sink thrown in for good measure – was a complete misnomer at that time. But fortunately the wonderful Tony Stratton-Smith at Charisma Records hated conformity and absolutely loved the idea, so I wrote and recorded this epic rock opera with the wonderful Sir Tim Rice.
We all agreed that despite our grand designs, it was crucial that the record was promoted with a series of great concerts. The problem was that we genuinely didn’t have the money to go out on the road with an orchestra, it just wasn’t possible. So we decided to get together a big band and stage a series of shows at the Hammersmith Odeon. My manager, Brian ‘Deal-a-Day’ Lane, started making some phone calls (you will have already met him if you’ve read Grumpy Old Rock Star – still available all over the country in both good and bad bookshops everywhere as well as online, both paperback and hardback. My publisher asked me to get the plug in). Pretty soon we had a cracking line-up: Steve Harley was coming along to sing, I’d got Kenny Lynch as well, a fabulous big band, a lighting rig to die for plus laser lights, a huge PA, three girl singers called The Lillettes, it had all shaped up very quickly as a really big, loud, bombastic rock ’n’ roll event. Everything I could want. So we were all set.
This coincided with a period when I was doing what was incorrectly called ‘New Age’ music – these gentle instrumental pieces would really fit more accurately in the genre of ‘New World’ music. I’d been asked to create some new acoustic instrumental material and it was selling really rather well. One album that did particularly well was called Country Airs which had a track on it called ‘Waterfalls’, which was undoubtedly my mum’s favourite.
Now, my mum, bless her, she loved all this gentle piano stuff; however, she didn’t really like the rock music much at all. Truth be told, she never even liked Yes very much. But to her credit, she always supported me in everything I did, regardless of whether she liked it or not. A true mum.
So imagine my surprise when she phoned me the week before the 1984 shows at Hammersmith.
‘Hello, Richard.’
‘Oh dear.’
I knew I was in trouble the moment she called me Richard.
‘Richard, you never told me you were doing concerts in Hammersmith.’
‘Well, I didn’t think you’d be interested, Mum.’
‘Don’t be silly, Of course I want to come to one of the shows, Richard. Luckily I phoned up your manager’s office, spoke to the secretary there and she said they’d put twelve tickets to one side for me . . .’
‘Twelve tickets? There’s only you and Dad and you’ll hate it.’
‘I’ve invited ten friends, Richard.’
‘Friends?’
‘Yes, I’m bringing ten people from the Northolt Old People’s home (at the time, my mum worked there as a volunteer). They’ll love it. I’ve even played them Country Airs and “Waterfalls” and they just loved it. Well, they said they did anyway. A change of scene, the tinkling piano, it’s going to be so nice for them, they don’t get out much and it’ll be such a treat.’
‘Mum, this show is not a piano concert.’
‘Well, what is it then?’
‘It’s the rock opera I wrote with Tim Rice . . . you know . . . 1984. There’ll be my full-on rock band, a brass section, girl singers, a laser light show and it will be very loud – Mum, you can’t bring them, they’ll die.’
‘You mean it’s not a piano concert’?
‘No, Mum.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to change it, then.’
‘I can’t change it, Mum, we’ve sold out all the shows.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure, Mum.’
‘Well, you will have to sort something out, Richard, because they are all coming and the youngest is eighty-two.’
I felt it best not to bring the subject up again in front of my mum and so I concentrated the next few weeks on the preparation of the shows. The day of the first show arrived and all the band and I were in the same dressing room getting changed ready for the show. Then the dressing-room door opened and in walked my tour manager at the time, Funky Fat Fred. He had a huge grin on his face.
‘What’s amusing you, Fred?’ I asked.
‘Your mum’s here.’
‘Is she on her own?’
‘Nope.’
‘Oh God, how many with her?’
‘Living?’
Oh great.
‘Come on, you know what I mean.’
‘Ten, I think, Rick. Your dad’s already found his seat. You do seem to be attracting an older crowd these days,’ said Fred, unable to resist.
‘Piss off, Fred.’
At that moment, in walked Mum and ten extremely old residents of the Northolt Old People’s Home. My band was watching this and they thought it was hilarious – they couldn’t wait for any outcome. I could: I’d never had a death at one of my shows before!
