Mickeyboro

Saw him many years ago supporting Fairport. Great player!

01 Ever played a gig sitting down? Yes, just once 02 Ever gigged on a different instrument? Guitar, before I knew better 03 Ever shared a stage with a musical hero of yours? Deke Leonard and Micky Jones, Man soundcheck 2002 at 100 Club. Martin Ace was shopping... 04 Any fan ever had a tatoo of your band's logo? No band I have been in has had a logo 05 Ever signed an autograph in a dressing room? No 06 Ever cried on stage? No 07 Ever worn a hat on stage? Yes, much to my shame 08 Ever gigged with a band you hadn't met before the gig? Yes, at the Lord Nelson in Poole. Never again...the audience was all related to the band 09 Ever been in a relationship with a fellow band member? No 10 Ever played in different bands on the same day? Yes, my very first gig! 11 Ever had anything thrown at you while playing? No 12 Ever crashed on the way to the gig? No, but been breathalyser returning from one. Negative, since you ask 13 Ever left a band over the choice of set list? Not yet 14 Ever slept in the venue despite it not being a hotel? No 15 Ever been supported by a band clearly better than you? No 16 Ever played a gig suffering from some debilitating medical condition? No 17 Ever been in a band where the guitarist was your favourite bandmate? No 18 Ever played in the grounds of a stately home? Yes, but it was converted to a nursing home. Curiously it was my ‘sit down’ gig 19 Ever injured yourself on stage? Slammed my finger in the car door after load in. Dipped it in ice between numbers, the feeling has never fully returned. 20 Ever been told that your bass isn't loud enough? By another bass player in the audience. Never a bandmate

