Confrontational? Moi? C'est ne pas Moi?

There's a lot of talk about this Download Festival thing at the moment.  It may surprise you to find out that a lot of the people I consider to be friends (to a greater or lesser extent) enjoy 'RAWK' music in all of its forms.  Many of them are currently camped out in a squalid, muddy field on the Derbyshire Leicestershire border, hanging around the VIP Entrance trying to get Bruce Dickinson's autograph.

In my day, Monsters of Rock, as it was still called way back then cost about £15 to get in, had seven or so bands on a Saturday afternoon, then some fireworks, then it was time to grab a fish supper, a refreshing ginger beer and wend your way home, discussing with your chums about what a splendid time you've had.

Nowadays though, these callow, ungrateful, youths get three days of debauchery, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO BANDS! (Some of which I have actually heard of) all spread between five stages... Admittedly, they do pay £200 which, depending on how you divide it up either bloody expensive, or tremendously expensive.

(Actually, if anyone gets to see Dir En Grey or Chthonic over the weekend, let me know what they're like live.. I've always wondered)

But oddly, this short Blog post isn't going to be about Download at all... Well, the first bit was, but it was kind of just a pre-amble that got away from me a bit.

-oOo-

I live about ten miles from Donington Park and drive straight past the main gate every day on my way to work.  I have an interest in motorcycles and rock music, so you'd think I'd be there every weekend wouldn't you?  Well, I can count the times I've been there on the fingers of one hand (If we momentarily forget about MOR, that is).  When I do go, there's always some kind of 'incident' though... I guess that I'm just one of those lucky people that dear old Fate often finds in her sights.

There was this one time, a mate of mine (Now sadly deceased) managed to score some free tickets for the Truck Racing.  Don't know if you've ever seen it, but pretty much it's a bunch of complete nutters, driving 20 ton, 12 litre, turbocharged tractor units around a racetrack at 100mph with their brakes on fire - very impressive, especially when the weather's a bit dull.

There were about a half-dozen of us, four blokes, two girls, and we'd had a great day.  A few beers, a few burgers, you know the drill.  Anywho, we started hearing repeated calls over the tannoy, for about an hour, that said something like 'Would the owner of a green Vauxhall Vectra registration number Dee one cee kay haitch three ay dee, please move it immediately, it is illegally parked.' we didn't take much notice at first, but as it was repeated over and over, it started to get a bit annoying.  We were all like, 'Why doesn't the d*ck just move his car?' and 'I'd just tow it away.' Eventually, on our way back to that parking area, we came across a young girl (steady!) who was sat on a wall, who had obviously be crying for quite some time.

Frank, one of our number, who was by far the nicest of us, went up to her and asked what was wrong - She pointed at her Renault 5 with the daisy painted on the side and said that she was a nurse and she was going to be late for a shift in casualty (or something, it was, like twenty years ago dudes - gimme a break) because someone had boxed her in with his car.  We looked, and, to our surprise, there was a green Vauxhall Vectra TurboLeatherSeatMassiveSpoilerAlloyWheelsCretinSpecialEditionGSI

We looked at each other and walked towards the car.  Another of us, Jock, who was the chap who'd gotten the tickets and was as huge and hairy as Frank was nice, turned to me and said 'Bounce?'

I nodded and replied 'Bounce.'

So, we took a wheel-arch each and started, gently at first, to bounce the car on its suspension.  To enable you to experience the scene with more detail, I would like to point out that I am over six feet tall and weigh in the region of two hundred and fifty pounds... I was, by quite a margin, the smallest male in the group.  The plan was to get the car bouncing just enough so that its wheels came off the floor and we could move it out of the way.

What actually happened is that we got somewhat carried away, I mean we moved the car out of the way first so the nurse could wander off and save some lives or whatever it was that she wanted to do, but we didn't stop there, we kept bouncing.  At one point the car was bouncing to what felt like waist height, and making some very interesting noises when it hit the ground.  It was then that we noticed him... He was wearing a silk suit and mirrored aviators, and his mouth was hanging open.  We were wearing leather jackets, with no arms, some with interesting embroidered patches on the back, beards and stupid grins.

Someone asked, 'This yours?'

He nodded, his mouth still hanging open.  As one, we gave the car one last bounce and then stood back.  The noise of the cars last, fatal, impact with the ground was drowned out by the rapturous applause of the crowd that had assembled during our display.  Jackets were straightened, sleeves were brushed, hands were waved at our appreciative audience and as we left, Jock turned to him and said, 'You really should me more careful where you park you know.' Which got us another cheer.

-oOo-

Another time, we were at some plastic-fantastic race weekend, I think it was sponsored by 'Fast Bike' or 'Superbikes' magazine and you can imagine the sort of people who were there.  Most of them were wearing one-piece racing leathers where only the right-side kneeslider was scuffed.

