NINE YEARS IN A LEAKY VAN

THE DREAM is always the same. The weirdly-bearded, stringy-haired, dandruff-speckled roadie comes toward me, keys jangling from his belt loop, mobile phone in hand, greasy black jeans sagging around fleshy cleavage any Hollywood starlet would be proud of. A plaid shirt flaps open over a shrunken, greying Hawkwind t-shirt, too scant to fully cover the unvoluptuous bulge of beergut. A roll-up cigarette is wedged behind his left ear. The tongues of his filthy runners flap at me like bad-tempered Chihuahuas. He leans in close, inches from my face. I can smell the rancid half-life of last night s curry on his breath as he barks: 15 minutes. Use your own backline. No lights. No monitors. No soundcheck. You re on now. My vision swims, the roadie s mad laughter rasps through my brain, and I awake screaming, coated in a film of cold sweat, thanking my God that it s not real, not real, it s all just some evil nightmare . . .
Beneath The Underdog
Support bands are a strange breed. Occupying a place on the evolutionary scale somewhere between rock star and roadie, jobsworth and genius, they are the hired help in the house of rock n roll. Indeed, on the face of it, warm-up acts are a burden on everybody. They screw up the main band s backline, create extra work for a crew already hassled to the marrow, and inevitably steal half the rider. The only purpose they serve is to fill in time while the punters arrive, a task easily accomplishable by any DJ worth his or her salt. It s no wonder they re often treated like something the promoter scraped off the sole of his shoe.
And while the buzz of playing to a thousand people through a huge PA is considerable, the benefits of these gigs to the support bands themselves are negligible, being far more useful as life experiences than promotional tools. Indeed, time spent as a relief musician can serve as a real crash-course in human nature, whether you re observing the giddy hysteria of a bunch of Britpop pups on the verge of breaking it big, the crises of faith experienced by established groups, or the weary resignation of road warriors who are fit to be put out to pasture but can t face the prospect of a nine-to-five after a decade or two of itinerant rambling.
The line that separates the wannabe from the never-was is thin, ephemeral, and shifts all the time. In the wink of a strobelight, this week s headliners could well find themselves supporting last year s opening act. Look sidestage at any big show, and you ll find a member of the support band lurking there, griping, It should ve been me into his beer.
I know what I m talking about. I was that soldier.
In the years between 1987 and 1996 I played hundreds of gigs in most of the cities and counties in Ireland, drumming for every kind of combo; hardcore raggle-taggle bands, psychedelic funksters, total-noiseniks, you name it. But I m not proud. From the smart-Alec perspective of hindsight, I realise that most of those long hours would ve been much better spent doing something a little more useful. Like studying the sex-life of the lesser-spotted Munster cockroach. Don t get me wrong fun was had, brain cells were obliterated, and knowledge was acquired that couldn t be found in any university but the great cosmic con is that it was all done in the name of rock n roll, and rock n roll was the least of it.
Sometimes, as I was thumbing my way to Limerick, or Waterford or wherever I was hare-brainedly heading that week, the person giving me a lift would ask me what I did for a living.
I m a musician, I d reply.
I d say there s a few quid in that, they d wink in that sly manner which so many Irish folk adopt when discussing other people s money.
Not really, I d admit. And then they d listen incredulously to my spiel about doing it for love rather than cash. That the hardship was all part of the thrill, and the struggle and starvation and sweat would all be worth it in the end. And they d look at me askew, internally calculating the distance to the nearest home for the bewildered.
Rock n roll is built on escape and illusion. But once the escape routes have been used up and you begin to see through all the smoke and mirrors, it s time to do something else. I finally gave it up because it was making a monkey out of me. I lost my grip on the cock-eyed notion that sitting in the back of a van for days on end, on the way to yet another pub with a crummy PA and Gordon Gekko for a proprietor, constituted freedom. My ability to suspend reality simply broke down. Mind you, as illusions go, it was a good un.
Fear Of A Black Planet
The year was 1995; the band were Toejam. Actually they were called something else, but with libel laws being what they are, it s best to employ pseudo-names. Anyway, Toejam were your standard four-piece white-trash guitar band, who, by utilising contacts with a major promoter, had managed to score a support slot with Public Enemy on the Dublin date of their farewell tour. We were thrilled, and not a little trepidatious: PE, particularly Flavor Flav, had more outlaw credibility than all the bands in Dublin put together.
But when Toejam and crew (one qualified roadie and several buddies who wanted to bunk in) showed up at the SFX at five in the afternoon, there wasn t so much as a rapper in the house. Instead of the usual small army of roadies and thousands of dollars worth of equipment, we were greeted by the security people and the PA hire company. The stage was bare.
We were perplexed. Support act etiquette decrees that you keep well out of the way until the headliners have finished soundchecking, but the hour was getting late and we were somewhat anxious. The security blokes recommended we haul our gear sidestage and do as much setting up as we could from there. We followed their advice, then sat around and smoked, a bunch of skinny, nervous white boys in cheap honky runners. As time wore on we became bolder and more bored, weakly joking about crack stashes and firearms. Then the Public Enemy crew arrived and we all shut up.
