Читать книгу Mad, Bad and Dangerous - The Book of Drummers' Tales - Spike Webb - Страница 19

Pete Baker’s band Mohair toured the USA and Europe as support to the highly successful band Razorlight. In 2009, after 10 years of hard graft, Mohair decided to call it a day, much to the disappointment of their fans. Pete is now doing session gigs with a number of bands up and down the country. He told me of a particularly unnerving gig he did at the tender age of 16 while he was still at school.

I’m travelling to my band’s first gig outside my hometown, so it’s new territory. The band are all too young to drive, so my parents have kindly agreed to take me and my drums to the venue, which is a converted aircraft hangar just outside Bristol. The gig has been arranged by our ‘cool’ lab technician in the science department. She wears leathers, rides a Harley and hangs around with bikers. My band’s job is to entertain her friends at one of their club gatherings. Although I have been vaguely aware that the proceedings might be a little bohemian, it is only on arrival that I realise exactly what we may have let ourselves in for.

The two-day party has already been in full swing for about 24 hours. As we pull up in the muddy field outside the hangar we are greeted by a dozen or so large, fierce-looking bikers. They are all wearing black. Some are missing a limb, some are toothless. Others are wandering around, pissing against the wall of the huge hangar. Most are carrying bottles of booze and smoking what look like huge cigarettes.

So it occurs to me, with some degree of horror, that no matter how tolerant and liberal my parents may be, the folks at this joint might be a little off their radar. Even worse, the arrangement is that my parents are to stick around for the gig and drive me home again afterwards.

As I unload my drums from the car and, helped by the bikers, carry them into the venue, I can’t help noticing my parents in deep conversation with Fang, the chief organiser: two people dressed head to toe in Laura Ashley patterns and sandals chatting casually with the toughest-looking bloke I’ve ever seen.

As I start setting up my drums on the stage, something grabs my attention. At the far end of the vast building is an inflatable swimming pool. Nobody is in the pool and I reckon it must be a bit uninviting. After all, the party has been going on for 24 hours and who knows what could be floating around in it?

Soon it’s time to start the set and Fang introduces the band to polite applause. I am pleasantly surprised as all goes very well. The bikers are genuinely enthusiastic as we deliver specially rehearsed, classic biker favourites. At one point, I glance over in the direction of the pool to see a fully naked biker clambering out of it with a bottle of beer in his hand and, dangling between his legs, the biggest dong I have ever seen. It’s a little distracting as I’m wondering, ‘Are they meant to look like that? What’s wrong with mine?’

The gig continues to go well. In fact, it’s going down so well that I’m quite looking forward to playing ‘Smoke on the Water’, which we’re saving for an encore. As we approach the end of the set, I notice some strange looks from a few of the bikers. They are pointing to the stage in a kind of conspiracy, as if plotting something.

Tom, our singer, announces the last song. Suddenly his mum dashes to the stage and whispers something to him. It turns out that a plot has been hatched to put the band into the pool at the end of the set. This is indeed bad news. Quite apart from becoming acquainted with the contents of the pool itself, being delivered there by a naked biker is an even bleaker prospect. We decide there is only one thing for it. If we’re going in, we’re going to put ourselves in: grappling with naked bikers isn’t our style. So after the last number, we jump off stage and make a dash for the pool, much to the astonishment of our audience.

We get soaked in water, piss and who knows what else.

The bikers cheer their approval and we come back to play our encore.

Luckily I was playing an instrument independent of the power mains, whereas the others were risking death to play rock ’n’ roll.

The truth is, biker gigs are probably the most peaceful of all events. Whatever happens tends to be within a strict code of conduct that renders the proceedings completely harmless, however outrageous they may at first appear. Still, I bet ‘Smoke on the Water’ never smelled so bad.