The old folks all lined up and, to put it mildly, they were completely bewildered. My mum led me down the line, like the backstage aftershow at some bizarre Royal Variety Performance, and I was introduced.
‘Richard, I’d like you to meet Elsie, and this is Rose . . .’
I eventually made it to the last man standing. Almost literally. Albert.
‘It’s no good talking to me, mate,’ he said, rather loudly.
‘Oh, really?’
‘What?’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Pardon?’ He twiddled with something in his ear and then said, ‘You’ll have to excuse me . . . I’m almost completely deaf. Even with my hearing aid turned up full I can’t hear anything.’
‘You’ll have a nice night, then,’ I said.
Anyway, I put all this to the back of my mind and did the show. It was brilliant. I absolutely loved it, to me it had everything you would expect from a prog-rock concert: epic music, laser lights, a loud sound system, huge sets and amazing lighting – it was fabulous. Afterwards, we were all getting cleaned up in the dressing room when Funky Fat Fred came in again.
‘Rick, your mum’s here again.’
‘Are they all with her?’ I asked worryingly.
‘Oh, they appear to be, Rick. Shell-shocked, perhaps, but they’d like to have a word.’
So Mum traipsed in again and lined them all up to talk to me once more. I started my way down the line, fully expecting a barrage of criticism. The first lady said, ‘Rick, we really enjoyed that. It was wonderful.’
‘Really? You’re just saying that because you like my mum.’
‘No, it was brilliant – the lights, the girls singing, the set, amazing.’
It seemed that they had all actually loved the show! I was so shocked.
‘What were those red things zooming around the air?’ asked another of the old folks.
‘Lasers?’
‘Yes, lasers – those are rather fabulous, we liked those.’
‘And I haven’t heard a drum solo like that since the Glen Miller Band were here in the war . . .’ said another.
I chatted with them all for some time and was so relieved. Then I made a very simple and common mistake.
I stood in front of one lady with the compulsory cauliflower haircut and obligatory blue rinse. She was about four foot ten.
‘I’m so pleased you enjoyed the show. I would have thought that people your age wouldn’t have liked it at all.’
With that, the mood darkened instantly and she walked right up close to me, her nose almost wedging itself in my navel, and started prodding me rather firmly, pushing against me to emphasise her words.
‘That’s just it, “people our age”, you all think when we get to our age that all we want is to be wheeled out in the garden with blankets over us and given endless cups of tea. No wonder we are all bloody incontinent.’
I thought to myself, she’s absolutely right. When you get to a certain age, why are you meant to dress in a certain way, behave in a certain way, and only listen to music ‘for your age’. It’s absolute rubbish.
I was mortified and I apologised. I hadn’t intended any offence but I could see why my remarks were insensitive. She gradually warmed up and eventually they all congratulated me again and readied to leave.
At the last moment, a voice at the end of the line spoke.
‘I heard everything. I didn’t even have to turn it on.’
It was Albert.
Six weeks later, the same ten old folks headed back to Hammersmith Odeon for another show.
This time it was to see Status Quo.
The Classical Connection tour that had seen us fall about laughing at Fireman Sam was just myself on two keyboards and a bass player called David Paton (who’d had a band called Pilot and famously wrote ‘Magic’ and ‘January and February’). David also played acoustic guitar and was a really nice guy, albeit a little backward when coming forward in opening his wallet! But he was Scottish after all!
It was a very popular show and we ran it for about three years, just going round playing small theatres. There are three more stories from the Classical Connection days which I’d like to tell you about. I’ll start in York in a theatre at the university. The stage was actually on the floor and the audience was racked up, sloping away from us. We’d been playing a short while and I was just doing an announcement when a student wandered onto the stage – paralytic he was, absolutely rat-arsed. He came over to me and said, ‘Do you know where the toilets are?’
I was holding the microphone at the time and so my answer – ‘Yes, it’s just across there, go out through the red door and there’s a corridor on the left’ – boomed throughout the entire theatre. The audience were in stitches. The drunk student was so shocked at the volume that appeared to come out of my mouth and looked at me with wide but entirely unfocused eyes, then said, ‘Sankyou,’ and stumbled off.