(Right, the non-bikers amongst the readership might need a bit of an explanation there... Kneesliders are those things you see stuck to roundey-roundey bike racers knees for when they lean their bikes at insane angles, at lunatic speed going round corners - They help you gauge how far you're leaning, and traditionally, the more scuffed they are the more 'hardcore' you are... If someone has only got a scuffed kneeslider on their right leg, it means that they've been going round and round the traffic island outside their local Sainsburys trying to get their knee down, rather than racing.)

Anywho, historically, riders of custom motorcycles and riders of sports motorcycles have not always seen eye to eye on, well, anything really.  Where one might find the exhilaration of speed to be important, the other may think that the look of the bike is more important than the handling.  So there was a small amount on tension to begin with, which multiplied during the evening with the repeated addition of alcohol.  It was decide that things were in danger of starting to turn ugly, so we all wandered back to our tents and broke out the crate of Newcastle Brown that we had thoughtfully brought with us.

Then it started... Something I've never really understood, that sportsbike rider seem to like to do when they get together (apart from wheelspinning until they blow their rear tires and doughnuts) is to sit revving their bikes higher and higher until they 'bounce off the rev limiter' - If you have never heard anyone do this, you are one of the luckiest people alive.  It's a sort of BwahBwahBwahBwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-BAh-BAh-BAuh-BAuh-BAuh-BAuh-BAuh! noise which usually turns into a competition.  It was the early hours of the morning, and this had been going on for about an hour, when Chris, one of our number, asked them very politely, via the medium of expletive filled yelling, to shut the actual flip up.  Their reply was of a similar nature, but concluded by an elongated bout of revving, during this,  Chris stood up, and with the mating call of the extremely sure of themselves - i.e. 'Hold me beer youth.' set off into the darkness of the campsite.

We could hear the sounds of an argument, a small amount of scuffling and, as we all jumped up to give him a helping hand, there was a noise that was loudly mechanical, brief, and utterly indescribable - followed by complete silence.  He came back into the circle of light from our tents, stuck his hand out for his beer and sat down.  It turns out that he'd asked them to stop, they'd decided that sadly, they were disinclined to acquiesce to his request.  At which point he'd picked up the first thing that came to hand and smashed the crank-case of the offending motorcycle to smithereens.

The first thing in this case being a three foot long King Dick Spanner, which he was still holding like Captain Caveman's club - going somewhere towards explaining why he hadn't been beaten to a pulp.  When we pointed it out to him, he looked at it, shrugged and threw it back across the campsite in their general direction.

The rest of the night was blissfully quiet, until we all started singing 'Bat out of Hell' at the top of our voices that is.

So here I am once more...

I was feeling very musical this morning, which is odd, because I didn't actually listen to any music, or even stick a CD on in the car on my way to work. I did sing the Sheepy Magna song in my head, as I drove through Sheepy Magna though. It had different words this time, and I think it might be in danger of becoming a free-form sound poem, rather than your actual song. (Still sang it in a Scottish Accent though, if that helps)

I did spend some time thinking about live gigs that I've been to and bands that I've enjoyed in the past. Long time readers may have read my recollections of Monsters of Rock in 1981, where bands such as Slade, Blue Oyster Cult and AC/DC rocked out on a rainy August day and impaled themselves onto my sometimes untrustworthy memory.

Today I'd like to fast forward to 1985 (That's twenty-eight years ago kids... Before some of you were born), when I had just turned seventeen and I was full of hormones and cider, and covered in long hair (well, my head was at least) - It was also the first 'Donington' (Not, you notice 'Monsters of Rock - It had been rebranded at 'Rockin the Castle' and was advertised as a ZZ Top gig with support) I'd been to with a real live girlfriend with her own long hair and breasts and spray-on jeans, rather than a selection of skinny boys with chests like xylophones, wearing innapropriate studded wristbands and huge white Hightop baseball boots that made them look like poundshop astronauts.

I (well, I should really say 'we' I suppose, but this Blog's about my recollections,and the time we spent together didn't end particularly amicably, so from now on I'm going to say 'I', OK?) arrived on site by bus, because that is without doubt, THE most Rock-n-Roll way to arrive at any Gig, Festival, Cattle Auction or Outbreak of Infectious Disease (All of which could be used to describe Donington) that there is.

Once I'd staked out a decent spot a few hundred yards from the stage, and complained about the heat a few times, Donington stalwart and professional bottle of urine avoider, DJ Tommy Vance came on to whip the crowd up into a state of mild annoyance. Now, a lot of people have had a go at Tommy (or Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston as his Mother called him for some UnGodly reason), and broadcast, via the medium of chanting, far and wide of his imagined pleasure in solitary sexual pursuits. I remember personally commenting that there was no way that someone as old as him could know about what the 'Kids' wanted to listen to... I now appreciate that I am as old now as he was then - And I am a little embarrased. But he did more to promote Rock and Metal music than pretty much any DJ or presenter at the time, I was an avid listener of his 'Friday Rock Show' on Radio 1, as was everyone I knew at the time, and he was really, very good at dodging bottles of urine and chunks of mud that were propelled at him all the time he was on stage. Rest in Peace Tommy, you W*nk*r!

