Tales from the Tour Bus: Rock 'n' Roll on the Road

One, two, three, four, five, six!

ROCK MUSIC STARTS

Welcome to the golden age of British touring,

when rock and pop bands roamed the land

in a world before mobile phones, guidebooks and even motorways.

A world that never seemed ready for them.

This programme contains some strong language

From the '50s to the '80s,

these musical pirates could be glimpsed

travelling the length and breadth of the country,

changing the musical landscape as they went.

Playing wherever they could get a gig, risking everything for us.

This is the story of their journey.

Say hello to Mr Dodge,

my wonderful 1984 Dodge Ram Van,

which I bought on the Yes Union Tour in 1990.

I bought it because I was fed up with planes,

fed up with getting to the airports,

fed up with security at the airports,

it was more of a hassle.

You get a good, old tour bus and away you go.

It was like going back to as it used to be.

I mean, let's face it, who wants to fly Ryanair when you can ride Ram?

So join me on my time-travelling, tour-bus adventure.

The very first time rock and roll toured Britain,

it was American and it took the train.

Here's a kiss-curled, portly Bill Haley on his way

to Waterloo Station in 1957.

More rock around British Rail carriages than the clock.

He was followed by Buddy Holly in 1958,

and, in the spring of 1960, by Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran.

Backing them on their tour

was British rocker Marty Wilde's band, The Wildcats.

On drums, Brian Bennett.

That was Bexhill Station.

And in those days there weren't any road managers

or people to help you with the gear.

And we did that tour on British Rail.

And that was it. We travelled third class.

There was a third class on British Rail in those days.

Third class is scumbaggery -

that's really the lowest you can get, you know.

And Eddie and Gene travelled first class.

They thought, well, we're just poor cousins

and they knew that we'd borne the brunt of a terrible war.

And we had. You know, the beer was different over here.

The hotels were different, the style, the roads were different.

And, also, the other thing which is strange for the Americans,

they never used to swear much. We did. We all...

As rock 'n' rollers, we always...

You'd hear language in the coach all the time.

This is the beat that started it all -

it's The Shadows!

When British rock and roll first started showing signs of life,

it had to be shoehorned into traditional variety shows,

which catered for all tastes,

even those of the young ones.

So you'd get a variety show, with Dailey And Wayne,

a comedy actor, Doris And Her Disappearing Doves, you know,

and a novelty act.

Rock and roll novelty act!

We played lots of package shows, and sometimes not just for a night,

sometimes over the course of a month.

And not the worst occasion, but the most shameful on my part,

was Mrs Mills, who was on,

and the promoter had asked us if we could back her.

# My old man

# Said follow the van

# And don't dilly dally on the way... #

"We don't play Mrs Mill's stuff. No, we're not backing her."

# I walked behind With me old... #

She came to our dressing room, about half an hour later,

and she was this lovely, little, round lady.

And she apologised profusely for having put us

in that terrible position of being asked to back her.

And she was very, very sorry.

And we all went, "Oh..."

Bunch of horrible people.

Horrible or not, more and more bands were taking to the road,

looking for new places to play their kind of music,

to their kind of audiences.

That meant travelling beyond their home towns.

And that has always meant only one thing.

You see, you weren't a proper band unless you had a van.

And, in fact, if you were a guy with a van

and weren't even a musician, the chances are you could be in a band.

Of course, every musician remembers the first band he was in.

But they also remember the first van they had.

A J4, new.

It was a retired Post Office Ford Thames, 15cwt.

A pretty beaten-up, blue 13cwt Bedford van.

Ford... I forget what it was called, Thames, I think.

It was a panel van, no windows.

It was a red Bedford van and it had windows all the way around,

which wasn't ideal to carry gear in.

It was normally a Commer, they were...

I don't know why, but they were very popular. Horrible things.

They were cold and they were ugly, you know,

and they had the sliding doors and if you put your hand out,

this door would just slide right... So you have to be super careful.

The Beatles, having started touring in this old Thames van,

quickly graduated to a Commer in 1961.

It cost their then road manager, Neil Aspinall,

the princely sum of 80 quid.

