Here’s a fun snippet from The Resurrection Tour Diaries, book 4 in my author buddy Simon’s Shooting Star series! Enjoy:
DAY 15 – GLASGOW
When on tour it is imperative to look after your body. Apart from regular exercise (getting out of bed, walking to the coach, lifting bottles of beer), you should never neglect your diet. If you want to survive thirty days on the road then you must fuel your body with nutritious energy. For example, tonight I forewent my usual takeaway curry and opted for a healthier Chinese take away meal instead.
I always make sure, that post-gig, I hydrate myself with five or six bottles of beer and then a bottle or two of white wine before I even look at the spirits! Beer is ninety-five per cent water and white wine is about ninety per cent water and I believe it is this parsimonious routine that has kept me energised and vital throughout our gruelling regime.
I have even cut back on the cigarettes. There’s a lot of downtime when on the road and it is a trap to try and alleviate the monotony by continually chain-smoking. Therefore, during daylight hours, I have replaced cigarettes with cigars. It’s absolutely impossible to smoke as many cigars in a day as it is cigarettes—for one thing, it’s just too damn expensive—do you know the cost of a fine Havana these days!
I’ve already explained how important it is to keep one’s body adequately fuelled, hydrated and exercised while touring. But I forgot to mention another equally important rule. One must keep the brain engaged! The mind must be stimulated on a daily basis to ward off the ravages of dementia and senility. The fact is, life on the road can be extremely boring for most of the time. From hotel room to coach, from coach to hotel, from hotel to drug dealer, from drug dealer to brothel, from brothel to sound-check; the whole thing can become mind‑numbing. And then there’s the added danger of inadvertently talking to the roadies—these sorts of interactions can leave the brain in permanent stasis.
I use two methods to keep my grey matter regenerating at an exponential rate.
Firstly, I ponder the questions that have plagued mankind since the dawn of time. Questions the great philosophers have wrestled with over the aeons. Names like Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche, Confucius and Jean Paul Gaultier have all tackled the eternal dilemmas we all face. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Did I turn the oven off? And the biggest conundrum of all—why did Geordie only pack two pairs of underpants for an eight‑week tour? These questions can keep my mind occupied for at least a five minutes each day.
Secondly, I have taken to doing the cryptic crossword on a daily basis … once my hangover has subsided. You really do need to think outside the square, in front of the box, inside the circle and at forty-five degrees to the hypotenuse to complete a cryptic. Unfortunately, today there was one clue I could not complete no matter how long I spent on it. The clue was thus; “take the last shuttle, lose room while dancing and turn the water off”. I know, I know! You’ll all be laughing at my stupidity – it’s so blindingly obvious now.
However, it led to a most embarrassing incident during tonight’s gig. We’d just finished our third song and the applause and cheering was slowly fading away when the answer came to me in a blinding flash. I unwittingly yelled into the microphone “BALLCOCK!” Now, bear in mind, there were over forty thousand people in the audience tonight, plus a film crew, plus “A” and “B” list celebrities, lesser-known royals (of which there are many), my mother, my girlfriend and record company executives. For a few ghastly seconds, the whole arena fell completely silent. They must have wondered whether I had developed the rapid onset of Tourette syndrome. Even my fellow band members, who are more than used to my stranger moments, eyed me with cryptic suspicion. But at least I completed that damn crossword!
Tonight is our final gig and before The Stoned Crows went on stage, I gathered everyone’s attention backstage and made a little speech in honour of our thankless road crew.
‘Thank you, everyone. I’d just like to say a little something to the unsung heroes as this tour draws to a close tonight. Now, we, the artists and bands receive all the adulation, the fame, the headlines … and quite rightly so—it is the natural order of things and long may it continue. And Chas, well, he gets all the money (cue laughter). But there is a tireless crew, or is it tiresome, that work behind the scenes of every single gig. Yes, I’m talking about security!
No, only joking, it is, of course, our fabulous road crew, without whom, none of this would have been possible.
I’d like to thank Tony, our sound engineer, a.k.a Tone Deaf, for his sterling work twiddling knobs every night and for also working the mixing desk. Tony has that rare knack of turning a pristine, beautiful note into screeching feedback. His addition of distortion to the opening bars of “Maybe Tomorrow” a sad, mournful, acoustic ballad, gives the song a new context that I’d never envisaged or … intended. And lastly, his skilful use of the “muffle” button on every song is a joy to behold.
Another big thank you to our two guitar techs, Stevie and Joe—a.k.a. Club Foot and Cack Hand. Their ability to drop, bang, damage and lose guitars is revered throughout the music industry. This sort of talent is not learnt overnight. It takes years of experience and unrelenting non‑thinking to achieve this level of skill. A special mention must go to Cack Hand, who has broken the laws of western musical notation that have been in force for millennia. He has found a new musical note. I’m a bit of a stickler for the established conventions of standard tuning, so I was wary at first when he tuned my G string to H. But, as he persisted in doing it for every single gig, “H” has grown on me somewhat, if not the audience.
And what would we have done without Ricky Jones our very own Cable Guy. Broken leads, dodgy cables, dead microphones, buzzing pickups, smoking amplifiers, you name it and he can cause it. Getting repeatedly zapped on the lip by a badly earthed microphone was a tad annoying at first. But as the tour progressed and the shocks increased in ferocity I almost began to look forward to them—a bit like a masochist looks forward to a spell in the dungeon.
And then there’s Billy, our lighting man, a.k.a. lights on but no-one’s home. I have already made an appointment to see (or not) a Harley Street eye specialist just as soon as this tour is over. His predilection for the strobe light is to be commended. I believe he broke a world record at the Leeds gig when fifteen epileptics had to be treated by the paramedics. Keep up the good work Billy and may the lights never go out … like they did at Cardiff!
And last but not least, a very special thank you to “Bong” our drum tech. As you all know, Bong is from Somerset so doesn’t speak English but he is fluent in “grunt”, the universal language of roadies. Is there anyone in the world who can change a torn drum skin or fix a loose drum pedal faster than Bong? Well, the obvious answer is “yes”. In fact, I believe my Doberman Pinscher could adjust a drum stool quicker than Bong, but that is a rather unfair comparison as we all know how intelligent Doberman Pinschers are.
To you all, we love you and admire you and long may the grunting continue. Cheers!’
So, it is the end of the Resurrection Tour. I’ve been praying for the end to come, but, now that it’s here I feel a little melancholy. We’ve had some ups and downs, some highs and lows, but we made it through relatively unscathed. I forgot how grueling being on the road can be and I’m not sure this is the life for me anymore. I must finish now as I’ve just seen Geordie pick Flaky up by the throat—never a good sign—although, totally understandable.
This was a small excerpt from Simon’s The Resurrection Tour Diaries, book 4 in the Shooting Star series. If you would like to learn more then follow this link to all of Simon’s books – LINK.
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