Goodnight Steve McQueen (27 page)

She didn’t even laugh at my famous Belgians jokes. She said that there were loads of famous Belgians. She proceeded to name about ten. I said that since they were only fashion designers people who have a GCSE in sewing they didn’t really count. She got a bit cross. I think she was intimating that she thinks I’m vaguely xenophobic. How mad is that?

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“Belgium.”

“I thought you was coming home last night.”

“Yeah, well… um, I did.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you call me when you got in? I left you fifteen fuckin’ messages.”

“It was late. I thought it could probably wait until this morning.”

“No, mate, it couldn’t. It needed sorting out last night. It’s too late now.”

“Too late for what?”

“Too late to get ourselves another van.”

I put my rucksack down on the pavement and turn round to look at the heap of rusty metal parked up in front of Vince’s flat. It’s not what we were expecting. It’s a converted kebab van. It has “Charalambos’ mobile Ockacbasi’ written down the side in loopy red letters, and it still has its long wooden serving hatch nailed to the left-hand side instead of a window. It has a picture of a cheeseburger on the bonnet. And a drawing of a shish kebab on the door.

“It’s a kebab van,” I say, unable to do anything but state the obvious.

“No shit,” says Vince, lighting himself a cigarette.

“Well, what are we going to do? Have you spoken to Kostas? Did he know this was the van we were getting? I mean, what did he say?”

“He said, and I quote, “What is wrongs with van? This is very nice vans. Why you don’t like my cousin Charalambos’s van?”

“And what did you say?”

“I said, “Kostas, it’s a mobile kebab van. It’s not what we was after. It’s still got its electric doner kebab wheel in the front. It’s got no windows and no radio and it’s got pictures of flame-grilled burgers all over the piss-poor body work that look like they were stencilled on by an epileptic cat.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said for fifty quids what did you expect?”

“Christ almighty,” I say, taking in the yellow vinyl seats and the giant furry dice in the window. “We’re going to look like a right bunch of prats turning up to gigs in the back of that.”

“Yes, mate, we are.”

“Does it go? I mean, is it even going to make it up the motorway?”

“Yeah, it goes. Just about.”

“Well then,” I say. “I suppose we haven’t got much choice. It’s too late to rent anything else now and, besides, we’ve already allocated all the spare money.”

“We could always paint it,” says Matty, trying to be helpful.

“What do you mean?”

“We could paint out the burgers and the kebabs and write the name of the band over the top. Maybe we could come up with a name for the tour and stencil that underneath it.”

“A name for the tour?”

“Yeah, you know. We could call the tour something. Something that sums up the band. Something that sums up what the music’s all about.”

“Any ideas?”

“Well… yeah… what about the Curly Fries Tour?”

“The Curly Fries Tour? Are you mad?”

“No. I mean… well… we all like curly fries, don’t we? And the good thing about it is we’d only have to paint the word “curly” because, look, it’s got the word fries painted on it already.”

I shake my head in amazement and Vince lowers his head into his hands.

“Why not?” he says finally.

“Vince, you’re not serious?”

“No. Fuck it. Why the hell not? I’ve got a tin of silver spray paint in the garage. Let’s paint the bastard. I’ll just go and fetch it.”

“Wow. Mega. Fantastic. Can I have the first go?” “Yes, Matty,” I say, “I don’t see why not.”

And so it was that on the last T-shirt warm morning of the year, the three of us set off on tour in a rust-ridden, mobile kebab van with “Dakota: The Curly Fries Tour’ painted down the side in giant silver letters. Matty made a grand job of it. He painted stars and stripes and spliffs and drum kits and three gangly stick men to represent the three of us. It looked like we were on our way to San Francisco instead of Wolverhampton. It looked shiny in the early autumn sunshine. It looked like we were a proper band. Almost.

And off we went. Me and Matty loaded the gear into the back of the van and Vince loaded the first of his compilation tapes into the cassette machine and pressed Play. We crossed our fingers. The engine started. The rough edges of London slipped away behind us and the opening bars to Pistolero (our favourite Frank Black and The Catholics album) began rattling through the tiny mono speaker. We waited for the buzz of the guitars. We waited for Frank Black’s righteous voice to kick in. And then we all started to sing along.