He in turn charged them five bob to drive them from one gig to the next.

You drove a lot.

I mean, you were driving a great deal of the time. It was precarious.

The wipers wouldn't work in snow and the heater wouldn't work.

But you had a camaraderie.

People spot a Transit on the side of the road,

and other Transits would stop.

Breakdowns were common. In fact, they happened every day.

We, as bands, had no money to get the vans fixed

and management certainly wouldn't give you any money for it.

There's lots of punctures going on, you know.

So you learn how to change wheels quite early on in your life.

That was your home.

That was your eating place, you know.

Where Mum sent you out with your sandwiches and you opened them up

when you're travelling along, you know, along the A1.

And, if you didn't stop, you didn't have time to stop.

With the help of the hit parade,

radio play and the occasional television show,

British beat bands began touring more aggressively,

on a campaign that was to see many of them rise

from the bottom of the tour bill to the top.

You know what? Back in the '60s, you'd play anywhere.

You really didn't care, you just wanted to play.

And some of the working men's clubs and some of the places we went to,

to put it crudely, were shitholes. And that's upgrading them.

Some of the places we went to,

they didn't actually believe that you would come into their social club,

and so some of the committee members used to have to put the contract

on the wall to prove to the people that we were actually coming.

The Pontypridd Nylon Spinners Workers Social Club.

Pontypridd? Where's that? In Wales some...

In the Valleys somewhere.

We thought, "Oh, it'll be coalminers waiting for a fight.

"Nylon spinners, what sort of people are they?"

And it was one of the best nights we'd ever had.

By 1964, pop and rock bands were taking over the touring circuit

from more established artists.

Marty Wilde witnessed the regime change at close range,

on tour with acts like The Rolling Stones.

They were a very raw band, when I was on tour with them.

They weren't as disciplined, in some ways, as we had been,

and they were far more freer in their attitude.

Jeff Beck, I remember, was in The Yardbirds at the time.

And he used to fascinate me,

cos he used to turn around and thrust the end of his guitar

straight through the speaker cabinet and get fabulous feedback.

And I thought, "Why didn't I think of that when rock and roll started?"

Beatlemania change everything -

from being able to hear yourself play to planning your escape.

As girls in audiences all around the country

started to outnumber the boys,

sometimes storming the stage to get close of these seemingly exotic,

handsome, out-of-town rockers,

touring started to become fraught with danger.

Now and again, you had a bad one.

You know, Whitehaven springs to mind.

It was quite near a nuclear power station.

The general atmosphere was a bit dark.

The beach was black with coal dust.

And the audience...

There were some girls there in this dance and they seemed to...

"Oh, look, The Paramounts, they're nice, aren't they?"

And they're digging it.

The boyfriends didn't quite like that, really.

They perceived us as a threat to their local female population

and just, all they wanted was to beat the hell out of us, you know?

Our roadie pulled a shotgun out of the car

because we were getting jumped on by jealous boyfriends, basically.

About 40, 50 very angry blokes trying to kick the shit out of us.

Our roadie happened to have a shotgun in

the boot of the car.

SHOTGUN COCKS

GIRLS SCREAMING

# Yeah

# Yeah, I'm a road runner, honey

# Bet you can't keep up with me... #

I remember The Pretty Things,

they used to get beaten almost every night.

# Bet you can't keep up with me

They had to figure out ways to escape, every night.

# I'm a road runner, lover

# And honey, you'll agree

# Yeah, I'm a roadrunner, lover

# And Janey, you'll agree

# Bye-bye baby, you

# Baby you will see

# Ow! #

Not just once, lots of times. We had trouble getting out of theatres.

A, for the screaming girls, and they would have pairs of scissors,

cut pieces of your jacket off and things, and hair, and then also,

then you got the blokes waiting for you.

If there were armies of girls in the audience,

they weren't much in evidence as performers,

except for solo singers like Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield.

But even female pop royalty could find the grubby,

tin-can existence of the tour van strangely alluring.

When up-and-coming band The Paramounts were backing Sandie Shaw

on her French tour in 1965,

she took her chances, riding in their Dormobile.