From Maybe I Should've Stayed in Bed, his formative years in Sixties Wales CHAPTER TWELVE: MORE, ROGER, MORE! Then the Jets phoned up. 'What're you up to?' asked Plum. 'Nothing much,' I said. 'Do you want to join the Jets?' 'You've already got a guitar-player.' 'We want you to play piano. Wes says you're a good piano-player.' Wes, bless him, thinks I can play the piano. 'I haven't got a piano,' I said. 'Buy one,' said Plum. So I went down to Falcon Music and bought the only electric piano in the shop, a Hohner Pianet. It wasn't much to look at; it had screw-in legs and looked like a coffee table. That said, it wasn't a bad sound and, thus equipped, I faked my way through several rehearsals and did a few gigs. They were stormers. Plum suggested turning professional. 'I am professional,' I said. 'I know you are, Leonard,' said Plum, 'I'm talking about the rest of us.' Everybody was in favour except Wes, who said he couldn't leave the family business. The ensuing discussion was heated but in the end we reached an agreement of sorts. Wes was allowed to continue working on condition he would take time off for out-of-town gigs. 'If he wants to cut hair in his spare time instead of lying in bed all day, that's up to him,' said Plum. But way down deep it rankled. When a group of people decide to burn their respective boats and set out for uncharted seas, it is hardly surprising if l'esprit de corps suffers somewhat when a member of that company decides to keep one foot on the departing shore. Achilles isn't coming out to play today; he's staying in his tent (I know that burning your boats on the eve of a voyage into uncharted waters isn't the brightest course of action, but I am not famous for my common sense, although I am becoming increasingly well-known for my mangled metaphors). Once Martin heard that the Jets were turning professional he wanted to come back. He wasn't too happy with the Grimms, and the Grimms, it seemed, weren't too happy with him. He didn't like the music and relations with Mike Grimm, the singer, were becoming fractious. They suggested a straight swap - Ace for Wes. Wes agreed. He wasn't too happy with the Jets either. I think you could put it down to musical differences. The rot had begun to set in before I joined the group, during a Lionel Digby tour of the West Country. They got to one of the gigs early to learn a few new numbers. Wes, who has a penchant for big, romantic ballads, suggested doing 'The Wedding'. Billy Doc, the drummer, freaked. 'You must be flipping joking,' he said, throwing down his sticks and storming off to the dressing room. Plum followed him. Billy was outraged. 'I wouldn't be seen dead doing the flipping 'Wedding', he said, pacing up and down. 'There's something wrong with you boys.' 'Don't blame me,' said Plum. 'I didn't suggest doing the flipping song.' I'd like to be able to tell you that we exchanged bass-players at night on the Lougher Bridge, with the Jets' van parked on the Swansea side and the Grimms' van parked on the Llanelly side, and that the two bass-players - in a perfect world, wearing fur hats - walked across the bridge, passing each other silently in the middle, before reaching the other end, to cheers and celebrations. But, I regret to say, there was no formal ceremony. All it meant was that the Grimms didn't have to drive all the way to Swansea on gig nights to pick up and drop off Martin, and the Jets didn't have to drive all the way to Llanelly on gig nights to pick up and drop off Wes. Of course, they still had to drive all the way to Llanelly on gig nights to pick up and drop me off, but there seemed no way around that. Nevertheless, Plum assured me, he was working on it. Keith, meanwhile, had joined Brian Breeze's group, the Casanovas - surely an ironic name. The Jets were as busy as the Corncrackers had been, but the money wasn't as good. But it wasn't bad either. When I'd first met them, Plum and Martin both appeared to be forces of nature, although Plum had seemed the dominant, probably because he was the singer and therefore the front-man but, with the passage of time, it became apparent that Ace was the elemental force. Plum had his cut-off point but Ace didn't. There were occasions when Plum would say enough was enough, but Ace just kept on going. He was fearless. I was always delighted when Plum reached his cut-off point because it gave me an excuse for stopping too. Well, not stopping exactly, but the relief of not being the first to see sense was palpable. I felt, and still feel, duty-bound to follow Ace whenever he goes on one of his metaphysical jaunts. If you want an LBW decision, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are pretty adjacent. Ace can remember the exact moment he decided to become a musician. He was at a dance in the Pioneer Youth Club - 'a shed in Blackpill' - with his girlfriend, Jackie Williams. The band were terrible and Ace was slagging them off. 'Martin,' said Jackie, 'you're always moaning about the bands, If you think you can do better, buy a guitar.' 'OK,' said Martin, 'I will.' And he did. John P, the Jets' guitarist, was quiet and handsome. He had his own personal following, exclusively girls, who would melt to nothing in his presence. In unguarded moments they would talk in hushed whispers about his magnificent bottom, and when he bent down to change the settings on his amp an audible, female sigh rippled across the audience. Billy 'Doc' Evans, the band's drummer, was a rugged individualist amongst rugged individualists. He was called 'Doc' because he looked like an Oxford don - baleful eyes, looking out from behind owlish glasses, dominated a round face, framed in straggly hair. He had extremely strong views about the playing of rock'n'roll. These views were not subject to negotiation and most definitely did not include songs like 'The Wedding'. 'Billy didn't even want to do "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright",' recalls Martin. 'Anything with the slightest whiff of sentimentality was out the window.' Billy had a standard drum-kit-of-the-day with two tom-toms, one rack and one floor. But he never touched the tom-toms. After a month or two I asked him why, if he didn't use them, he bothered to set them up? 