We left the ground and we floated above this town that never got better. We got drowned in the sea of love and I know that it’s gonna get wetter.

We’re like bad harmony, we’re like bad harmony, We’re a couple of wanna bees who do not know what they are doing.

We’re like bad harmony. We’re like bad harmony, We are good company going down the road to ruin…

We were loud and proud and apart from Vince hideously out of tune, and it was definitely one of the most perfect moments I can ever remember.

DAY ONE

Drive: London-Wolverhampton (138 miles)

Venue: Wolverhampton Civic Hall (capacity 3”OOO)

Sound check: 6.45-7.15

Doors open: 7.30

Onstage: 8.OO-8.30

Hotel: The Grand (bed and breakfast)

Check out: 9 a.m. SHARP

Hot water: 6 a.m.-6.10 a.m. only (bring own soap and towels)

Breakfast: Full English, 7.3O-8.OO

Despite our worst fears, the kebab van handles like a dream. It’s a bit shaky round tight corners, a bit noisy when you get above fifty-five but, all in all, it more than does the job. We take it easy. We stop off at a variety of service stations for coffee and cigarettes and bumper packets of wine gums, and we spend a whole series of quality moments selecting our mechanically recovered meat products of the day.

Vince favours the traditional pork pie; I opt for the novelty of mini Scotch eggs filled with chopped egg and cheese; and Matty plumps for a steak-and-potato Ginsters which he foolishly decides to microwave.

“It’s gone all soggy.”

“How long did it say to cook it for?”

“A minute.”

“How long did you cook it for?”

“Three minutes.”

“Well then, that will probably be the seat of your soggy pastry problems right there.”

“Can I have some of your pork pie?”

“No, mate. You can’t. There are valuable life lessons to be learnt on this tour and I think we can safely say that over-microwaving your steak-and-potato Ginsters is just the first of many.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“Well, Matty. That’s just it. You have to learn these kind of things for yourself.”

We arrive in Wolverhampton in good time for sound check but it takes us longer to find the Civic Hall than we’d hoped. We get lost. We end up taking a mildly interesting and not altogether intentional detour to Dudley Castle. Vince’s 1982. Collins road atlas is a bit out of date. Traffic on the A45

The first thing I notice as we drive our customised kebab van up to the stage door is the size of Scarface’s trucks. They’re huge. Two giant articulated lorries with blue lightning flashes stencilled down the sides stuffed with sound gear and lighting gear and boxes full of spare leather trousers. And then there’s Scarface’s bus: a sleek silver people carrier with a video system fitted in the front, personal Play Stations drilled into the backs of the seats, and charcoal-tinted windows to shield them from the prying eyes of their fans. It’s impressive. It’s extravagant. It’s de moralising in the extreme.

Inside the venue things are even worse. The whole place is

fizzing with pre-gig activity: harassed tour managers shouting into state-of-the-art mobile phones, grouchy sound engineers plugging in leads and humping giant speaker stacks across the floor, lighting designers bathing the stage in various puke making shades of magenta and lime, assorted back-line technicians stringing guitars and setting up drum kits, fearless lighting technicians hanging off fifty-foot trusses that look moments away from collapse, and a troupe of chubby-faced caterers laying out platters of sausage rolls and sandwiches for the crew.

And there’s Ike Kavanagh, right in the middle of it: slouched at a long trestle table, poring over the day’s tabloids and tucking into a slap-up three-course dinner with wine. My stomach starts to rumble. I’m suddenly aware that all I’ve eaten in the last twenty-four hours is cereal, wine gums and a packet of novelty Scotch eggs.

“What do you think they’re eating?” says Matty, eyeing up the smoked-salmon sandwiches.

“Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, by the looks of it,”

“Do you think we’ll be allowed to have any?”

“No, Matty. I don’t.”

“Do you think they’ll mind if we nick a doughnut?”

“Yes, Matty, I think they will.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it says so on the sign. Food for Scarface personnel only. Not to be eaten by low-life support bands who couldn’t afford to pay the tenner a head for the catering.”

“Right then.”

“Right.”

“So what do we do for food?”

“Easy. We wait until Scarface are onstage and then we sneak into their dressing room and eat their rider.”

“Gotcha.”