Her manager, they had a Rolls-Royce.

And, if I was Sandie, I would rather have gone with them

in the Rolls-Royce than go with The Paramounts.

But I think she just liked to live dirty sometimes.

Permettez moi de vous presenter mes tres grands amis, Les Paramounts!

A le Theatre de Olympia!

She's from Dagenham, as well!

The only person from Dagenham that could speak French.

A-one, two, three, four!

MUSIC: Tous Les Jours (See My Baby) by Sandie Shaw

# J'ai besoin de te voir

# Tous les jours

# J'ai besoin de te voir

# Tous les jours

# Puisque tu m'aimes?

# Ce n'est pas un probleme

# J'ai besoin de te voir

# Tous les jours

# Quand tu m'embrasses

# Je ne sais pas ce qui se passe

# J'ai besoin de te voir

# Tous les jours... #

MUSIC: Stranger On The Shore by Acker Bilk

Throughout the '60s,

touring bands often had difficulties finding accommodation, which in

Britain was still dominated by '50s style theatrical digs.

Bed and breakfast, and seaside landladies with a spare room.

Mrs Macks - it was like two and six a night, bed and breakfast.

Doris, down the seafront, for tuppence a night, you know.

Go to bed in clothes, in all your clothes.

They were so cold, there would be frost inside the windows in some of them.

There were lots of them. We used to get to the stage door of the theatre

and the first thing you would do is look up the book

with the stage doorman and you'd say,

"Bed and breakfasts - where are they?"

"These are the top ten," you know.

It was just some strange guys coming into town and playing a guitar

and it was like the circus.

The circus has come to town, you know?

"Come and meet auntie Ethel, have a cup of tea." "All right, then."

"Sleep on the couch, if you like, eh?"

The circus has come to town.

I've often been asked, why did we do it?

First of all, the music came first. We loved the music.

The wandering minstrels of our day, really.

We wanted to go and play to people.

You didn't want to just play in your hometown, your home village.

You wanted to spread your wings.

MUSIC: Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group

But, as the music accelerated through the '60s

and even long into the '70s,

young bands crisscrossing the country in vans on tour

would still find it difficult finding a decent bed for the night.

I think we slept at one of these truck stops that they used to have

in the North. And there were like ten, 12 beds in the room.

But they had already been used and the sheets hadn't been changed.

It was a case of, like, sleeping in your clothes

and laying on the top, you know?

Ugly stuff, ugly stuff.

I'll never forget one in, I think it was Bradfield or somewhere,

and there was literally no electricity. I mean, literally none.

And they gave us candles when we walked in!

In the early days we'd stay in what we used to call Mrs Bunn's,

like a sort of guesthouse, bed and breakfast type thing.

You know, you had a little old lady.

You'd be feeling like shit and they wanted to talk, "Oooh!"

And they would kind of mother you. They would think,

"Oh, poor dear, out there, you know,

"playing these gigs, what you call gigs."

And they'd say, "Go on, have another egg, have another!"

You know, "Beef yourself up!"

"All right!" Cute. It was really cool, you know?

Touring had been made a little easier by the opening

of a first, short stretch of the M1 in November, 1959.

But there was no speed limit.

They would be doing speeds their cars had never done before.

They were doing, like, 65mph! Incredible!

So, when they came to a service station, like at Watford,

they would come off at horrendous speeds

and they'd be flying into things and crashing

and braking and skidding, and no-one knew how to handle it.

CAR SHUNT

Basically, the English Route 66 was the Great North Road, the A1.

There was a little bit of M1 that was open

but very little other motorway at all.

Everything had to be done on small roads, on B roads.

And nobody really knew, ever,

how long any of the journeys was ever going to take.

Or whether you would hit one of those old-fashioned fogs.

HORNS BLARE

There were no late-night bars or restaurants to cater for bands

travelling through the night, but the new M1 did boast

the first 24-hour services, the Blue Boar at Watford Gap.

Everybody that was playing in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool or

the like, in the North, invariably would meet at the Blue Boar.