I turned to the audience who were obviously still tittering away and said, ‘That’s one for the book some day.’ We started to play but were quickly stopped in our tracks by a banging sound. We looked across the auditorium and this drunken student was trying to go through the exit doors at the side of the stage. The one he was trying was locked but he was pushing and pulling, grunting and slurring. I walked across the stage and said, ‘No, not that one, it’s down there!’ Again my voice boomed out through the house PA.
Eventually he found his way to the toilet and we carried on playing. After the show, I was standing in the foyer signing a few autographs and chatting away when the drunken student staggered up to me.
‘I want to thank you,’ he said.
‘You look just like the man who told me where the toilet was. It wasn’t you, but it was a man like you.’
I said, ‘But how do you know it wasn’t me?’
‘Because the man who told me where the toilet was,’ he replied, ‘had the loudest voice I’ve ever heard.’
A few months later we were playing another regional theatre and it was all going swimmingly. As we headed towards the interval, I saw a slight commotion at the side of the stage. I looked across and the stage manager was gesticulating at me fairly anxiously. Then, about a minute later, he actually held up a hastily scribbled sign that said, ‘KEEP PLAYING!’
We’d finished the normal first half by now, but as smoothly as I could I said, ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, but due to a technical difficulty, we are going to extend the first half and we are now going to play “After The Ball”, a piece I wrote for a film called White Rock . . .’ We finished playing ‘After The Ball’ but still the stage manager was holding up the sign. A further two pieces were played and I was getting concerned as we’d eaten heavily into the repertoire for the second half, and I was bemused as to what the hell was going on, to say the least.
Eventually the stage manager took his sign down and gave me a thumbs-up, so I wrapped up the first half and walked off stage. I went to the dressing room and the manager came in seconds later and said, ‘Thank you ever so much – I do apologise. We just had a very tricky situation and we didn’t know quite what to do.’
‘What on earth was the matter?’
‘Well, we always open the bar shortly before the interval is about to start. As we did, this couple came in. They weren’t drunk but they’d had a few. They went and sat on the bench seat in the far corner of the bar. Pretty soon there was some fairly heavy petting going on . . .’
Oh dear . . .
‘So I went over and asked them to calm down a little but they just ignored me and carried on.’
‘And . . .?’
‘Well, pretty soon this woman was almost topless and had her hand down the man’s trousers and we were only about two minutes from the interval, you see . . .’
‘Hence the sign,’ I said, trying hard to keep a straight face.
‘Yes, hence the sign. By now they were spreadeagled across two round tables and you’d nearly finished the first half. So I went and found your tour manager and explained the problem. He said I had to go to the side of the stage with the sign and then walkie-talkie back to my security man who’d stay in the bar and let me know when they were finished.’
‘Good plan, excellent in fact. So how did they get on?’
‘Well, I was very surprised, because they lasted the whole of “After the Ball”, and the medley from 1984. In fact, when you climaxed during the last piece . . .’
‘Thank you so much for sharing this with me. I think I’m getting the message.’
Although most people were not so moved by The Classical Connection as to make love in the theatre bar, the shows were extremely popular and I loved playing them. Obviously, that was a particular type of show, a certain style of music that attracted a certain type of person. Even the poster made it very clear what to expect – there was a picture of me at a piano and David with an acoustic guitar so it was blatantly obvious this was just a gentle little evening of acoustic-styled music.
On one fateful night, we arrived in a town in the north-east – I have a feeling it was Hull. However, as we drove to the venue, we started noticing posters for our show . . . but it was the wrong poster. No acoustic guitars, no gentle piano shots, just photos we’d used for the ‘Rick Wakeman and his Band’ tour, which was a full-on rock show. Across the bottom of the poster there was a white strip that venues use to write their details down and someone had scribbled that night’s show on there.
‘David,’ I said to my stage companion, ‘we have a problem.’
As soon as we got to the venue, I found the promoter lurking somewhere and asked him why he’d put those posters up.
‘Because that’s all we were sent,’ he replied.
Great.
‘Anyway, we are really pleased because it’s all sold out – it’s been very popular.’
‘Yes, but maybe that’s because people are expecting a rock show. And when the curtain goes up on this expected gigantic rock extravaganza to reveal two keyboards on two little stands and an acoustic guitar next to a chair, do you think it will still be a great night?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ the promoter replied, beginning to look a little pale. ‘But I’m sure once you start playing it will all be fine.’
