The Roadie

Friday night’s gig reminded me once again why I would like to be a successful rock star.

Not for me the trappings of fame and fortune. Not the glory of being idolised by the masses. Not even the recognition of my industry peers, although that would be very nice.

No for me, the one thing I have always dreamed of in the context of being a world class rock star is that I would be entitled to a world class road crew.

The manager at Fridays venue pointed out, as it has been pointed out many times before, that we have considerably more equipment than any other band that he has playing there.

It is not particularly an ego thing. It is not necessarily that our guitarist has access to lots of kit at great prices and it not really that we are now in a position financially to be able to afford this kind of stuff. We need this amount in order to create the HUGE sound we are becoming known for (at least that is our excuse and we are sticking to it.)

However, this mountain of wood and wire comes with a price and on Friday it was a VERY heavy price.

We had to cart the lot up two flights of stairs across the whole length of the venue, nearly two hours set up (it was a tight space). Perform for two hours, Take it all back down again (that takes about an hour) and then lump the whole lot back across the venue, down two flights of steps to the truck where CJ was having to negotiate his way through a fleet of taxi’s that had taken up residence out side the venue in order that he could get close enough to the front doors (I think he would have still be there now had not a friendly bouncer taken pity on our man and threatened to rearrange the face of a driver who had point blank refused to get out of CJ’s way). Finally we had to pack the whole lot back into the truck, which is a feat of alchemy in itself that only CJ holds the secret to. I have never known any man or women pack so much stuff into such a tight space. Even my wife who is a genius at packing the holiday suitcases into the boot of a car would fail to compete with the wonder of CJ’s magic. You can, at a push, squash a suitcase or bag to get it to fit, you can’t do that with a Marshall 4 x 12 guitar speaker.

This was Friday. Saturday morning I felt like I had been driven over by the full length of a British Rail train. A long train that had been hauling coal, lots of coal.

It was as I gingerly hobbled around the house aching from every part of my body that was capable of aching that I longed for the days when I could have a crew of ‘Roadies’ that relieved this burden from my aching shoulders allowing me the luxury of the heaviest thing I would have to lift of a gig being the pre gig beer and of course my bass guitar.

I marvel at those live gig DVD’s of super groups like, say U2, when the band all appear to the rear of the stage in separate limos, go through their pre gig ritual and get on. Then as soon as the gig is finished they climb back into their limos and bog off leaving the road crew to de rig the lot.

I watched an interview with Jon Bon Jovi stating that he often gets very lonely after a gig sat in his hotel room with nobody to talk to. I thought, count yourself lucky pal, you could be risking your back as well as life and limb trying to haul your kit through a crowded pub into the awaiting disdainful embrace of a load of non English speaking taxi drivers….in the rain!

This is not to say that I have not had personal experience of roadies before, it is just that they were invariably as mad and unstable as the band and created no end of entertainment and chaos as opposed to the slick rigging and de rigging of equipment.

My first experience of the mystic roadie was when I was in a band called Amaziah. We all took a pay cut (we were playing full time by then) to employ our drummer’s best mate who was sick of working for the post office.

His first gig, in Belfast resulted in him falling off of the stage even before the gig had begun and breaking his ankle. So for the rest of the tour not only did we have to lug our own equipment we had to carry him.

He did alright though. Following the demise of Amaziah he went to work for Malcolm Hill a massive PA company and went on tour with Robert Palmer and AC/DC. I don’t think he finished the AC/DC tour though as his accident prone nature caught up with him and he fell of his motor bike (again) and smashed his fingers up.

He must have recovered as I last heard he is the front of house sound engineer for Status Quo and you may scoff but they always have a crystal clear PA mix so fair play to him I say.

Other roadie’s have been equally memorable damaging more equipment than we owned (I remember one guy leaping up and down on top of a venues extremely fragile stage rack mount, which would have bankrupt us had he have gone through the case…….it was the look of sheer blank non understanding that painted his face as the in-house sound guy screamed at him that said it all.

We have had roadies that have killed the vans, dropped guitars, wired all the equipment up back to front, got into fights, eaten all the food laid on for the band, nearly been murdered by band members, the lot.

And through this whole experience I have invariably and without exception had to carry my own flippin equipment. Where did I go wrong?

So the next time I listen to some ageing rock star moaning about a lack of things to do before or after gigs the DVD will be going in the bin.