Shows would finish at 11, take the band to get their gear out

and get on the road and get to the Blue Boar for about one,

one-thirty, two, so a lot of people would be

arriving at the Blue Boar pretty much at the same time.

The Blue Boar would be something on a Saturday night

if you were travelling back to London.

I mean, I remember walking in there,

I was with Chris Farlowe at the time, and I was really impressed

because I remember walking in and seeing bands

like The Tremeloes, you know, and The Searchers were in there.

The Blue Boar happened to be strategically in the right place

and it was one of the very first.

The chips were very good as well.

Long journeys between gigs

and services presented all kinds of problems.

You'd try and insulate yourself from what's going on

and you would try to coordinate your bladders so you don't have to

stop six times,

when six people can go at the same time, stopping once.

These are the big issues when travelling.

Oh!

ZIPPER

HE SIGHS

Well, of course, you don't always have to stop to have a pee!

Someone would say to you, "Is that true

"that you had a piss hole in the bottom of the van?"

But, yes, we did, yes.

That was our JU van, with "The Birds" on the side.

When Colin, our roadie, said, "No, we haven't got time to stop,

"we've got two hours to get there",

so, yeah, there was one in the floor, yeah.

Everything changed in 1967.

The music was different, the clothes were different

and attitudes were different. Touring changed too.

Suddenly there was an underground movement with its own

clubs like Middle Earth, Mothers, in Birmingham,

and London's UFO, where the house band was Pink Floyd.

And it was revolutionary times.

Everything sort of suddenly popped up in a bubble in the space of

about 18 months in the middle of '66.

And all bets were off. You know, the establishment sort of stood back

and let the children get on with it

but they were slightly frightened of certain elements of what

they perceived as kicking-over-the-traces behaviour.

As the American hippy tsunami washed onto British shores,

promoter Tito Burns put together a tour of Britain's hippest,

chart-topping talent featuring Pink Floyd, The Nice, The Move

and Amen Corner.

This was variety, man, but not as it used to be.

The music was more ambitious and so was the equipment.

Headlining was The Jimi Hendrix Experience, seen here on that tour

on November the 25th 1967, at the Blackpool Opera House.

With that tour, the very first night it was supposed to run

two-and-a-half hours

but it...it was chaos.

It ran on and on.

The curtain, at some point, was pulled halfway through Jimi's set.

You know, there was no rehearsal for it or anything else,

so equipment... Trying to change all that equipment and fiddling

about with new roadies and the people who do the equipment stuff...

So we got together the following day and I said,

"Well, surely we can all use some of the same equipment,"

to which everybody said, "No way is that going to happen."

So I said, "Well, why don't we get some risers on wheels?"

Because we had six drum kits.

I said, "Why can't we roll it on?" So, yeah, it was a very...

It was great. A great tour.

Everyone made friends except for the Pink Floyd.

They thought they shouldn't be there, they didn't like other bands.

They only had 15 minutes to begin with, which they felt was an insult.

At the end of the tour, obviously,

people had practical jokes that they wanted to do.

Jimi Hendrix had a track called The Wind Cries Mary.

When it got to his first chorus...

# And the wind it cries Mary... #

36 people in the wings shouted, "Mary!"

There wasn't a single woman performer on that tour in 1967

but they had begun appearing in bands.

If not playing, then singing out front.

In terms of touring, that meant being jammed in a van with

a bunch of blokes for long periods of time -

not pleasant.

But if you were Sandy Denny and the band were underground

folk-rockers Fairport Convention, it was easy to out-bloke the blokes.

There was no kind of... sexual apartheid going on.

When Sandy was in the van, she's just a bandmate

and one of the chaps and...

you forgot that she was sort of manufactured differently.

A London-based hippy folk-rock band WOULD think that.

But if touring the music was difficult enough,

try touring an attitude.

I remember playing somewhere in Sunderland, got the sound check

out the way and there was a pub on the corner, so we all went

for a drink before the show and, of course, they wouldn't let Sandy in.

It was unbelievable to me this, you know, in 1968.

It was a men-only bar.

BAR HUBBUB

We walked in...

