Читать книгу Mad, Bad and Dangerous - The Book of Drummers' Tales - Spike Webb - Страница 25

Andy Wells, or Wellsy as he is better known, is the drummer with popular covers band The Slaves. In the early ’80s he played for Meat Loaf and, after that, Then Jericho and Romeo’s Daughter. Andy has also featured in videos and on TV with Roxette and John Parr. As well as committing to a busy gigging schedule with The Slaves, he and the band also compose library music.

This story takes us back to the 1980s, when Wellsy is drumming for the mighty Meat Loaf at a big gig somewhere on the island of Jersey.

The place is heaving, 10,000 people or more. We’re about half way through the set and the crowd are pretty wild. Suddenly, the manager of the venue comes on stage looking very serious. He stops the band and announces over the mike that there has been an IRA bomb alert and we all have to leave immediately. The entire venue is evacuated and we hang around chewing the fat while it is thoroughly searched.

‘Shame, that was going well…’

‘Yeah, I was looking forward to really giving it some on ‘Bat Out of Hell’.’

‘Trouble is, you lose momentum when something like this happens…’

‘Ah well, at least we’ve got the rest of the night to party somewhere…’

Then someone comes up and says the place is clear and it’s all on again. Some bright spark has decided to drag all 10,000 people back in for the rest of the show. We get back on stage and plough back into the set. As it happens, we seem to get a real rush of energy from the re-instated crowd and far from losing momentum, we actually gain it. Everyone’s up for it. Eventually we get to our last song, ‘Bat Out of Hell’.

The band give it their all, Meat really is giving it hell and I’m sweating buckets after hours of mental pounding. And I’ve kind of forgotten all about the bomb scare. We finish the song with an almighty crescendo. Then it happens.

There is this massive explosion. Big white lights and smoke everywhere. Of course, I think it’s the bomb, and it scares me big time. I’m all at once shocked and terrified.

After a while, I realise it’s the result of the special effects pyrotechnics team being a little over zealous. But my sense of relief has arrived a little too late and I fear for my drum tech, who I suspect will have some extra drum stool cleaning to do in due course.

Ah yes, fear can have particularly unpleasant physical consequences… Drum tech? Nice work if you can get it.