I’m pretty sure that Ike has seen us come in but he doesn’t

bother coming over to say hello. He watches us load our gear in from the van. He watches us stack it up next to the stage and he watches us pack it all up and move it to the other side of the room after the stage manager screams at us for getting in the way. He finishes his meal. He lights up a thick white joint; sticks it between his pale lips and disappears back to his five-star hotel with the rest of his band. Everyone ignores us. It’s at least half an hour before anyone bothers to come over and tell us what to do.

It’s a very close call. We finish setting up our gear moments before the venue opens its doors and it’s clear that we won’t have time to do anything approaching a proper sound check. We make sure that the amps are working and the tuners are working and we attempt to butter up the sound guy by offering him a wine gum but I’m not sure that it does us any good. It’s always like this on the first night of a tour, he says. We’ll definitely get more time to sort things out tomorrow.

We don’t bet on it. We pick up our set list, grab our guitars and head up to the dressing room to steady our nerves.

“Woah, look at this,” says Matty excitedly. This dressing room is great, isn’t it?”

It certainly is. It’s the biggest dressing room I’ve ever been in. It’s got chairs and mirrors and showers and a sink and there’s even a crate of beer and soft drinks stacked up in a cardboard box by the door. And a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. And some bottled water. And some cans of cola-flavoured drink. No sandwiches, though. Not even fish pastes.

It’s a little too clean, though. It’s definitely too clean. It’s not like we’re vandals or anything but something about the brand spanking newness of the place is making me feel more nervous than I already do. Maybe if I wrote the name of the band on the wall in Magic Marker. Maybe if I ground a couple of cigarettes into the carpet. Maybe if Matty rolled up his sleeves, unzipped his jeans and took a long satisfying piss in the sink.

“Sorry, guys,” he says, smiling at us. “Couldn’t hold it. The bogs are miles away.”

This is very bad news. There’s only ten minutes left before we go on and I still haven’t been for my pre-gig shit.

It’s almost time. The three of us stand at the side of the stage waiting for the lights to go down and, despite my closely timed, semi-liquid pre-gig shit I’m still feeling nauseous with stage fright. It’s huge out there. It’s almost a quarter full. It’s almost three-quarters empty. The audience look bored. And restless.

“Right then,” says Vince, stretching his arms and pouring himself a generous Jack and Coke, The don’t want any fuck-ups. I want everyone giving it a hundred per cent. It’s going to sound crap out there tonight so you’re just gonna have to rely on what you can hear in your own heads. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Right then. There go the house lights. Let’s get on with it.”

And off we go.

“Jesus, Danny, where were you?” “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I lost it.” “Too right you did. You were all over the shop.” “I’m sorry, Vince, I’ll be better tomorrow. First-night nerves or something.”

“Yeah, well, you’d better be. Me and Matty were on our own up there and it’s not on. Snap out of it. Whatever the fuck it is that’s wrong with you… just snap the fuck out of it.”

I don’t blame Vince for being pissed off with me. He’s actually taking it pretty well considering how badly I messed up. I played like shit tonight. I couldn’t concentrate. All I could hear was the feedback from the monitors and the boom from the PA and the whole of the two front rows calling out for

Scarface in between songs. All I could see was the sound man reading his paper behind the desk. And the punters walking off to buy more drinks midway through our set. And the row of skinny, teenage, white-faced Goth girls at the front. The ones with the sad panda eyes. The ones with fuck me ike written along their arms in bright red ink.

I screwed up. I should have been thinking about the set. I should have been thinking about the songs and the gig and my responsibility to Matty and Vince. I should have been thinking about the band.

But all I could think about was Alison.

The dressing room, 8.45 p.m.: post-gig debriefing

As is his way on such occasions, Vince decides to give me the benefit of the doubt. He vents his disappointment by kicking the dressing-room door halfway off its hinges and hands me a single night’s grace. If I fuck up tomorrow he’s unlikely to talk to me for the rest of the tour, but for now he’s doing what he can to make me feel better. He offers me the bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He tells me it doesn’t matter when I know that it does. He says that we’ll make sure things sound better onstage tomorrow when we know full well that they won’t. We discuss changing the set list around and getting a bit more communication going between the three of us on stage. Vince reckons it might have been having so much room onstage that put me off.