SILENCE ..and the place went a bit quiet.

COUGHING

We were obviously from another planet with our long hair

and, you know, kaftany clothes

but when they realised one of us was a girl, hmm, we were not welcome.

Curved Air's singer Sonja Kristina -

part Essex, part Swedish - would approach touring

and performing with an all-male band by embracing the joy of difference.

MUSIC: Back Street Luv by Curved Air

# Summer's coming

# Time to dream the day away

# And she's so sunny

# Is the girl you met today

# Will she make it?

# Can she take it?

# Like to try love

# Such a shy love... #

And I just wanted to break down any sort of barriers, you know,

we all shared the same dressing room,

you know, they saw me naked, and, you know, they didn't...

I could cuddle them as mates, you know.

# Try to see she didn't mean to

# Make you feel so sad... #

We used to sleep together all curled up together as, you know,

as little sardines in the back of the tour coach.

It's like a relationship with everybody without the sex.

But what about sex without the relationship?

Enter that mythical siren of the tour - the groupie.

Nobody really knows where the word came from,

it's obviously an extension of the word group.

I mean, back then we were either called a band or a group,

so, I suppose, the word bandie wouldn't really work.

You're leading two lives, definitely.

Not that it has to be, you know...

nice at home and naughty away.

But the women weren't all at home any more,

now they were band members on tour and witness to bad-boy behaviour.

One of the band, who shall be nameless, used to...

send the roadies into the crowd and say, you know,

"Tell that girl and that girl and that girl and that girl, ask them

"if they want to come up to my room for a party after the show."

Who are these young ladies? Want to come in for a drink, do they?

Wheel them in.

You know, the men get their needs, there's nobody there,

what do they do? This happens, of course it happens

because they will take advantage.

Guys can be assholes, they can.

And even when one has a partner who's going

away on the road, you know it's going to happen,

so you, you sort of...

As long as you don't know about it, then that's fine, you know?

-That's my wife, you know what I mean?

-Yeah, all right. All right.

-Your what?!

-Well...future wife, you know what I mean?

Oh, right, and where's the ring?

And I'm sure that their partners must know that this goes on.

They're stupid if they don't.

You know, their right hand only goes so far.

YAWNING

Not many opportunities for sex when you're touring,

mostly through the night, to get to the next gig to avoid

having to pay for a bed.

Health and safety just wasn't on tour with you in those days,

hence the odd accident.

Yeah, we used to hear of the accidents

because we were dealing with them

but they never made the press.

I mean, I know lots of bands that had crashes, broken legs,

you know, equipment smashed...

But it wasn't pressworthy.

That all changed in May 1969 when Fairport Convention's tour van

crashed on the way back from a gig at Mothers in Birmingham.

Our driver had got a bad stomach

and he'd been complaining of being tired and unwell all day

and I did wake up in the van as it was somersaulting down the M1

and then I was concussed, knocked out, and when I came to,

I was the only person or thing left inside the vehicle...

The doors had all burst open, the windows were out,

everybody and all the kit was thrown out the back door.

Somehow or other I'd remained inside.

Everybody was on the ground either dead or out for the count

or moaning.

It was a terrible realisation of the risks that we were

taking by just going to work.

In truth, bands have always subscribed to

the have-guitar-will-travel ethos, clocking up the miles in whatever

direction their gig book or managers send them.

-Are we... Are we... Are we there yet?

-No.

100 miles to go. CAR HORN BLARES

A lot of those tours weren't...

that very well routed.

You know, they looked more like pentagrams.

I mean you never get a gig... Hardly ever you get a gig, you know...

I mean, you're always going that way and down here to go back up there.

Over there, down there, no,

now you've got the day off and it'd be, "Well, what are we going to do?"

"Oh, it's easy, we'll just drive 300 miles."

We played one night...

in Portsmouth and the next night Glasgow.

And it could've been the next night Southampton.

Hence, I think, that was why a lot of drugs were...

You know, speed became very popular with a lot of groups.

Initially, purple hearts and speed, you know, amphetamine,

and then, I suppose, to save losing brain cells, you know,

you smoked a bit of dope, calmed you down.