The PE stage set-up consisted of one riser (housing Terminator X s decks) over which was draped a black flag emblazoned with the group s bull s-eye motif across the front. No drums. No guitars. No amps. The monitors were shifted from their usual configuration (three sets of two wedges at 45-degree angles), and pulled across the front of the playing area, flush with the lip of the stage. We looked on in horror. How were we going to hear ourselves play with the wedges set up like that? It was outrageous. Even worse, the soundcheck itself consisted of Public Enemy backing tracks being pumped through the PA on DAT while roadies checked the radio mikes. Still, not a rapper in sight. And as for the Black Panther-style security guards on-stage we didn t even want to think about them.
The stage plan was so minimalist it looked like the set for a Beckett play. It was an affront to our sensibilities: the very sight of it seemed to twang some primordial chord of doom in our guts, knelling the death of white traditionalist rock as we knew it. It was as if, to paraphrase Jon Landau, we guitarslingers had seen the future of rock n roll and weren t invited. As the roadies (six-foot-plus, built-like-brick-shithouse Nubian warriors) continued their chores, we dispiritedly adjourned to the dressing room, shaken men. In the face of this cut-up, post-modern ferocious rap racket, three chords and the truth had never seemed so feeble.
Eventually, we got to soundcheck. When I had finished assembling the drum-kit, a tall young crew member wandered over and peered at it. Oh shit, I thought. He s going to tell me I can t set up here, I m going to have to play the gig from the vantage point of sidestage. Or behind the monitor mixer. Or in the wings. Or on the floor of the venue, with the punters. It s happened before.
But the guy wanted nothing of the sort. Hey, man, he said cheerfully. Can I play your kit? Sure, I replied, breathing again. I stood aside and watched him crank crisp hip-hop beats out of my battered Pearl drums. From the expression on the guy s face, I don t think he had seen an acoustic kit in months.
If the crew were an amicable lot, that night s audience were tougher cookies, track-suited hard-nosed Dubs with a taste for big beats and poetic polemics rather than whitebread indie-rock routines about love n stuff in the key of G. Still, we got through it.
Afterwards, the band and our assorted cronies were still hanging out in the dressing room when Public Enemy s set started. I was about to get up and head out front when I heard Hey, wassup? in my left ear. For a minute I thought they were piping the gig into the dressing room, live. The voice sounded like Eddie Murphy on helium. Then, as I turned to go, I almost fell over a multi-coloured apparition decked out in a mad Harlequin hat, holding a radio mike. It was Flavor Flav, wearing a gigantic clock around his neck. For one insane moment I had the overriding urge to ask him the time. Then, eyeing the mike, it occurred to me that our encounter might be broadcast to the thousand-odd punters out front.
Hey, he falsetto d, his eyes rolling in their sockets like a spooked horse: Anybody got a beer? Yeah? Whatcha got? Twelve pairs of hands held up a choice of brews. Stout or lager? The green one, man, the green one! Flav then proceeded to rip the cap off with his teeth before strutting out the door, back to work. The room was silent for a minute, save the muffled sound of Chuck D giving it some Don t Believe The Hype out front.
Flav was back in custody again barely weeks later.
Do The Popes Shit In The Woods?
November 94. The venue, a huge hanger in Claremorris. I m in a band called The Crabs and this is our second gig, supporting Shane MacGowan and The Popes, who are touring Europe in support of their new album The Snake. We re limping around the hall, all dead-legged from the day-long drive from Dublin, barking and hawking from a combination of too much tobacco and no heat in the van.
The Popes don t go for such pesky preliminaries as soundchecks, so we re on now. Their sound engineer is happy to use us as guinea pigs while he gets his front-of-house in order.
After the sound is sorted out, we check out the dressing room. Much to our jubilation, the rider has arrived: a few dozen cans of beer, some sambos, and the ubiquitous crisps, all of which we fall upon like starved castaways. Then one of us peeks into The Popes dressing room to check out the size of their rider. It is the proverbial Aladdin s cave, if Aladdin was a local mogul with a string of off-licences and a small deli to his name. A huge table groans with bottles of vodka and whiskey, innumerable cases of Guinness and lager, gallons of mineral water, meats, breads, coleslaw; enough grub to feed a small and rather flutered army.
Shortly before showtime, Shane and entourage arrive and noisily secure their turf. All eyes swivel toward MacGowan, whose eyes themselves are swivelling entirely of their own accord. A gas-heater is wheeled into the room in order to achieve the temperature required to keep the star conscious and comfortable. Assorted diseased-looking hangers-on, industry whores and professional cockroaches file in and out of the backstage area, as, beyond the security barriers, young drunken punters call Shane s name, desperate for a word, a gesture, anything, going nuts every time they catch a glimpse of their hero.