And it would have been . . .
. . . had it not been for the twenty-six Hells Angels sitting in the front row.
Now I’ve been to a few Hells Angels dos over the years and always found them to be really lovely guys, really nice and really friendly, and boy do they know their music. But this was not the crowd you expected to see at a classical-styled concert. Waiting for our cue to walk on stage we found ourselves peeking through from the side curtain with a very clear view of these Hells Angels in the front row and David, (always very astute and acutely aware of any situation that might arise), said, ‘I want to go home. I’m not going out there. If we do, we’re dead.’
‘We can’t go home, David. If you think they’re going to be cross when we start playing classical-styled music, how do you think they’ll react if we just go home? We’ve got no choice: let’s just go on and try not to get killed.’
We walked on and started playing and sure enough it was quite a rowdy audience and we only seemed to be getting a few ripples of applause. Worse still, as there was no interval I didn’t really have much chance to get any audience feedback and see if we were likely to make it out alive. At one point there was a rather unpleasant smell on stage which I believe was the aftermath of David filling his Y-Fronts, or it could possibly have been me. It was all very confusing at the time.
Even though we only had two keyboards and guitar, for the sake of self-preservation we tried to make some feeble gestures towards rock ’n’ roll. So for example, we somehow played a few snippets from Six Wives and even, don’t ask me how, played parts of Journey, which if I recall correctly had over two hundred musicians for some of the bigger shows. As we approached the end of the last song, I whispered to David, ‘Play the last note, quickly say thanks and bow, then we’ll run off.’
As the last notes of the last piece were gently dying away, we duly walked to the front of the stage and took our bows. As I leaned forward, a huge hairy hand grabbed on to my arm in a vicelike grip. I tilted my head up slightly and saw an enormous Hells Angel face inches from my own.
The Hells Angel whispered in gruff tones.
‘I’m very disappointed, Rick.’
‘Er, really? Disappointed?’
This was not good.
(Either David or I were filling them again).
‘Yes, very disappointed.’
‘Er, well, er, why’s that?’
‘Because you didn’t play “Waterfalls”.’
As I’ve mentioned before ‘Waterfalls’ was about as gentle a piece of music as it was possible to play; my Country Airs album had been rather popular on Radio 2 and had sold well to the New Age, New World market.
‘Are you doing an encore, Rick?’ asked this giant biker.
‘Er, we weren’t going to . . .’
‘But you’re going to now, aren’t you?’
We played ‘Waterfalls’ and afterwards the biker came up to me again.
‘Country Airs is my favourite album, Rick. I loved the show.’
As well as introducing me to a wide variety of people, touring so prolifically has seen me spend more than a few nights in hostelries of wildly varying standards. Over the years I’ve stayed in everything from the most unbelievable six and even seven-star hotels in Dubai to the most terrifying B&Bs on the planet. And I mean terrifying . . . However, there is one hotel that stands out above all the rest. It was a humble B&B in Port Talbot, Wales.
To paraphrase the Carlsberg advert, ‘Probably the worst hotel in the world.’
Whenever I used to play the small tours, I hated days off – I just got so bored. All there was to do was sit in your hotel room and watch rubbish TV, which usually had a fuzzy picture anyway. I’d see the itinerary and always ask the promoter to fill in any blanks. ‘I don’t care where we play,’ I’d say. ‘Just find somewhere, I don’t want a day off, I’d rather play than have a day off.’ Quite often you’d end up playing theatres who wouldn’t even stump up a fee, they’d just offer you a percentage of any takings on the night. I didn’t care, so long as I was playing.
Now, it is a harsh reality of rock ’n’ roll that any band – whether it’s a pub band or a stadium-filling rock act – has certain places where they just don’t do the business. Often there might seem to be no logical explanation whatsoever for this lack of interest by the public but the fact remains that every musician has black holes where no one is really bothered. It can be as daft as somebody doing fantastic business in Southport but twenty miles down the road in Liverpool they struggle to sell a single ticket. There are no rules for this and it happens all over the place.
My black hole is Port Talbot.
To make matters worse, there were no half-decent hotels in Port Talbot back then either. I’m sure there are nice places in Port Talbot but we never found them.