And then you had acid, which, you know, didn't know what was going on.

I mean, anything could have been going on.

And then you had cocaine, which, you know, got you through anything,

you know, for a limited amount of time.

I can remember booking bands that were working over 300 days a year

and they were grateful... They thought that was wonderful.

That was... That was better than being, for them,

working in a factory or pushing a pen in a stockbroker's office.

In your 20s it's very easy to do all that stuff

because that's the type of life that a young person wants.

Indigent, feckless, unemployed...

..and on a crusade to save rock and roll.

As the '60s receded in the rear-view mirror,

up ahead we could clearly see touring '70s-style.

'Transit, the Supervan. More van for your money.

'More features than any other van. Transit is the Supervan.'

You can buy second-hand, or you certainly COULD buy,

second-hand aircraft seats. You probably still can.

And you put them in your van so you could have more comfort.

You could have, you know, you could have a reclining seat.

It was, it was frontier land, it was real frontier land

but that was the evolution.

And so there's lots of technology coming into

the rock-and-roll business and the aircraft seats were a big thing.

People would look in other people's van -

"Oh, look, they've got aircraft seats."

See, what you've got to remember as well is, everything was new.

Bands on the road was new,

the whole new equipment side of things was new.

So we just had to adapt all the time and sometimes it worked

and sometimes it didn't.

It was a case of adapt or die as bands became more popular

and the business became more industrialised.

The music was no longer free or even cheap.

The seas of the hippy dream of changing the world

blossomed into a world that was changing anyway,

one that we greedily embraced.

For the late '60s, early '70s, we didn't have any proper

monitoring or anything like that.

The sound that you heard out the front was the sound that

came off of the stage but this wasn't really good enough

for us musicians, we wanted much bigger things,

louder things, more control.

So it was the musician that dragged

the equipment manufacturers into the 1970s.

MUSIC: Fanfare For The Common Man by Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Phew, we've arrived just in time to catch the beginnings of true

touring madness, the coming of supergroups, supershows

and pantechnicon lorries full of state-of-the-art gear

and elaborate sets making their way to the next stadium...

..and the next expensive hotel.

-See, look at this. This is a Hilton, is it?

-Hilton.

Conrad, Conrad, if you're looking, look, one soft one, one hard one.

What use is that? What's all that about?

They used to call us sabre-rattling and over the top

and too flamboyant but, really, it was nothing

compared to what you see today.

We were just laying down a blueprint for everyone to sort of follow.

The music should be great but there should be some eye candy

in there, there should be something for you to see.

For some unknown reason, at that particular time,

we were always thought of as being super pretentious.

So whatever we did, we just inflated that

and we just went along with it.

Why not?

"Why not?" indeed.

During the early '70s, I was doing much the same,

touring with Yes or journeying to the centre of the earth with

increasingly elaborate music presentations.

In the early days, it was band and van and one roadie.

Erm, just used to plug things in, really. Got a cable,

if there was an amp and a hole, you plugged it in, that was it.

But as you got bigger, it meant more gear,

more equipment and none of us knew how to work it.

That meant you had to have a road crew.

MUSIC: The Road Crew (We Are) by Motorhead

# Another town, another place another girl, another face

# Another truck, another race

# Eating junk, feeling bad another drink, completely blind

# My woman's leaving, I'm so sad

# But I just love the life I lead

# Another beer is what I need

# Another gig, my ears bleed

# We are the road crew

# Another town left behind another drink, completely blind

# Another hotel I can't find... #

You're talking about a person who starts the day with

a can of Special Brew and a spliff, you know.

Yeah, they're fucking nuts. Yeah.

Because, I mean, you've got to be mad to be road crew.

Well, they just arrived, I saw them. They... Yeah.

They were last seen looking at daisies

on the hard shoulder of the M6.

When you start out, you work with your mates.

Your roadies are your mates.

My first road crew and PA people were actually Robin Le Mesurier

and his young brother Jake, that were Hattie Jacques' sons, you know?

It was always much more fun to employ your friends than it was to

employ, shall we say, specialists.