'They came with the kit, mush,' he said. Billy's audition with the band had been a public affair. The Jets were playing at the Pioneer Club and Tony Court, their drummer, was on the verge of leaving because his wife didn't like him playing every night. Billy was in the audience. He was one of the Mumbles Boys, the local biker gang. 'He was one of the leather jackets,' says Martin. 'When they came in it was "Look out, there's gonna be a scrap." I always had Billy down for being a really hard bastard. Little did I know.' During an inter-song chat with the audience, Plum happened to mention that the band were looking for a new drummer. 'Any drummers in the audience?' he asked, not expecting a response. 'Yeah,' shouted a voice. Cheered on by the Mumbles Boys, Billy climbed on to the stage, walked up to Tony Court and held out his hand. Meekly, Tony handed over his sticks. 'Billy got on the drums and nobody would tell him to get off because he was with all his mates,' says Martin. 'He went "Boom-bang-boom-bang-boom- bang" in Billy's style. And he didn't alter it at all. He was exactly the same when he joined the band as when he left it, and he's probably exactly the same now.' Martin's audition, at the Gwent Boxing Club, had been brief but effective. The Jets were looking for a bass-player but Martin was a guitarist. Plum wanted him in the band but John P wasn't too keen, on the reasonable grounds that Martin wasn't a bass-player and had no track record as such. Plum took Martin aside. 'Look,' he said, 'you learn "I'll Never Get Over You" on the bass and I'll suggest it at the audition.' Martin learnt it off pat. At the audition, Plum got the ball rolling. 'Let's do something,' he said. He turned to Martin. '"I'll Never Get Over You". Have you heard that?' 'Go on then,' said Martin, and played it perfectly. 'All right,' said John P, impressed. 'We'll have him.' 'I'm glad he didn't suggest playing anything else,' said Plum, 'or Martin would have been out the door.' The Jets gig circuit was quite small and concentrated around the Swansea area, with the occasional jaunt down west to the Black Lion in Cardigan - The Land That Time Forgot. We needed to widen our scope of operations. We decided to venture further-a-field. So we started to probe in the east, into the grimy, demonic hills and valleys of the Rhondda. Inevitably, this brought us into further contact with the Kings of Merthyr - the Bystanders. We found ourselves sharing a stage with them on a semi-regular basis. We got along like a venue on fire and took the fosters out of each other mercilessly. It was a good night out for the punters; the lush precision of the Bystanders contrasting nicely with the raucous, no-nonsense anarchy of the Jets. We decided to learn some of the Bystanders' big numbers, just to show them how it was done, We picked 'I Get Around' by the Beach Boys and 'Walk Like A Man' by the Four Seasons. We tried them out in rehearsal. It was a disaster. We were like boxers trying to be ballet dancers. But we persevered and licked them into some sort of shape. The next time we played with the them, we opened up with 'I Get Around'. It was still pretty ropy and some of the audience had to be sedated but what we lacked in vocal dexterity we made up for in panache. The Bystanders watched open-mouthed, stunned, whether by our capricious daring or our matchless stupidity, it was hard to tell. Then they went on and did our set, opening up with 'You Can't Judge A Book By Looking At The Cover.' This was a surprise. Freed from the strictures of classic American pop, they howled, and Micky Jones was particularly abstract on the guitar. They were, it seemed, ballet-dancers who packed a punch - a cross between Rudolf Nureyev and Roberto Duran; or, we preferred to think, Wayne Sleep and Joe Bugner. I lasted about six months with the Jets. Then shards of darkness began to stab into the sun-drenched uplands of my artistic soul. I was becoming increasingly unhappy. The company was excellent but I was getting fed up with the piano. I'm not a proper piano-player, I'm a heavy-handed vamper. I can manage a chord or two but I require at least two weeks notice to do a solo. Sometimes Plum - who, at the best of times, teetered on the brink of chaos - would turn to me, when least expected, and order me to play a solo. I'd be fine for about half the sequence, when I would be overtaken by my lack of talent. In the grip of panic I'd thrash away at the keys, making the most awful racket. I'd reach the end of the solo at roughly the same time I'd reach the outer limits of my ability and be overwhelmed by a sense of relief. This rarely lasted. Plum would suddenly appear in front of me, pointing maniacally at the piano and yelling: 'MORE, ROGER. MORE!' The next solo would be the same as the last one, only this time stripped of all coherence. Plum would sometimes demand a third solo. This wasn't even music. I developed a siege mentality and, under the guise of minimalism, played purposefully repetitive solos, sometimes spinning the same riff out from beginning to end. 'I hate those flowery keyboard players,' I'd say, if asked. 'They're so obvious.' But, inside, I felt like I was wearing someone else's shoes. I'm a guitar-player. I don't have to think when I'm playing guitar. I still saw Wes regularly. He wasn't happy with the Grimms either. They were, it seemed, on the brink of extinction. When the talk turned to money we discovered that we were earning about half of what used to make with the Corncrackers. Wes mentioned that he still had phonecalls, three or four a week, from promoters trying to book the band. We went to see Keith. He wasn't too happy with the Casanovas. I'm sure that there must have been some excellent reasons for us not to reform but we couldn't, off the top of our heads, think of any. So I handed my notice in to the Jets, Wes finished with the Grimms and Keith jacked in the Casanovas. The Corncrackers were back on the road.

