carved marble and hundreds of pissed-up yobbos wandering about looking for the bar and a shag. I love it. It’s real rock ’n’ roll.
Most of the BBC posse are staying at the Midland Plaza (which is a Holiday Inn but posher than most). However, Joe London and Woody Monk
“Vey understand a drinking man here,” said Joe. “Not vat I bovver wiv all vat now, but I like ta rememba, you know wot I mean?”
“And the disco’s always full of lahvly fahkin’ birds,” Monk added.
On inspection Monk was proved right about this. The disco was full of lahvly fahkin’ birds, but very, very tough-looking. Northern girls never cease to amaze me by how tough they look. I think it’s the temperature. They seem to be impervious to cold. They never wear tights! It’s amazing. In the middle of winter in Newcastle or Leeds you’ll see them, making their way from bus station to club, groups of determined-looking girls in tiny minidresses, naked but for a square inch or two of Lycra, bare arms folded against the howling wind, translucent white legs clicking along the sodden pavement in their impossibly precarious shoes. Never mind Scott of the Antarctic, these girls would have done it in half the time and got back before the chip shop closed.
I must say I’m glad I’m married and past all that trying to pull birds business. I’d be far too terrified to talk to girls these days (actually I always was). Still, you can have a bit of a sad old look, can’t you? And Monk, Joe and I have just celebrated the end of a great night by having a last drink in the Britannia Hotel disco.
And it has been a great night, I must say. A genuine rock extravaganza. Everything went brilliantly, not like on
The show was at the Manchester Evening News Arena, which is just vast. There must have been fifteen thousand fans in there. Amazing. I had a doddle of a job myself, which was to… well… quite frankly, I don’t really know what my job was. Hanging around, I suppose, while the engineers did all the work. That’s what executives do, isn’t it? And eat lunch, of course, but it was far too late to eat lunch.
We had an incredible bill. Representing the wrinklies was Joe London, Rod (obviously) and Bowie. We were to have had Phil Collins but there was fog at JFK. Besides this, we actually had a pretty impressive turn-out of current acts. Maybe the Prince is getting hip again. I certainly noticed that when the final bill was announced some of my fashion junkie colleagues at BH looked quite miffed not to be involved. The biggest booking of the night was Mirage. They’re colossal at the moment and being from Salford were almost local. The lead singer’s name is Manky (I think) and he hates absolutely everything, particularly, it seems, his own band. I went along to the sound check in the afternoon and he was on stage having a fight with the principal songwriter in the band, an ugly- looking bastard called Bushy. What a show! All the mikes were on and this vast concrete arena was echoing to the sound of these two lads yelling abuse at each other and pushing each other around.
“Ya fookin’ cont! Ya can’t fookin’ sing!”
“Ya fookin’ cont! Ya can’t fookin’ write songs.”
My heart sank because Mirage were the top of the bill (although Joe and Rod were pretending they were) and it didn’t look as if Manky and Bushy would survive until the evening. These boys may have been hooligans but they were professional hooligans. One of the other members of the band started strumming his guitar. “Look, are you fookin’ conts just fookin’ fookin’ about? Or are we fookin’ sound fookin’ checkin’, ya conts?”
“Fook it,” said Manky, turning to the mike while Bushy picked out the familiar opening notes of “Get Real”, Mirage’s current smash. I must say, Manky can certainly sing. He has a wonderful sneer in his voice which really does sound like he doesn’t give a fooking fook.
Some people detect a Beatles influence.
When the song was over, Manky snorted with contempt and burped hugely into the microphone. It was amazing. This colossal belch rang around the vast aircraft hangar, bouncing off the walls and the concrete floor. I thought it would bring the ceiling down.
“Ya disgosting cont,” said Bushy, “I’ll ’it ya with me knob, ya sweaty twat.”
After that the whole band had a fight.
As they left the stage I could see two familiar figures approaching across the vast acreage of the venue. It was my old lunch buddies, Dog and Fish, who were to compere the night and provide the “comedy” element. From experience I knew that basically this would involve them coming on between each act and pretending that they did not really want to be there. The strangest aspect of modern compering (or perhaps I should say post-modern compering) is that the host of the evening invariably seems to feel the necessity to disassociate himself from the proceedings, as if it was all some sad joke they’re indulging in for a laugh. You see it at award ceremonies all the time. Some young blade comes on and basically says, “Look, we all know this is a pile of self-indulgent shit and it’s probably fixed, but welcome anyway.” I think it’s a shame. Bring back Michael Aspel, I say, but you see my problem is that I like things to be nice.
“Hullo, Sam,” said Dog. “Shag the Mrs that day, did you?”
For a moment I was at a loss but then I recalled the circumstances of my hasty retreat from One Nine Oh. I didn’t know what to say, so I laughed a bit and left it at that.
“Yeah, sorry you got shafted out of telly,” added Fish. “You were a straight geezer. Best thing that could have happened to you, though. Radio’s the only truly post-modern no-bullshit medium. It’s the new TV.”
“So my successor didn’t give you a series, then?” I asked.
“No. Bastard,” Fish said morosely. “I couldn’t believe it, even after we stormed it in Montreal and all the Yanks were queueing up.”
Oh well, it wasn’t my problem any more. I had this evening to worry about.
“Now, you do know you can’t swear, don’t you?” I said.
“No fucking problem, Sam,” said Dog and laughed as if this was a brilliant joke and they headed for the stage.
I could see why. Brenda was starting her sound check. Brenda is a singer but her real claim to fame is that