On one particular tour, we arrived in Port Talbot ahead of a glorious night playing to a few dozen uninterested punters in some godforsaken tiny theatre. We were booked in to this dishevelled B&B which if I recall correctly – quite hard, given the haze of damp fumes that met us when we walked into reception – it gave itself a rather posh name, something like the Grand or the Royal.
The reception stank, there was so much damp in there. In one corner was a tiny desk with an old Welsh fella sitting behind it looking completely bemused that anyone was actually considering staying in this unspeakably unhealthy dump.
‘Who on earth booked us in this shithole?’ I said, under my breath.
‘I was unaware it had been upgraded,’ said Ashley Holt, my singer.
‘Surely there is somewhere else nearby where we can stay?’
Apparently not.
My band were not impressed. Not impressed at all. These were battle-hardened, heavy-drinking rock ’n’ rollers but even they had their limits.
I was already on the brink of a major crew mutiny and we hadn’t even checked in.
‘Look, chaps, it’s only one night – come on, let’s just get checked in and get on with it. We’ll be out of here early in the morning.’
Then I turned to the man behind the desk and said, ‘Is there anywhere we can get a beer, please?’
‘No, mate, sorry.’
‘A cup of tea, perhaps?’
‘No, sorry.’
Great.
Totally dejected, we all trudged off to our rooms.
They were far worse than we’d expected.
The bedclothes on my mattress were actually wet.
Not damp.
Wet.
There was a sheen of water on the cloth itself. And it smelled appalling. There was no way I was going to sleep in it – I refused even to sit on it at first.
Each member of the band called my room to complain. For those of you who are aware of my band’s constant flatulence, drinking and general debauchery, this gives you some idea of just how disgusting this place was.
Of course, by the early hours I was exhausted so I took a deep breath of damp air and decided to lie down on the bed. First I went into the bathroom and got a manky towel that was at least passably dry, put this on top of the bedclothes, turned the light off (I’m sure I felt a small electric shock as I flicked the switch) and lay down gingerly on the bed. The towel was not thick enough, though, and within minutes I was wet. So I grabbed a jumper out of my suitcase and used that as a makeshift sheet instead.
I lay there for a few minutes and then I heard a tapping noise.
I couldn’t work out what it was but it had a relentless marching rhythm. And it was definitely in my room.
I flicked the light back on and looked around. I couldn’t see anything at first.
Then I looked down at the skirting board and saw an army of cockroaches streaming from out of a hole in the floorboards and stomping noisily around the edges of the room. There were hundreds of them, literally. It was nauseating. Interestingly though, they did appear to be marching around the skirting board in time! It was quite hypnotic!
I’d had enough of this so I put on my now-wet jumper and stomped down to reception. The old boy was still sitting behind his desk, although now he was wearing his dressing gown.
‘Evening,’ he said.
‘Evening. Look, I’ll be honest with you, I’m not entirely happy with my room.’
‘Oh dear, what room are you in?’
‘Twelve.’
‘Really, and you don’t like it? Twelve?’
‘Yes, twelve,’ I said, my impatience rising.
‘Well, I am surprised. Why?’
‘Well, how about the damp and the unbelievable smell and the health risk this place obviously carries?’ I suggested.
‘Well, I’ve never had any complaints before . . .’
‘Really? I find that hard to believe’
‘Not many people stay here.’
I took a deep breath.
And choked on the damp fumes.
‘I’ve also got hundreds of cockroaches marching round the bloody skirting board.’
‘I am surprised . . .’
I was incredulous by now.
‘How can you be surprised?’
‘Well, the thing is, the cockroaches are normally in room six.’
I slept in the car.
It’s not always Hells Angels who surprise you at shows. Take Oscar the dog. He lived in Corby, near Northampton. Or at least we assume he did because he was at the Corby Festival Hall the night we rolled up on our tour. Now, over the years I’ve been lucky enough to play some pretty large crowds, most recently to 82,000 people in Quebec for the entire rendition of Return to the Centre of the Earth. But sometimes the smallest shows can be equally rewarding.
I was doing the one-man show so the crew was minimal and the tour had been going really well: we were loving it and the crowds seemed to enjoy themselves too. The Festival Hall was a lovely venue, not huge but a good size, of about seven hundred and fifty capacity.
I’d played there a few times over the years and we’d always sold out easily so we never bothered with pre-promotion for Corby.