Friday: scroll down for another! A glimpse of Utopia - from Rhinos Winos & Lunatics Poulseur – pronounced ‘pulls hair’ – is a little village in Belgium; 15 houses, a church, a bridge, a bar, and a large, civic building. Set picturesquely on the banks of a wide, slow-running river, I have yet to find it on a map. We arrived there on a blazing hot August day. It was in the middle of a two-week tour of the Low Countries we undertook straight after the Plymouth bust. It was late afternoon and the sun was having a final blast before knocking off for the day. Bits of white fluff – which I assumed to be some sort of plant-life – hung, motionless, in the still, heavy air. An occasional bee managed to summon up a perfunctory buzz. Of human life, there was no sign. We pulled up outside the large civic building, assuming it to be the gig. The doors were open. We looked inside. There was a stage and seating for about 400 people – wooden schoolchairs, joined together in groups of ten by a spar running along the backs. This must be the gig. We shouted hellos. Nothing. We set the gear up. As gig-time approached, we experienced a whiff of apprehension. Just as we were about to call it a day, a party of seven arrived; six teenagers and an adult. Introductions were effected and the kids ran off into the hall, while the adult started pottering around backstage, switching things on. Under questioning, he revealed that he was the promoter. He was also, he said, the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and the Chairman of the Poulseur Chamber of Commerce. ‘Where are the audience?’ we asked. ‘You have just met them,’ he replied. He explained the situation. The city fathers – probably the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and the Chairman of the Poulseur Chamber of Commerce – in their benign wisdom, worried that the isolated location of their village would mean that the village youth would be culturally deprived, had given them an entertainment budget, which they could spend any way they liked. In previous years they had hired local bands, once a month. This year was different. They had decided to spend the whole year’s budget on us. As we walked onstage, the six kids sat in a line, halfway up the hall. The first number was a half-hour ‘Spunk Rock’. At the end of it, the six kids went apeshit, leaping to their feet, yelling and stamping. The more we played, the madder they got. By the end of the gig, they were on the stage with us. We did three encores and they screamed themselves hoarse. After the gig we were taken to the bar. The whole village was there and we ate a riotous supper. We asked the promoter if we could roll a joint. He convened an ad hoc meeting with the Mayor, The Chief of Police and the Chairman of the Poulseur Chamber of Commerce and, after due deliberation and careful consideration of all the relevant facts, he came to the unanimous decision that, yes, we could. Some hours later, we inquired about the sleeping arrangements. Poulseur, he apologised, had no hotel but they had fixed up something for us in the attic of the gig. We followed him up stairs, ladders and gantries to the attic, which ran the whole length of the building. It was totally empty except for a large square gymnasium mat, laid out in the centre. This was, said the promoter, the best they could do. Would it be alright? Yes, it would. We bedded down for the night. I managed half a page of The Sirens Of Titan before I fell asleep. We surfaced about noon into another blazing hot day. Everybody in the street waved cheerily to us and pointed towards the bar. We obeyed. Inside, the tables were laid and the staff were straining at the leash. We were shown to a table and given copious amounts of alcohol. Gradually, the place filled up and it became obvious that the whole village had turned out. A sumptuous meal arrived. The Mayor rose, unsteadily, and proposed a toast to the guests of honour. Martin reciprocated with a touching speech about the incalculable value of transitory friendship. The party spilled out into the garden and then the river-bank. Martin, swimming-trunkless, decided to cut his jeans into shorts and called for scissors. A pair were produced and Martin set to work, to the delight of the Poulseurians. As the legs of the jeans became available, they were snatched away. Somebody put ‘Two Ounces Of Plastic’ on the record player in the bar and villagers danced around the garden, tossing the legs back and forth to each other. Then, with due ceremony, they carried them, on high, into the bar. Someone found a stepladder and the legs were pinned, in crossed position, above the middle of the bar. The revelry continued, breaking off occasionally to toast the legs. Then, we had to heed the unforgiving call of duty; it was time to leave. As we drove off the entire village waved us goodbye. The Mayor was there, the Chief of Police was there, in charge, no doubt, of crowd control, and I think I spotted the Chairman of the Poulseur Chamber of Commerce, but I can’t be sure. We like to think that, now and again, they still put ‘Two Ounces Of Plastic’ on the record player and toast the legs. As for me, I would like, one day, to return to Poulseur, there to die.