Showtime. Our set goes well enough, and we finish with a cover of The Only Ones Another Girl, Another Planet . Afterwards, MacGowan sticks his head in the dressing room door. Awwooughfackinwoooouugh! he announces, in what the linguistic experts among us identify as a friendly greeting. Thanks! we reply in unison. Kcccchhhhh nice cover kccccchhhhhh The Only Ones, he continues. Be er than the facking original. Kcccchhhhh. We re feeling rather pleased with ourselves. Somehow, if only for a second, we have penetrated the disorientating murk that surrounds Shane s brain and stirred some small spark in his memory. Even if it s with someone else s song.
The Popes set that night is quite a riot. Shane is flagging by the end of it, but when the band return for an encore he seems greatly refreshed. He s also wearing shades. Evidently, the rock n roll doctor has just made a housecall.
Hours later, as we prepare ourselves for the journey home, I sneak into The Popes dressing room to see if there s any booze left. Some hope. All the rabble have left is some flat Ballygowan and some half-eaten sandwiches. On the dancefloor outside there s a thick film of puke, piss, broken glass and spilt beer, making for a treacherous load-out: one false move and you re flat on the soggy seat of your pants, with a bass-amp on top of you and the broken neck of a beer bottle stuck up your poop-chute.
I manage to sleep on the drive home, wedged between the guitar amps and a spare tyre, numbed with alcohol. When I eventually awake, it s daylight and the van isn t moving. I open the back door and hobble out into the sunlight. We re in the middle of nowhere. There isn t a soul about. Eventually I see a small, stiff-legged figure in the distance. It s our guitarist, Igor.
Hey Igor, I demand. Where the fuck are we? What are we doing here? He looks at me and grins.
Kinnegad, he answers. We ve run out of petrol.
Grassed Up
Sometimes I wonder if I didn t spend nine years sleepwalking through a lucid dream, so odd and disembodied do some of those interludes seem . . .
Like coming off stage after a support slot to The Cramps and almost falling over Lux Interior and Poison Ivy in full Rocky Horror regalia: whiteface, black eyeliner, big hair, ripped fishnets, geometric cheekbones, and foot-high stack-heels . . .
Like drinking with Supergrass after a gig in the Limelight in Belfast. Their album would be released the next day, and the buzz of optimism was like spring fever thick in the dressing room air. A month later my four-year-old daughter would be singing along to the video clip of Alright on The Children s Channel and trying to humour her old man as he held forth at length about how he and Gaz were like this, man. Close as moments. Honest . . .
Like the night in Dundalk when my drum-stool tottered off the edge of the stage (cunningly concealed by a curtain), leaving me with my arse hanging in mid-air, still drumming, supported only by an alert roadie . . .
Like returning from the chipper late one night after a Waterford gig to find our Scottish driver doing poppers in the front seat of the van, before speeding us all the way to New Ross, on the wrong side of the road . . .
Like the pub in a remote part of the West whose proprietor produced a custom-built motor-driven bong ten minutes before the gig . . .
Like playing my first stadium gig several years ago, at the Fiile in Pairc Um Chaoimh, and discovering that the longest walk on earth is the one from the side of the stage to the drum-kit, as every footfall seems as loud and long as Edgar Allen Poe s Telltale Heart. Or worse, in the backstage area, moments before we were due to go on, turning around to see a band-member and one of the crew doing coke off one of the band s CDs. Considering we didn t have so much as a pot to piss in at the time, this struck me as being somewhat deluded . . .
Like one morning after a Galway show, finding an incriminating note addressed to our (happily engaged) driver, written by his one-night stand of the previous night. We later used this evidence to, er, entice him into giving us a rather handsome discount . . .
Like supporting a youthful Dublin three-piece at Sir Henry s in Cork, shortly before their second album was due to be released. The trio s crew were a bunch of English mercenaries hired by the record company, who allocated us roughly enough stage-space for a chessboard. The main band were oblivious they hardly knew any of the roadies by name. In fact, they hardly knew their own names, being totally and permanently whacked out on E. The band got dropped by the label two months later. The crew, presumably, are still working . . .
Too Much Monkey Business
People sometimes ask me if I miss playing music. Sure, I reply. Breathing exhaust fumes in the back of the van on an eight-hour drive to Sligo. Subsisting on bad burgers, roll-ups, crisps and chocolate. Sleeping in sweat-drenched clothes on a bass-drum in a bad draught, stoned as a coot. Being permanently broke. Putting in 20-hour days and not getting paid. Kind of like the French Foreign Legion, but without the per diems. Of course I miss it.
But the truth is, sometimes I do. When the band was really kicking in, and the crowd were behind it, and the music seemed to have a life of its own, it seemed like you could go anywhere. You could almost levitate with the power of it. I miss the camaraderie, the siege mentality, the feeling of being totally removed from society. Of buying the newspapers at a Shell station and passing them around the van like soldiers sharing letters from loved ones.
But then I think about the endless loading and unloading, the bitching, the bad gigs, the rip-off merchants, the egos, the disappointments, the bullshit, the delusion, the conceit and the abject poverty and the fever passes.
But sometimes, just sometimes, when the moon is full . . . n