^9
April 1979
Each tour a band goes on ends up with its own peculiar flavour, something usually imposed on it by a com bination of day-to-day events and the gigs themselves. This may seem self-evident, but to the casual observer, the huge majority of each day spent hanging around for the 45minute raison d'etre is too easily forgotten. After following Graham Parker and the Sports around England and up into Scot land, both the dimensions and limitations of what is after all a tour still in progress (they'll be on the road till early April before returning to London to play smaller gigs under their own name) have become largely apparent. The external factors are the easiest to relate: The combination of Stitt Records and Harvey Goldsmith, this country's largest agent, have come up with a formidably efficient package and touring machine that has a workablle itinerary and real penetration and pacing into the heart of British audiences. The strategy is familiar — start in the provinces, where no-one will bother too much if you're a bit rusty (Parker actually did a brief Ireland soujourn before returning to London to pick up Sports), then gradually work up the momentum and spiral back to London, finishing in a blaze of glory with three nights at the Hammersmith Odeon which, by rights, should be sold out by the advance publicity in the papers of the month-long tour and the new records that should be gett ing plenty of airplay by that stage. In tact, atl three part of the stage act will have re corded product out and listened to in a month's time — Parker has his new LP, "Squeezing out Sparks", in the shops, and the single, "Protection", has already got airplay; and the Sports' Stiff E P , self-titled, went to the shops and radio stations just as the tour got to Liverpool. Going a little further inside the actual day-to-day routine, we find both outfits travelling in a luxury touring bus, sta y in g in th re e or fo u r sta r h o te ls and being paid a comfortible wage. That the Sports are
travelling with Parker and staying at the same hotels points to the sort of friendly and helpful relationship already developed between al l con cerned. But this is jumping the gun a little. It doesn't, tor instance, take into account one of the more important aspects of any tour —the irrational element which forces itself into contention so often in rock'n'roll and is just as important as any other factor in determining the nature of the experience. And for me, that aspect was virtually the opening shot. My introduction to the tour was just as wildly improbably as it should've been — literally bumping into Martin Armiger as I walked down Oxford St. the day after I'd heard Sports had arriv ed — Oxford St. being about the busiest single piece of footpath in the whole of England and the last place you'd expect to meet or even see anybody, even if it's been arranged beforehand. After recovering from the unreality of seeing so fam iliar a face in such alien surrounds, I dragged him off to Valeri's Patisserie in Old Compton St. (a sort of U.K. version of Tamani's) and we talked over evennts both herre and in Oz, swapping anecdotes and gossip. Martin let out the baleful news that the band were stay ing (inevitably) in E a rls Court, at the Chel sea Hotel, and everyone was still hellishly jet-lagged. In three days' time, they'd be doing a press reception at the Nashville in West Kensington, then the next day depart ing for Cardiff, where the tour proper got underway. Meanwhile, as usual, there was time to kill, and the ever-present hotel ennui to escape from, so we arranged to go to a reggae gig in Ladbroke Grove the following evening. We met up at the Chelsea, then took a train from Ea rls Court to Gloucester Rd., to try to speedup the process, only to find that all Circle Line trains were indefinitely de layed. By the time we got to the gig we'd been on the Underground over an hour and finally caught a bus from Paddington Station to Portobeilo Rd. It was nearly n.30, and getting ridiculous. But even then, we couldn't find the place, and spent another 20 minutes wandering around under Westway freeway before stumbling across the hall, actually built under the concrete freeway arches. It seemed so typical already of ontour behavior, and we hadn't even left London yet — desperately wandering around rundown suburbs for some obscure
promise of entertainment. But we finally got inside and were rewarded with a great reggae/soul band, "Roar". It seemed like things weren't going to be too aimless after all. But then we had to wait an hour for the main band, "Pressure Shocks", and really, they weren't worth waiting tor. So at about 2 a.m. we wandered down Portobeilo Rd. till we found a cab (all London Transport hav ing given up the ghost hours ago) and got back to Ea ri's Court, glad to have at least done something. All this may seem a little gratuitous, but really it's central to the sort of normalisation process a visiting band has to go through, steering towards the usual un reality of touring in an alien land; and it's essential to in some way find a pattern of events which will sustain you through the other 23 hours of every day when you're not actually on stage. The following Tuesday night, I arrived at the Nashville to see The Sports meet the press and other associated hangers-on. The band had been practising daiiy in Highbury to shake off the numbing effects of the jetlag, and to work out how to create the best impression in their 30 minutes of allotted ex posure time. This was the occasion when image overrode all other considerations, and Stitt had reacted accordingly by going totally overboard with an Australiana Extravaganza: immediately on entering, you were assailed by untold stacks of F o rste rs Lag er totally o b literat ing the bar, and as you turned to escape the shim m ering blue and white tinnies, you were assailed by reams of Australian Tourist Board posters glaring at you from the walls. Pick ing my way through the massed liggers to wards the stage area I became quickly aware of one of those cultured Australian Voices emanating from the speakers, and went to investigating, only to find a hundred or so incredulous faces staring at a small film screen while one of those ghastly "This Is Australia" government films went through its hackney ed paces: Shots of happy Bondi-ites, happy migrant workers, leggy big-busted bikini'd blondes, happy abos, happy politicians and vast expanse of Blue Australian Sky. It certainly was an attempt at overkill, and astutely tought out by Stitt, considering the sour taste left in the rock press' mouth over here (self-induced mostly) by the failure of the Saints and Radio Birdman in particular to impress the U .K. gods of the printed
word. It was no good ignoring the tact that the band was Australian — it was better to turn it into a Humphries-style cliche and hope that the V IP s concerned would see the joke. By and large, the strategy seemed to work, notwithstanding the eventual non showing of the kangaroo in boxing gloves that was part of the original idea. So, by the time Sports hit the stage, the crowd were suitably lulled into jollity and vague good humour, and actually got oft the bar to listen to and watch the band. Looking incredibly nervous (they were) but still pur poseful ( they nearly were that, too, before they went on), they zipped through eight numbers with virtually no break in between, playing tight and safe, the sound punchy and strong, with the opening number, "Hit Single", coming across particularly well. Finishing up with "Who Listens", the band bowed off to solid clapping and friendly cheers, and then it was all over, and the people wandered back to the bar looking suitably generous in their response and ali saying how impressed they were, while the inevitable small bunch of Oz expatriates crowded backstage to encourage, con gratulate and bask In the reflected glow. It hadn't been a particularly inspired perform ance, but it had been very tight and pro fessional, and that really was what was needed. The shock to this crowd of experts in not hearing what they'd expected — Ideas which were two years out of date, or a re hash of the (to them) detestably popular AC/DC — was sufficient to get them a good reaction. The stage was now nicely set for the tour onslaught, with the planned release of the E P now only a week away. The band looked exhausted, but pleased, mingling with the crowd afterwards: A friend of mine even said she'd seen John Lydon there, listening to the set — but he hadn't hung around, leaving straight after the last num ber. He probably was, though I didn't see him; after all, he lives quite close, over in Fulham. A nice little touch of mystique on the occasion... Continuing the same slightly dreamlike offstage existence the band was in, Martin dropped round later in the night to my place and we watched Bowie do three live num bers on The Old Grey Whistle Test, as well as a whole procession of mediocre home grown acts. It seemed the perfect circular existence — a member of a rock band watching other rock bands on TV in his spare moments. But after all, what else is there but T V ?