I’ll...er...keep em peeled Keith!😄

The wink obviously wasn't ironic enough... So here's a tale. I have just re-bought the first album Outlandos D'Amour as part of the latest Police box. My diary tells me I first bought it on (blue) vinyl in early 1979. I was a major fan at that point and had got Cant Stand Losing You on its first time round as a single (25p in Woolies bargain box). Persuaded my band to play it, and we played it well, but when it was a hit we dropped it like a stone. Come a gig at the Moonlight Club where we supported Furniture (remember them?), we were so whizzed off with their shoddy treatment of us - a mic went missing and we had hired the PA - we encored against their will with said song. It brought the house down! So gawd bless you Sting, for about a year you were my idol. PS A BBC camera crew filmed us. Wonder what happened to the footage...?

Ooh! The thumb rest's moved

YEP. I was there....

😂

Jeff Beck, by Deke Leonard...enjoy! JEFF BECK I've only seen Jeff Beck once. It was at a Prince's Trust gig at the Royal Albert Hall, in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales – Charlie Saxe- Coburg-Gotha and his first frau. Politically, I was ambivalent. On the one hand, as a Welshman, I do not recognize the title, Prince of Wales. It was imposed on Wales by Edward 1 after his defeat of Llewelyn the Last's army in 1283, which resulted in the annexation of the principality to the English crown. As a final insult to the Welsh, Eddie anointed his son Prince of Wales. An English Prince of Wales? This scurrilous act became enshrined in the Royal succession process, a constant reminder to the Welsh that they are not an independent nation. On the other hand, I was sure that the Trust did good work, but work that should be done as of human right, rather than at the behest of an hereditary, pampered slack-wit trying to inject some meaning into his pointless, empty, feather-bedded life. It shouldn't be handed down from on high. It should come from within. That said, it was a good gig. I was there at the invitation of genuine Welsh princes – Jeff Hooper, Robert Collins, Adrian Fitzpatrick and Kerry Lewis. They had once been the Manband’s peerless sound crew. When the band broke up, they went into business on their own, calling themselves Concert Sound. The break-up of the Manband was, for them, a liberation. Once on the open market, they began to work with the crème de la crème of the entertainment business – Dean Martin, Stevie Wonder, Talking Heads, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Shirley McLaine and Tina Turner. They are, to quote the sublime Ms Turner, simply the best. Which is why they were also hired to do the Live Aid sound. They are giants of the craft. Quite by chance, I bumped into them at the offices of Marshall Arts. Barrie Marshall had once managed the Manband and, after our break-up, continued to manage Concert Sound. They were just leaving for the Prince's Trust gig in the Royal Albert Hall and they invited me to tag along. Which – as just a piece of flotsam on the ocean of life – I did (if you want some flotsam, I've got some; if you want some jetsam, I can get some). The PA system had gone in the day before so all they had to do was switch it on and line-check the microphones. But, before they started, they took part in an ancient Concert Sound ritual – a brew-up. Adrian always carries the makings with him; a kettle, a box of Glengettie tea-bags, cups, spoons, a bag of sugar and a bottle of milk. For Adrian, tea is not a beverage, it is a sacrament. Me too. I watched the show from the mixing desk, the best seat in the house. All the usual suspects were on the bill – Eric Clapton, Stevie Winwood, Ringo Starr, Jeff Beck and loads of famous people I can no longer remember. And in the middle of all this, I spotted Andy Fairweather-Low, playing guitar. He appeared to be in a position of some authority, counting the band in and alerting them about upcoming changes. "What's Andy doing here?" I said. "He's Clapton's MD," said Robert. "When Clapton goes on the road, Andy puts a band together and rehearses them. Then, when the tour starts, all Eric has to do is stand in front of them and play. It's like a very sophisticated Karaoke machine." It was a big band, with two industrial-sized drum kits on high rostra. Simon Kirke occupied one and guest drummers – of which there were