But, the thing is, specialists are specialists for a reason,

your friends are there just to get pissed with, aren't they?

And they were just kind of around.

People who had bands who had kind of capability in the abstract

and, you know, were kind of suited to that kind of life.

They're global nomads, they don't really have homes

because they go from one tour to the next.

They're a strange breed.

I've got a beautiful lady and a nice mum and dad

and here I am on the road, completely tired out and don't know where I am.

-Stupid, isn't it?

-You're not married by any chance, are you?

-Used to be.

Had to give it up.

You know, a band, generally speaking, has a two-year career.

A roadie has one of 40.

When I've unloaded this, I'll have to go back

and do a little job for Yes.

Come back, pick this lot up,

take it to Stafford, back to Earls Court, I've got three dates

in France with The Who, back to Earls Court again,

load out and over to the Hague.

They can go from one tour to the next, to the next, to the next and be

on the road doing that every night for year after year after year.

-Are you going to make it to 65?

-No chance.

I've got about two years left in me, I suppose, the way I boogie around.

You know what I mean? Really. I'm surprised I'm here now.

It's a miracle. Never thought I'd make it to this morning.

# Is this the real life?

# Is this just fantasy? #

We did a recording in Monnow Studio in Wales

and the guy was showing us

the piano where Freddie Mercury did Bohemian Rhapsody and he said,

"Yeah, they were a very strange group, Queen," he said,

"When the crew turned up..."

He said they all had sports cars and they all had girls with them

and everything, like this lot, and he thought it was the band, this guy.

He said, "Oh, are you the band? You don't look like the band,"

and he went, "No, no, we're the crew

"but don't tell the band that we've got sports cars

"cos we've got our own crew."

And the crew had employed their own crew to bring all the gear in while

they were living the life of Riley and just said, "Don't tell the band."

For those bands on the other side of the tracks,

touring was making more modest progress in the '70s,

even as the decade began to acquire a taste for something smaller,

more up close and personal.

-We didn't have a roadie.

-No.

-We'd hump our own equipment, put it in the van.

-We had a van, yeah.

He... Well, in fact, Wilko and the drummer used to hire a van,

put all the equipment in from his garage, come and pick me up,

go to...drive to the gig.

-Take all the equipment out.

-Set it all up, do the gig,

then after the gig take it all down,

put it back in the van, drive me home and then drive home.

We would drive back to Southampton and have to take it all out again.

-Back into his garage.

-Me and... the drummer, we got it down to a...

We could do it in five minutes.

We were just sort of, you know, erm, we had a whole routine.

HE PANTS

You know, it's three o'clock in the morning.

Luckily, we were a three-piece.

Bands like Dr Feelgood quickly graduated to newly established

rock venues for acts on the way up -

bands too big for pubs but too small for stadiums.

There were a few great venues that you sort of aspired to play in

when you were in a band in the early '70s.

One was Friars in Aylesbury but a very iconic one is exactly

where I'm sitting now, which is the Boston Gliderdrome.

This place, absolutely fantastic.

You could squeeze 1,200 people in here.

Sometimes, in fact, they squeezed a lot more in.

It was a far cry from the old working men's clubs and pubs

that you used to play in.

If you played somewhere like the Boston Gliderdrome,

you really felt you'd made it.

MUSIC: You Shouldn't Call The Doctor by Dr Feelgood

What is it? It's just showing off, isn't it?

It's because you're standing in front of a crowd of people

and they're all going, "Ah!"

-Show them what you can do.

-It's nice.

-Yeah.

I think I slept...

..twice during the '70s.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

By the mid-'70s, many more girls were making their own records

and having their own brand of tour fun. And not just as vocalists.

When Suzi Quatro strapped on a bass, she unwittingly inspired

a generation of women rockers to take control of the wheel.

I had to establish my boundaries right away.

I didn't want anybody getting fresh or funny with me.

I was very careful about being one of the guys, could tell the joke,

they could swear to a point. Certain words were not allowed.

And if they stepped over the line, they didn't do it again.

