Living for the City

As I get older my brain is not what it used to be, at times I have a crystal clarity for an obscure B-side of a single from 1976, but as a rule my head is a shed (full of shit) lots of stuff in there and no rhyme or reason as to what I should do with it, sometimes it makes for some great conversations with some great people sometimes I can shut people down as they haven’t got a clue, my fave all time argument was when a doofus at work said that “under pressure” by Queen actually appeared on “a night at the opera” oh how I laughed then destroyed that individual, they don’t “chat” to me about music anymore (stick to Westlife you sad sack of shit).  What has this to do with today’s blog well read on and see for yourself!

Lets go back to June / July of 1984, way before I met my first wife when I was still young free and single  ( I was always single) my friend Steve Ridley was dating a girl who had a friend who was nice but she didn’t want to date anyone and neither did I, we constantly kept getting sat next to each other and it was purely platonic, we never saw each other unless we were in the company of said friends, now to my eternal shame I cannot remember the girls name for love or money and believe me I have racked my brain, over the course of about seven months we used to end up talking to each other virtually every weekend (Paula is the name that sticks the most but I wouldn’t stake money on it so let’s stick with Paula). My friends had gone off to see Stevie Wonder on the previous tour and I hadn’t, he was too sweet for my taste, I know people raved about him but his current material was simply not my cup of tea!

Anyway Steve and his girlfriend were going to see him 1984 and he begged me to get  tickets for “Paula”  I really didn’t want to go but hey ho good friend and all that and she was good company most of the time, I intended to disappear off to the bar at the first opportunity and she was fine with that, trouble was I didn’t have tickets so I was going to have to beg to  get on the guest list, something I hated doing but I had a good contact and he had never let me down so far, This time Pete said no from the offset, WTF, “I Know what you are like you will pester me for the rest of the tour” to which I replied ”shut the front door me and Stevie Wonder I don’t bloody think so!” anyway the top and bottom of it I manged to wangle the tickets, I had  never been to Brighton before but we would make a day of it.

We started off early on a train full of Stevie Wonder fans all heading in the right direction and I was a good boy I wasn’t drinking before 12 which for me was a bloody miracle at that point in my life, we had some lunch a couple (ok more than a couple) of drinks we then headed to the venue, Steve had obviously used the same source to get tickets as were sat together as a group and I stared intently at my watch wanting to sod off to the bar, small talk was not my thing and I had a fancy that Steve’s romance was heading to the rocks, no arguments but it simply slipped its moorings and headed off in disinterest!

If there was a support we didn’t get there in time to see them (thank the lord) and then the lights dimmed and the show started, what a revelation, now there will not be a rundown of the set list as I don’t remember (hells bells it was over 35 years ago) but the whole show was a revelation from start to finish, yes there were one or two tracks I wasn’t a fan of (I just called to say I love you…..spew)  but on the whole I knew just about every song (how the hell did that happen) but I didn’t know the names or how I knew them!  the set was great and the band were awesome I had a fab time and as it came to an end all I could think of was “I wonder how many other shows I could  get to see” we headed back to catch the train back to London and who was sat at the front , yes Pete with a lovely young lady friend, it was time to be a pest! I was greeted with “Fuck Off” not a nice way to start as all I had wanted to do was say thank you for getting me in, a little bit of banter back and forth (all in good humour) I was on the guest list for the Earls Court shows, now how was I going to get into the Wembley Shows, each time I saw the show I saw some other nuance that I had missed previously, the only thing that concerned me was when the star of the show tried to stand on his keyboard set up and dance, obviously well-rehearsed but boy did it give me the heebie geebies!  

Wembley was a harder nut to crack and I had to wait until the day of the gig and do the walk of shame up to the box office every day, something I have always hated doing, said my name “nope you aren’t on it” spell it all the variants that ignorant people use, there I was the Dutch way of spelling it and then I was in, all by myself having a (sober) whale of a time! I saw the tour 6 times and every show was awesome, I never saw or heard of Paula again, Steve’s relationship barely survived the train journey home! Did I go and collect Mr Wonder’s discography, hell no, can I name the songs that I enjoyed, that’s a double hell no, I was simply entranced by the sheer joy of the music and atmosphere of the gigs! I never went to see Mr Wonder again and if I’m honest I probably wouldn’t want to those six shows kind of did for me.

How was that for you, although the name game is in play even the star of the show should get it, this one is late simply because the last one is still trending good numbers, now after 4 in quick succession I intend to slow the pace as I have some cunning plans to carry out, but the juices are flowing so if something pops up you never know, thank you for all of the kind comments for the last one which was completed on the spur of the moment kind of deal, it did ok as well not fab but the serious ones rarely do, I hope you enjoyed this one, watch the skies for incoming and keep spreading the disease until the next time …..Toodles!