legion – used the second (Ringo appeared for two numbers). Despite the stellar line-up, the show got off to a subdued start. Everybody did two or three numbers, usually their most famous songs, but they seemed a bit flat and lifeless. Everybody seemed to be behaving themselves (surely not cowed in the presence of royalty, gentlemen?). As a result, the applause rarely ventured beyond polite. Then, about halfway through the evening, Jeff Beck came on, and, for the first time, the audience, finally ditching polite applause, cheered with some conviction. Beck opened up with a blistering, slow blues. He played a weathered, white Strat and, in between licks, he didn't stop fiddling with it, constantly making minor adjustments to the bridge, the pickups and neck, like a mechanic nursing an old racing car down the final straight to the finishing line (the mechanic/car analogy is particularly apt because, reportedly, he enjoys restoring vintage cars. He was once asked whether he’d prefer to be tinkering away underneath a car or standing on a stage, playing to 10,000 people. He didn’t have to think about it. “Under a car,” he said, “on a stage in front of 10,000 people.”). Each lick was different, sometimes howling, sometimes purring, sometimes savagely aggressive, sometimes languid, sometimes picked at the bridge, sometimes halfway down the neck. He threw no shapes and – eschewing the standard agonized facial expression of the rock guitarist in full, creative angst – his face was impassive and inscrutable. When the song ended, the audience howled with delight. As the applause died down, someone in the stalls shouted out a request. "Hi-Ho Silver Lining!" Others in the crowd took up the shout and a momentum began to build. Trying to lance the boil, Beck stepped up to the nearest microphone. "flip off!" he shouted back. But it was too late. The request, now chanted by the entire audience, soon reached tipping point. It was no longer a request, it was a demand. Beck's shoulders dropped. He shook his head and said something to Andy. They'd obviously prepared for this moment. Beck must have known he'd have no choice in the matter. He may have banished it from his regular live set, but this was a special occasion. Better learn it, just in case. Andy counted the band in, and the mob, recognizing the opening bars, went apeshit. Beck, still shaking his head, trudged up to the nearest microphone and started singing. Now, Beck is not a singer, as he'd probably be the first to admit, but it didn't matter, because 13,000 people stood up and started singing along with him. They stopped singing during the solo and played air- guitar, then, right on the button, they were back in on the vocal. The end of the song was cathartic. Everybody was cheering, clapping, stamping and laughing, all at the same time, and the Royal Albert Hall became a cauldron of unconfined joy. Beck unplugged his guitar, waved to the crowd and, still shaking his head, walked off. The audience moaned in disappointment, but the thunderous applause continued unabated. The band followed him off and the houselights came up. It was the end of the first half. Gradually, the applause died down and everybody started mingling. It had been a momentous moment. Artist and audience had been fused into a single, euphoric entity by a flimsy, brainless song, performed reluctantly under duress. As an artist, you work tirelessly to perfect your craft but all your audience want to hear is the piece of music that least requires it. It would be like asking Stirling Moss to drive you down to the shops. But, to paraphrase Noel Coward, it is impossible to overestimate the potency of cheap music. I bumped into Andy during the interval. "What are you doing here?" I said. "Oh, I was just passing, saw there was a gig going on and just wandered in," he replied. The second part of the show was somewhat anti-climactic. Beck's reception must have stuck a carrot up their collective artistic bum, because everybody perked up and started playing with some conviction. Beck re-joined the band for a few numbers at the end of the show but nothing achieved the mass hysteria induced by ‘Hi-Ho Silver Lining'. Still, I've been to worse gigs.

Curiously the only time I saw him was at the Venue in Victoria in 1983. We were both watching the re- formed Animals... an experience I am glad was never repeated💩 ( The Animals not Nick)

