One bloody awful wet night we found ourselves over in West Yorkshire. In Heckmondwike, or somewhere grandly-named like that. Certainly the wrong side of Huddersfield. We had driven over, in what was almost certainly the worst downpour ever seen in the entire history of man, with possibly three inch visibility in front of us, to play at..... the local working men's club.
This place held a few fond memories for me, as it was the first venue I had ever played with that group. I had driven over in my own car and the rest of the group had travelled together in one car with a trailer for the rest of the gear. On arriving and parking up, staring from about 20 feet away at the venue, the rain was so coming down hard, we couldn't actually see the building through the downpour.
After a few depressing minutes, I decided that the rain wasn't going to let up, so I grabbed my suit bag and some guitar cases and legged it for dear life, through the rain, up the Z-shaped ramp at the side of the club, which always made the trip three times as long with all our heavy gear. Once I had emptied my car, I made for the group trailer and rescued my bass amps from the back and lugged them both up the ramp. By the time I had finished and was back in the dressing room, I looked something seriously like a drowned rat.
I got a towel out of my suit bag and dried my hair off a bit. Then I damply went on stage and set my gear up, plugged everything in, tuned up, bought a drink at the bar. Great. All working. In the Dry at last. Nice pint. But what is wrong with this picture?
You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the rest of the mighty troupe again yet at this point.
They had not actually ventured out into the wet to come into the venue. I put my coat over my head and braved the storm outside again. Back down the Z-shape ramp I went, to find the remining three artistes sat in the dry, on the gear in the trailer, moaning about the bloody awful weather. Not without reason, I must concede.
The drummer looked balefully at the driving rain and proposed quite seriously that we just cancelled the show and drove home. The lead guitarist (1) nodded in the glummest possible form of agreement, just like he always did, no matter what it was that the drummer said. Lesser Guitarist (2) looked at the weather and probably thought it was great weather for going out on the wiley windswept moors shooting at animals and that, but not quite up to it for carrying gear around. He was sat firmly on the fence about what to do, really, but given time, he would side with the others, just as he always did. They sort of looked like they were really going to get back in the car and turn round and drive another 75 miles home, without even bothering to do the show.
That was the point where I realised what professionalism was (and wasn't).
They were worried about getting their hair wet, while I had unquestioningly got on with the job and moved all my own gear by myself, got sodden doing it and had set up on stage in front of a rapidly growing audience (who were also rapidly getting older while they waited for these temperamental artistes to get their collective finger out). They sat there like a bunch of jellies, worrying about getting their f**ing hair wet!
I HAD MORE HAIR THAN THE REST OF THEM PUT TOGETHER AT THAT POINT.
I look back now with a degree of embarrassment at how I nearly lost it and went berserk at them. I was furious. It could have gone very badly. I kept as calm as I could and told them flatly that if I had to go back in there and dismantle my gear, I would first of all explain to the concert secretary and audience exactly why I was doing it. Their agent would simply love that, as I am sure he would have heard about it before I had got all of my gear back in the car. I also would expect to be paid in full for the job and it would definitely be the last one I ever did with them. If I ended up putting my gear back in the car, unused, after a 60 plus mile round trip, it would be the very LAST time they ever saw me or my gear.
The gloomy troupe had a conflab as I stomped off back into the venue to give them a minute or two to confer. They must have wreaked a total miracle of self-hypnosis to motivate themseves to get off their backsides and somehow they assembled themselves into the well drilled fighting machine that they probably were about 40 years earlier and carried PA columns the size of classic red telephone boxes, guitar amps, drums and a partidge in a pear tree up the impractical Z-shaped ramp.
We did a good, but damp, show, but it was certainly the point where I decided that it was the beginning of the end for me.
The final show of that part of my music career came a little while later. That's a good story. I'll bring that one up for you in a while.
