Banged to rights

With all the sentimental ‘’awing’ and expressions like ‘bless’ at the end of my last blog I thought I ought to write something a little more………mean and rock & roll.

So here it is.

Over the years of touring with bands and as a solo singer it has been my lot to perform in a variety of prisons.

The first time I had this experience was in a maximum security prison in Holland. Amongst the inmates that were to be watching us were a group of Molaccan highjackers that had perpetrated a two week long siege on a Dutch railway train that ended with the deaths of 2 hostages and six highjackers. The story had gripped the world and now we were to meet its stars face to face.

It was this group of young guys (most no older than us…and we were all teenagers) that greeted us as we clunked our way through one locked door after another into the heart of the Dutch prison.

When celebrities of this magnitude (and reputation) offer to help carry your speakers you don’t tend to refuse. Mind you, they couldn’t carry them very far as they would have to traverse about a dozen high security and very much ‘locked’ doors to get back out to our truck. However; all in all they appeared to enjoy our set and they let us live.

My next prison experience was in a high security prison in Bristol. This in itself would have been fairly uneventful apart from having cast an eye over the audience I clapped eyes on an old friend from school. Sadly I couldn’t stop my brain from persuading my mouth to blurt out “What the hell are you doing here?” ‘Not an awful lot’ would have been a pertinent reply. Either way, it was a bit blunt and NOT the done thing to do.

Mind you this paled into insignificance when the warder who ushered me into the main gates stopped me and encouraged me to ‘look up’ As I stared upwards towards an old trap door I enquired if this was the entrance way to a clock tower or something “Not exactly” was the reply. It was then that I realised that I was staring at the ‘Long Drop’……around the time of my birth the last of those condemned men fell through that same door to dance their final waltz…….it didn’t put me in the mood for a rock & roll session I can tell you.

The most frightening experience was playing at a remand centre in Norfolk. This place had a reputation for being where they incarcerated the particularly nasty whilst they awaited trial for their heinous crimes.

As I was led quaking in my boots to the stage, alone I might add, no band mates were stupid enough to accompany me on this particular gig and I was doing this one on my own, I was informed, again by a warder (I was beginning to see why they were affectionately called ‘screws’ by the cliental as this what they do with your mind) that the group of prisoners I was about to play to were on a final warning. They had rioted during the concert the week before and if they did it again this was the end of their concert nights and I would be their last concert.

I do not have to remind any of you that fear has its own brand of smell…..and the smell was strong in this one I can tell you. I think the whole stage smelt like a freshly opened packet of dry roasted peanuts.

Anyway, they let me live on that occasion and a good time was had by all.

I played in many more ‘lock ups’ on many occasions over the years, and they all became rather common place after a while. However; the one that still makes me chuckle was one of my last gigs at an open prison in Gloucestershire.

Firstly on arrival we discovered a cart load of prisoners eager to help, and who were….shall we say ‘as the newt’ and secondly the man that was to be our liaison for the event was a convicted murderer who kept asking me for my telephone number for future events.

The answer to the mystery of the ‘half cut’ enlisted roadies was that being an open prison they had been allowed to help at a Christmas party at an old people’s home. I’m not sure how much Christmas cheer the elderly party goers had got to drink as this lot had really had a skin full. Not what we were expecting.

However; my lasting memory came from the fact that our guitarist had nearly taken one of his fingers off with a Stanley knife a few days before and as he began playing the stitches gave way spraying his bright orange guitar with blood. With that he launched into ‘Jailhouse rock’ by Elvis (bearing in mind we were in a prison it perhaps was in bad taste).

The men went mad…in a very good way.

Talk about rock & roll…..a guitarist drench in blood and sweat, the whole band ‘giving it some’ to Jailhouse rock and the prisoners rocking and rolling like the embodiment of the song itself….”I went to a party at the County Jail…”.

I felt like I was in the final moments of the Blue’s Brothers.

If you ever get the chance to play in a prison just go for it…just don’t ask the guys what they are in for….it’s rude, and they might take offence….…Doh!