Thanks Michael. Have subbed

Morning Limahl, and welcome to the forum 😇

As many of us have a bit of time on our hands, I thought I'd offer a chunk of Deke Leonard for your enjoyment and delectation. It's from The Twang Dynasty, his take on guitars and guitarists, and this is part of his observations on Eric Clapton. EDIT: BY PUBLIC DEMAND, SCROLL DOWN A BIT AND I'VE ADDED HIS TAKE ON JEFF BECK. The last time our paths crossed was when he kicked me out of the Royal Albert Hall. He was playing a month's residency there. He did it every February for a few years. Concert Sound were doing the PA. Again, I bumped into them at the office of Marshall Arts, and they invited me to tag along. I wasn't fussed about seeing Clapton because I thought his best days were long gone, but it'd be nice to have a night out with the boys. They left my name on the door and I got there early. It was about halfway through the residency so they'd settled into a routine and there was none of the bustle associated with a one-off gig. I gave the stage a once-over. Behind the band's gear was an arc of about fifty chairs that looked suspiciously like an orchestra set-up. The boys were hanging around the mixing desk, set up in the middle of the hall, switching things on. Except for Adrian, who was conducting a tea ceremony. All was right with the world. After some concentrated banter we settled into chat mode. We talked about the upcoming gig. They told me the show would be split into two sections. The first half would be Clapton with his band but during the second half they would be joined by a fifty-piece orchestra to perform ‘The Clapton Concerto'. A shudder ran through my soul. I am always wary when established stars decide to invade other genres. It always ends in tears. Listen, if you can stand it, to McCartney's ‘Liverpool Oratorio'. This is the man who wrote ‘Back In The USSR' – isn't that enough? What more does he have to do to prove it to himself? "How are you mixing the orchestra?" I asked Robert. All the instruments, he told me, would be individually miked-up and fed down to the basement of the Albert Hall where Tim Boyle, Concert Sound's in-house boffin, had a secondary mixing desk. Tim would sub-mix the instruments into blocks according to instrument and feed them back up to Robert on the main desk, so the whole orchestra would be on just five faders (ten cellos on a single fader – yum-flipping-yum). The doors were opened and the audience poured in. The place was soon filled with murmur, chatter and laughter. I love the mood of a hall just before a gig. The buzz of expectation that heralds great events about to take place is stimulating, even if it's somebody else's gig. I sat at the mixing desk and waited for showtime. Clapton's entrance, as you would expect, was greeted with rapturous applause. Andy Fairweather-Low counted the band in and they got down to work. Clapton was dressed in millionaire casual – Armani suit worn over a plain T-shirt, classy shoes and a diamante guitar strap. He was very good but he lacked the blazing conviction of the Yardbirds/John Mayall days. He'd gone all mobile phone, and it seemed a little incongruous to see a man dressed in a ridiculously expensive suit, singing songs of misery and deprivation. Which prompts the question – do rich men have the blues? Well, I hope to find out one day. Some chance. After a twenty minute break, the orchestra, rather self-consciously, shuffled onstage, wearing evening dress. They sat down, plugged in, made a few tuning noises and chatted amongst themselves until Clapton emerged and introduced the ‘Clapton Concerto'. I suppose it wasn't bad for what it was, but it was just as pointless as McCartney's ‘Oratorio'. It lasted, I think, for about forty minutes and I was bored senseless after ten. “I know,” I thought, “I'll go and see Tim Boyle in the basement.” Robert gave me directions and off I went. I entered the bowels of the Albert Hall. Following the directions, I ended up in a large, low-ceilinged room, directly under the auditorium. The room was dimly-lit, the only light coming from the overhead lamp above the mixing desk, where Tim sat in solitary confinement in the centre of the room. Rows and rows of supporting pillars stretched off into the darkness, and along one wall were stacks of chairs piled high. I hadn’t seen Tim for quite a while, so we had some catching up to do. I took one of the chairs, plonked it down next to him and lit a cigarette. We had plenty of time for conversation because, halfway through the residency, the sound was all sorted out and Tim had little to do but make sure it was all working. We had a ‘how the hell have you been?' conversation and then the talk turned to matters technical. Facing him were two large monitor speakers, spewing out the ‘Clapton Concerto', and a patchboard like a telephone exchange with row after row of little red lights. Each light, he told me, was an individual instrument of the orchestra. As the ‘Clapton Concerto' mercifully neared its end, Tim pointed at the patchboard. "Watch this," he said. The piece ended with a long, sustained note, held by the whole orchestra, but before the note ended, the little red lights started to go out, at