A funny Rock‘n’Roll story!
Just to prove that I’m still a teenage dirtbag at heart! Saturday night, I had been working all day on the read-through and checking, editing on New Blood, New Targets and my eyes were feeling tired, the atmosphere at home had not been great so I decided to head out to the local Community Club. It is just a small village bar. They had advertised a live band for Saturday night, a new one that we’d not seen before named “Tantric Zoo.” With that title, I was curious and thought they’d be all Tibetan Pans and some electronic sounds.
When I got there the band was a more conventional rock’n’roll cover band and the club was busy. I got a glass of red at the bar and went looking for a seat in the corner. I was quickly waved at by a youngish (30+)couple of locals I knew, friends of my son’s crowd, and they showed me a seat next to them.
I got there a little after 9 pm and the band had been playing for about a half-hour. Most of the crowd were “well oiled” as were the 2 youngsters that I sat with. Anyhow, the band was ok and I was into it by the time they had their first break. The Lead Singer gave a bit of banter before they started the second set and pointed over at us in my corner and said something like “That’s where the bottles and glasses will be thrown from” and something else at another end of the bar. It was all light-hearted as if he was referring to the scene in “The Blues Brothers” movie, where they had a net in front of them and the rednecks were all throwing stuff at them!
Anyway, we had a few drinks bought for us and they had one more break before playing on until midnight. They were playing some really old rock stuff, I think from “The Who” who always used to smash their gear up, then followed it up with “The Proclaimers” 500 Miles, a song that my little corner couldn’t stand, so I playfully spun a couple of beer mats across at the singer and it took him a bit by surprise. You know the beer mats, those little soft cork table mats that your beer glasses go on? They are very lightweight but it did make him and the guitarist jump. They spun across the bar, straight at him like a mini-frisbee. It was my little joke, I know I was being childish, but that was the sort of thing we did at punk bands back in the day, and that guy was old…