Anyway, when we arrived we were rather baffled to find high fencing all round the venue. The crew went to find out what was happening and eventually my tour manager Mike ‘Happy’ Holden returned.
‘The venue’s being closed, Rick.’
‘What? You’re joking.’
‘Nope. It’s being closed. To make room for a car park. The show is still on but we are one of the last few engagements, so there’s no posters or adverts. They’ve got Kenny Ball due in and they’ve just had Joe Brown. But no posters or anything. There’s a gap in the fence for the audience to get through but apparently tickets haven’t exactly been selling well because nobody knows it’s happening and most people think the venue’s already closed.’
‘How many tickets have they sold?’
‘Well, the thing is, Rick, remember that nobody really knows the gig is on and—’
‘How many, Mike?’
‘Seventy-six.’
Great.
‘But most of those sold months ago – they haven’t shifted one for weeks.’
Give me strength.
‘Could be worse, Rick. They only had nine for Kenny Ball.’
At this point, the theatre manager appeared and was very apologetic even though it wasn’t actually his fault. He made the point that those seventy-six people had bought the tickets in good faith and had probably already started their journey to the show.
‘Fair enough,’ I said, somewhat resigned.
We resolved to play the show and make the best of a bad situation. ‘This is going to be pretty hard work, lads,’ I said to the crew.
‘Harder than you think, Rick,’ replied Mike.
‘The stage is still set up from the very last performance here, Rick, which was a play. They haven’t got the riggers or the budget to dismantle the set so we’ve got to play the show in amongst that.’
Great.
‘And what was the play?’
‘No idea, Rick.’
‘And so what’s the stage set then?’
‘It’s a graveyard, Rick.’
So we set up in the graveyard in this medium-sized venue, waiting for seventy-six people to turn up. Gradually they dripped into their seats, to be fair looking pretty excited. I wasn’t. I was about to sit in a graveyard doing a one-man show in a venue that was, for all intents and purposes, closed down.
Mike Holden said, ‘Come on, Rick, it’ll be a laugh. Besides, I’ve got a surprise for you . . .’
‘I’m not in the mood for surprises.’
‘You’ll like this one.’
Intrigued, I walked on stage and stood in front of the seventy-six people scattered around this very empty hall. Just as I began to speak, I glanced down at the front row and sitting there, all alone, upright in his seat, was a white West Highland terrier.
Called Oscar. Apparently.
I pointed at Oscar and said, ‘There’s a bloody dog sitting down here!’
Oscar looked up and went ‘Woof!’
A few people started laughing.
I was in knee deep by this point so I decided to embrace the absurdity of it all and speak to Oscar.
‘Hello. I don’t know where you’ve come from but it’s so nice to see you in the front row. I don’t get very many dogs coming to my shows. What I’ll do, as this is a special occasion, I will do the entire performance for you.’
‘Woof!’
It transpired that the crew had been in the foyer before the show trying to think up something to lift the atmosphere and make the show a little different. The woman who worked in the box office had Oscar with her and Mike asked her if he was well-behaved. ‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘He’ll sit still all day if you ask him.’ And so Oscar the West Highland Terrier spent the next two and a half hours in seat A24.
I did the entire show for Oscar. I even sat on the side of the stage at one point while I was actually thinking of all the dog jokes and stories I knew. I just told dog story after dog story, including some extremely risky gags. People were having an absolute ball and the show was brilliant fun to perform. As an encore I came on and did ‘How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?’ in the style of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was such a hoot.
I came off and a few people headed backstage to chat. Probably the entire audience if truth be known! They were hard-core fans and most of them said it was the best one-man show of mine they’d ever seen. I’d really enjoyed it and at one point I turned to Big Ian and said, ‘That was fabulous, fantastic, that’s one of the shows I’ll wish one day that we had recorded.’
‘We did, Rick.’
Big Ian had had the foresight to press the record button on the DAT machine and the evening was preserved for ever.
And so you can buy A Concert For Oscar at all good retailers (the same shops that sell Grumpy Old Rock Star, so you could kill two birds with one stone), or online at voiceprint.com. Somewhere I have a letter purported to be from Oscar the dog, with a paw mark at the bottom saying how much he’d enjoyed the show. He wasn’t the only one – to this day it’s one of my best-selling CDs.