OK, so... To the music. Magnum were first on - I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't their greatest fan, they always struck me as the kind of band whose name you'd see scribbled in ballpoint pen across the back of some spotty thirteen years old's denim jacket. But I have a vague memory of them not being all that bad, although the openers always had a reputation for just being there to soak up the first barage of plastic bottles, more than for their musical value.

Then there was a bit of a break, where I finished all the alchohol I'd brought with me, until Ratt came on. I've never being a fan of Hairspray rock, and I'm sad to say that I completely ignored their set and wandered around the ground trying to buy a t-shirt that didn't have the ZZ-Top Eliminator or a hand, clutching a dagger, coming out of a toilet on it (I failed) and getting a burger (I succeeded)

I got back just in time to see this bunch of hairy, denim-clad, long haired, Californian dudes who nobody had heard of, they were OK, a bit thrashy for me at the time - I quite liked one of their tracks though, it was called 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' - They were, of course, Metallica, with a twenty-two year old Clifford Lee Burton on bass (Who was to die in a terrible tour-bus crash the following year). They're another band that I wish I'd payed more attention to at the time, as Metallica get through Bass players like Spinal Tap get through Drummers.

Next up were Bon Jovi, who also weren't particularly famous at the time. Remembering that this was (just) before Slippery When Wet was released, so the only songs I recognised were In and Out of Love and Runaway, and they were dressed like refugees from a Tom Baker era Doctor Who episode. Oddly, they headlined Monsters of Rock two years later, and played one of the greatest sets I'd ever seen there.

The sun was, whilst not exactly setting, but certainly heading for the trees when Marillion took to the stage. This band was the whole reason that I'd attended that year. I loved them, I bought all of their singles, albums, 12" EPs and would play their stuff constantly on whatever recording device was closest to hand. I knew every word to every version of every song that they ever released. They were the first band I ever saw that sounded exactly the same live as recorded.

Highlights of their set included Fish (The lead singer) asking the entire crowd of 80,000 people to 'Squash in a bit at the sides' so that he could take a photo for his Mum, as she still didnea believe that he was in a popular (prog) rock band. Fish sitting down and shouting 'Well you bloody sing it then' when the crowd started to sing Script for a Jesters Tear louder than he was, and the roar that went up, followed of course by a barrage of plastic bottles, when ZZ-Top's Eliminator car was flown over the crowd, slung under a Marlborough Cigarettes branded helicopter.

The headliners, of course, as has been mentioned on various occasions, were Texan Blues-Rockers, ZZ Top. Billy, Dusty and Frank were still riding high on the wave of their 1983 Quadruple (at the time) platinum album 'Eliminator', hence the flying car stunt. Their set was OK, I mean I liked their music and everything, but they just stood there and played... No pyro, no stunts, no nothing. Not what a seasoned Donington crowd were used to, or had come to expect. But they finished with 'Tush' my favourite song of theirs, so they redeemed themselves a little.

We all oooo-ed and Aaaaah-ed at the fireworks for a while and then found our way back to our respective car-parks... None of us aware that we had missed the best part of the entire gig, something we could have told our Grandchildren...

Secreted somewhere backstage was a fifteen year old Suzy Perry (off of the Gadget Show and F1 Coverage and stuff), and if you're a man, and the words, 'Suzy Perry' and 'Backstage' don't get your juices flowing, then you're already dead... (Note I said nothing about the whole fifteen years old thing... Not in the current climate... Hoooo no!)

Rock on my loyal followers!

Monsters of Rock 1981

Originally posted on Facebook 20/5/12

I commented on a friend of mine's status update earlier, to the effect that I agreed with her that Guns 'n' Roses were pretty good live, and that the first time I had seen them was some twenty-four years ago, in 1988, at Monsters of Rock.

Little Baby Jebus, that made me feel old! - Right up until I remembered that that wasn't my first MoR, no, that had been in 1981, when I was 13!

If I'm honest, I can't remember a great deal about it, other that I really wanted Blue Oyster Cult to be great, as I'd just bought 'On your feet or on your knees', their 1975 live album, second hand, from Way Ahead Records, in the Main Center. But they weren't, the sound was rubbish and they didn't play 'I ain't got you' which was, and still is, my favourite live BOC track.

Didn't pay much attention to More or Blackfoot, as I didn't know much of their stuff... Slade were, well, Slade really - they got the crowd going a treat as usual...

Now, I didn't think much to Whitesnake previous to this, As I thought David Coverdale was a bit of a posturing git that seemed to permanently want to procreate with his microphone stand. But their set was brilliant - I think I even sang, well, shouted, along to 'Don't Break my Heart again'

AC/DC were the headliners - And were, as ever, absolutely kitten manglingly brilliant. The lead-singer, Brian Johnson, was still fairly new, as Bon Scott had only died (I think) the year before - But they were pretty much faultless - As faultless as a bunch of Aussies (one wearing his school uniform) and a Geordie can be at least!

Just under 31 years ago... Good God!