Stansbury Never Mind the Botox

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-909271-80-7
Verlag: M-Y Books ltd
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 198 Seiten

Reihe: Humour

We, four suburban forty-somethings, had all but ignored live music, proper live music, for twenty years - The Banshees, Buzzcocks and The Smiths happened so long ago that they might have been in a different life. Live music now was a mum from Doncaster pretending to be the blonde one from Abba, and we needed help. Thankfully, it came, as our children found indie-rock, and demanded to see it up close. A night at Wembley with The Killers kick-started a five year odyssey of seventy nights, a hundred bands, and all of this - Superheroes in spandex, Viking Metallers in a strip-club, cross-dressing sax players, foam-parties, typewriter solos, half-eaten birds, demented babysitters, homicidal ticket-touts, terrifying body-art, the world's laziest roadie, and of course, some dad-dancing. We've met an 80's legend playing drums in a punk covers band, and been stalked by a masked man in a gay night-club. We've been derailed by the Pope, and insulted by a singer who then bought us all a drink, and even, briefly, had rock stars' arse in our hands. Well, in my hands. Fleeting it may have been, but he hasn't called, or even sent a text. Never Mind the Botox is a journey of mild, middle-aged rebellion, as once or twice a month, we try not to stand out in a crowd thirty years younger - we usually fail. Sometimes the children keep us company, others we leave them at home, but there is always, along the way, some fun to be had. And so what if we can't hear the next morning. Old-people need rock'n'roll too.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stansbury, Mitch