first sporadically, then substantially. The sound began to thin out. "What's happening?" I said. "They're all unplugging themselves," he said, laughing. "They do it every night. They're getting ready to be first in the race to get to the bar. If Clapton ever sees or hears them do it, he'll go apeshit." "Can't they even wait until the end of the note?" I said. "I'd sack the flipping lot of them." "Which Clapton may very well do," said Tim. After it was all over, I said goodbye to Tim and went back up to the arena. The house lights were up and the crowd had gone except for a few stragglers. The boys were turning everything off. "We'll be a while," said Robert, "so why don't you go backstage and we'll see you there after we've finished." Rather than wander around the labyrinthine Albert Hall corridors, I took a short cut across the stage. I'd been provided with an ‘Access All Areas' pass so I could do that. The route from stage to dressing room at the Albert Hall is centre-stage. You go down a flight of stairs into a central hall, off which run corridors leading to the dressing rooms and the backstage bars. This central hall was sardine-packed with members of the orchestra. I picked my way through them, heading for the bar. As I passed through them, I overheard snippets of conversation. Clapton, apparently, had asked them to wait behind, because wanted to talk to them. They seemed rather concerned. While I was still in the middle of them, they suddenly fell silent as Clapton, now in civvies, walked into the central hall. He didn't look too happy. The orchestra parted like the Red Sea and he walked into the middle of them. They formed a circle around him and I found myself in the front row. Before I could excuse myself and leave, Clapton began to speak. His voice was low and full of menace. "You're supposed to be professional musicians," he said, "but you're behaving like rank amateurs. In future, anybody unplugging their instruments before the end of the set will be sacked. On the spot. No appeal. No extenuating circumstances." By now, his eyes were blazing, and I was tempted to say, "Hear, hear, Eric. Sack the flipin' lot of them." Then he suddenly noticed me. Well, I was the only one not wearing evening dress. He looked me directly in the eyes. "Who the flip are you?" he said. "My name's Deke Leonard," I said, trying to fish my Access All Areas pass out of my jacket pocket. "I'm a guest of the sound crew. They told me to come backstage and wait for them. I just happened to be here when..." "Well, will you please leave," he said, "this is private business." "Of course," I said. I didn't like to push past him into the bar so I made my way back up to the stage. As I picked my way through the orchestra, Clapton, speaking in a measured voice, tore them to shreds. I went back to the mixing desk and told the boys about the bollocking the orchestra were getting. "About time, too," said Robert. "He should sack the flipin' lot of them," said Adrian. "Too good for ’em," said Keri. After the boys had switched everything off, we all went backstage. The central hall was now deserted. There was no sign of the orchestra. Maybe Clapton had killed them? I know I would have. And I'd have told me to bugger off, too. We spent a pleasant, if somewhat raucous, hour at the bar, then we all left. I got to the stage-door at the same time as Clapton. He was deep in conversation with his tour manager (I assumed it was his tour manager because he was wearing about six backstage passes around his neck and carrying a briefcase covered in stickers). Clapton caught my eye. I shrugged and made a that's-the-way-the-cookie-crumbles gesture. He smiled faintly and nodded, before making an into-each-life-a-little-rain-must-fall gesture back.He got into his limousine and I got a tube back to Highbury & Islington. Life in microcosm. Clapton didn't kill the orchestra and he didn't sack them, but, I was later told, they never unplugged their instruments before the end of the set again. Well, it was either that or suffer a savage and sudden drop in income. That focuses, wonderfully, the mind of the jobbing musician. I haven't seen Eric since. We don't keep in touch. But I miss our little chats.

If it sounds as good as it looks...

Yes, this is what I would do!

Sold a book to Gary. Perfect buyer, perfect transaction. Thanks!

Your spull chucker has messed with you big time, but I get the gist! Enjoy Fred, and remember the good tomes - I mean times. And well corrected👍

The 24 hour rolling news society of today loves a story like this. Sadly...

Good to meet you too, Colin. Impressive player as well as a nice chap! Also impressed by the Groundhogs bassist who played a Guild 301 through a Sunn amp. If you find out more about him please share...

True in so many cases!

Stray and the Groundhogs, Southampton last night. Centre stage our own @King Tut Go Colin, living the dream...

I had the 102P and never thought I would change. Bought a Toyota Avensis and...damn, the wedge shape would not fit in the boot, no matter what I did. Switched to Barefaced, and ended up with a Markbass head. Did what was needed. But yes, 102P is a good and cheap one-cab solution. If you don’t own an Avensis!