Читать книгу Mad, Bad and Dangerous - The Book of Drummers' Tales - Spike Webb - Страница 22

Heavy rock is an integral part of Britain’s musical culture, and the band Saxon has to be among the genre’s most important ambassadors. The man behind the kit for much of their career is Nigel Glockler. After drumming for Toyah Willcox, Nigel replaced the injured Pete Gill as Saxon’s drummer in 1981. In 1987 he took a year’s break to play for supergroup GTR, and in 1998 he was forced to take another when a neck and shoulder injury put him under doctor’s orders. Nigel was told to put his sticks down for some time, but he continued to write material for Saxon and much of his work is featured on subsequent albums. He has been back with Saxon since 2005.

I met Nigel in The Shakespeare pub opposite London’s Victoria station.

It was 1981 and I was really looking forward to my first European tour with Saxon. I’d recently spent a couple of weeks in Italy working with Toyah and now here I was travelling over a beautiful mountain pass in Switzerland – what a life!

The snowfall had been particularly heavy over the mountains in recent days. We had two tour buses, an artic with the PA and lights, and another truck full of our own personal backline gear. The weather conditions meant that we ended up stuck on this road for quite a while during the early hours but we managed to get going and the band, crew and artic eventually got to the Milan gig – a sports arena. The gig had sold out, around 9,000 people.

In those days, the fans would start queuing early in the afternoon. Also present would be a political faction who demanded all the bands play for free, so the Carabinieri would have to keep them under control as they could sometimes riot. For this reason they decided to let the audience into the gig during the afternoon. By the time we eventually got there, late, they were pretty impatient to say the least! The band turned up to find the crew had set up the lights and PA, but there was no sign of our backline gear – no guitars, no drums, no amps! The second truck must have got snowed up somewhere. Our managers wanted to cancel the gig but I seem to remember a gun being pulled so we thought it best to agree to play.

We had no choice but to go on stage using the support band’s gear. There was a curtain across the front of the stage, so I had a little time before curtain-up to familiarise myself with this strange drum kit. As I was fiddling about, changing the height of the hi-hat, moving a cymbal here, another one there, stuff started flying over the top of the curtain from angry Italians – coins, all sorts.

I was petrified. Not only did we have to struggle with strange instruments – the kit was totally alien and only had one kick, great for fast double bass tracks like ‘20,000 Feet’ (NOT) – but we had no stage clothes (in the lost truck) to give us any sense of authority over an incensed Italian crowd.

Then something came flying over the curtain and actually sliced the drumhead off one of the rack toms. Even more worrying. Even when our intro music came on, stuff kept coming over the curtain top. By now, gun or no gun, I’d had enough: If one more f***ing thing hits me I’m f***ing off!

At that moment the curtain suddenly went up and I had no choice but to count in the first song after which I got pole-axed on the side of the face by a full can of beer. As the blood ran down my face I figured I couldn’t just walk off and leave my pals up there to take the flack. I had no choice but to accept my fate.

Don’t ask me how, but we went down a storm!

Another splendid example of how drummers are prepared to get the job done, even in the face of extreme adversity.