Leseproben

ONE
I BLAMe THE KiDS
THE KILLERS
WEMBLEY ARENA
24 FEBRUARY 2007
In the early seventies, my father took me to a first division football match for my ninth birthday; West Brom and Huddersfield – today’s equivalent would perhaps be Fulham versus Wigan. Not a glamorous fixture, but I loved football, and it was the closest ‘proper’ ground to my home town of Hereford. I can’t remember a thing about the game, but what has stayed with me was the crowd. To see so many people in one place should have been awe-inspiring, but I was terrified; there must have been at least a million there that day. Fast-forward a generation and my nine-year-old daughter Sophie is clutching, tightly, a concert ticket and my hand as we navigate a more benign sea of humanity, outside London’s Wembley Arena. We're there to celebrate her best friend Sophie’s ninth birthday. The two Sophies and their sisters had spent last summer learning the words, all of the words, to a long-player called Hot Fuss, by an American band called The Killers. It’s what kids do; latch onto the band of the month and swear their undying love, shortly before rejecting them as ‘so last week’, and moving on to the next collection of perfectly-packaged poster boys, but here’s the good news. While both flirted with the latest laboratory assembled ghosts of Hear Say, remember them? a combination of inspired genetics and some gentle parental coaxing saw indie rock’n’roll squeeze out the beautiful but bland. Although gentle and coaxing might be stretching things. Susie, other Sophie’s mum can turn a phrase with the very best, and ‘That shit is not happening any more in my house missy, oh no!’ would about cover it. Susie was once a buyer for Tower Records in Las Vegas, and knows her music. But back to The Killers, who had just released a new album, surely time for the youngsters to see what music was really all about, and tickets were purchased. Parents Susie and Matt, my own better half Sarah, the two Sophies, our eldest Lucy, and I would enjoy some music, live and loud, the little ones for the first time. We knew, as they one day will also know, that you always remember your first time. I lucked out; the Pretenders, in the hall of our local technical college in 1980, the drummer and guitarist coming from just up the road. No, really, they did, but Sarah was less fortunate, or perhaps more careless. She screeched and cried at David Soul, a calamity the kids might today refer to as a fail, perhaps even, an epic fail. Yes, she was only twelve, but she queued for half a day. Easy for me to laugh, and I did, but here was one of the (very) few instances I could claim to be cooler than my wife. Sarah’s other first gig was just about as cool as it gets, New Order, in a small hall in Bristol impressing everyone, including Matt. He must have been to a thousand gigs, but has forgotten (who says you always remember the first time?), so while it could have been, and probably was Dr. Feelgood, he gets Paper Lace. Between us, we had a Herefordshire/Ohio New Wave outfit – surely a great pop-quiz tie-breaker, a dodgy actor cashing in because everyone loved Starsky and Hutch (although not in every case, enough to hear Hutch sing), and oh the shame, we had Paper Lace. All of which paled into insignificance, as Susie Vegas outdid us all. ‘Oh I was fifteen I guess, my first fake ID. Rush played the Aladdin in Vegas. There was a huge fight after the show and this boy got stabbed and staggered past me, just gushing blood, and it’s only gone all over my trainers, and they were new. Before I could even give him “Jeez, some people,” the dude who stabbed him was running straight at us. He was a big crazy man with a knife, completely whacked, so we ran up a stairway. Anyways, he chased us and I’m like “what did I do?” but the police nailed him, thank God. The bleeding guy wanted my number so he could replace my Vans, or something, but hey, no way dude. Then he got arrested too. Next night was Van Halen. Sooo quiet, didn’t even get my ass grabbed.’ While the Vegas Aladdin, if measured in blood and trashed shoes, is a bigger deal than Hereford Tech, Wembley Arena is bigger than both. I doubt that The Killers have even heard of Hereford, let alone its fine Technical College, but they would certainly have heard of the Aladdin, and maybe even played there. Small world, but The Killers come from Las Vegas, something that two wide-eyed Sophie’s found hugely impressive. ‘So mum, do you actually know Brandon Flowers?’ asked birthday Sophie. ‘She wishes,’ said birthday Sophie’s dad. ‘Two of the Pretenders came from Hereford,’ I offered. ‘And the drummer once bought my dad a beer.’ They couldn’t have been less bothered. Trumping Las Vegas with Hereford, although both are middle of nowhere cattle towns, will never fly, not if you’re nine years old, and I quit while I was behind. Mott the Hoople, also from my home town, could be saved for another day. But back to Wembley Arena, a building holding few surprises, and, save the cute water feature at the front door, could have been the last big hall I visited, Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre.1 Our seats were good enough, but in what would soon become a sort of gig-going Groundhog Day, we had missed the support act. According to the girl a row behind, although no-one had asked, something not to be mistaken for a terrible tragedy, they being ‘some dirgy grease-heads from Buttfuck Arkansas who made everybody fall to sleep.’ A job in the music press surely awaits this little charmer, but in the finest traditions of British justice, a verdict on Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, would be withheld until the evidence was more carefully considered. What we did get, after the grease-heads, but before The Killers, was a black and white slideshow of gritty Americana, with an unsurprisingly Vegas biased theme, accompanied by a gritty score and an unscripted, but far from gritty running commentary. ‘Been there, and there, there too. Jeez that’s looking rough. I worked in that bar, lousy tips. Aw, those sunsets. That place still open? I have out made out in that shelter, dude still owes me ten bucks for a cab ride!’ Maybe not word for word, but it went something like that, and I shouldn’t libel a close friend, especially one from the land of the free. Or as Susie put it, ‘free to sue your sorry ass mister.’ So with the kids somewhere close to exploding, we then got a storm of ticker-tape, and we got The Killers. Currently everyone’s favourite band, if indie-disco anthems are your thing, The Killers churned out a succession of, well, indie-disco anthems. Noisy, a little more raw and edgy than their studio work (and believe me, I’ve heard it enough to know), it felt however, like something was missing. To a veteran of one – this one – arena gig in the last quarter century, it took a while, but what stopped a good gig from being a great gig, was the lead singer. Brandon Flowers, and thanks for the help, summed it up himself when telling twenty thousand people that he wasn’t ‘all that big on this gift of the gab thing.’ Like the man said, Brandon was just a little light on stage presence, but not to worry fella. Style over substance might work if your fame hangs on a TV show telephone vote (no, not once, and never will), but may not get you to Wembley. If you are by nature quiet, but keep those big tunes coming, then fine by me. Not just your own tunes either. An hour into the set, the kids, and not only ours, stopped singing, for here was a tune that they didn’t know. Ours, along with perhaps a thousand other children had just been introduced to the concept of the cover version, but in fairness to the youngsters, many adults wore a similar expression, my three more senior companions included. Rarely, if ever, could I claim to be down with the kids, the cool ones anyway, but youngsters, never forget, we were all children once, and I was right down with this one. In 1979, although I found it two years later, Ian Curtis and his band Joy Division made an album called Unknown Pleasures, the standout track being Shadowplay. The Killers, somehow, had found it, loved it as it deserved to be loved, and brought it back to life. It was at once surprising and inspirational, taking me back to a place that’s now a souvenir-shop. For three glorious minutes, I was in Buzz Music, Hereford, wearing massive headphones and trousers that today wouldn’t make it past my knees. And if that paints a picture you don’t wish to dwell on, fine by me. After Shadowplay, I looked at Brandon in a different light. Slight, lacking a little stagecraft, shy, but delivering music with his own intensity, Flowers from Vegas appeared a lot closer to Curtis from Macclesfield than 5000 miles and 27 years would have you believe. Following this unexpected but not unknown pleasure came more indie-guitar, more singalongs (bless you Killers, for thinking of the children), a rowdy encore, and another human sea, this time flowing toward the car-park. Floating on which were three children, eyes again like dinner-plates, and in a state of what could best be described as delirious shock. Maybe nine is a little young for so many decibels, birthday Sophie observing that ‘the noise made my heart rattle,’ but the kids loved it. I doubt a car has ever been filled with so many ‘epics’, ‘awesomes’ or ‘unbelievables.’ There was even an ‘I...