MUSIC: Devil Gate Drive by Suzi Quatro

# So come alive Come alive

# Down in Devil Down in Devil

# Down in Devil Gate Drive

# Down in Down in

# Down in Devil Gate Drive

# Come on Ooh, come alive

# Come alive, come alive

# My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my... #

One time a guy came dancing up close to the stage

and he made this rude tongue-sticking-out gesture,

so I danced a little bit closer and whacked him over the head

with the end of my bass guitar. All by mistake, of course.

And that's a heavy instrument. Bang! He was...

# Are you ready now?

-# Are you ready now? #

-By 1976 the music had changed again,

-and so had the venues.

-# Are you ready now? #

Punk now threatened to tour the country,

and with it, all-girl bands like the Slits

and the heavy metal punk foursome Girlschool.

# Come alive Yeah, yeah... #

We would play in, say, punk clubs,

you know, getting changed in toilets with wee on the floor

and all the rest of it, you know?

CHEERING

There was a lot of girls getting up and just doing stuff.

Well, everybody was getting up and doing stuff, really, at that point.

The boys that we knew that were playing didn't want to know.

They didn't want girls in the band. It was as simple as that.

The only way we could form a band was to find other like-minded girls.

You'd just be like, going into the unknown, we'd go off in this

Bedford van, with, of course, all the gear was laid out in the back,

and we'd have slipping bags on the top

and we'd all sleep on top of the gear.

I mean, literally, we had about that much space between us

and the ceiling, like this.

It was a lot easier, especially when you were travelling, on top of gear,

in the back of a Bedford van, that you were all girls.

Our drummer, Denise, used to go... have all this pent up energy,

and we used to literally have to stop the van

and let her have a run around every now and again.

Oh, but then, of course, with Denise, she's very lucky,

because she can sleep anywhere. I mean, literally anywhere.

All she does, she could be upright like this, in fact, she used to be,

in the Bedford sometimes, up like this.

Put a jacket on her head, that would be it. Out, gone - like a budgie.

MUSIC: Please Don't Touch by Motorhead and Girlschool

When ultimate tour monster Lemmy was looking for a support band

for the first UK Motorhead tour in 1979, he chose Girlschool

to share the tour bus, the booze and the backstage fun.

A lot of people, in those days,

would actually pay you to go on a tour like that.

Of course, they used to come in with crates of beer for us,

and look after us, and all that.

I remember, one morning, knocking on Lemmy's door in the hotel.

I said, "Oh, blimey, you're up early." "Haven't been to bed yet."

Lemmy in his underpants and those goggle-eye things.

# So much

# Don't you touch me, baby cos I'm shaking so much

# Don't you touch me, baby cos I'm shaking so much

# You know I get so nervous when I see his eyes that shine

# Don't you touch me, baby cos I'm shaking so much

# He gets too close and a chill runs down my spine

# Don't you touch me, baby cos I'm shaking so much

# Please don't touch I shake so much

# Please don't touch

# I shake so much... #

Now, poor drummer again, sorry, Denise,

but, of course, her socks used to be quite smelly every now and again,

and they'd just go out the window.

And her shoes went out the window one day, as well.

That's the trouble with being cooped up in vans

and coaches with your bandmates,

camaraderie becomes claustrophobia and friendships become fragile.

It starts off with that, kind of, gang mentality,

where it's you against the world, right.

But then, it only takes one to crack and bring bad news aboard,

and, of course, you're going to get friction.

You've been sitting about in the bus,

drinking a couple of bottles of tequila, or whatever.

And old, sort of, little things, "Why did you do that?"

And then it all starts, right.

You end up, kind of, going,

"Bastard's taken the last Rizla.

"He did that three years ago in Munich.

"Fucking... He's done it again, hasn't he?"

But, of course, little niggle-ments, kind of, can tend to,

sort of, like, get bigger, and bigger and bigger.

-And, it's like...

-"Who's eaten all the cheese sandwiches?

"Oh, oh, really? Nice, were they?"

And it's just kind of crazy.

Next morning, it's like, "Oh, I'm sorry, man.

"Let's have a spliff and forget about it." You know,

I mean, that kind of deal, you know?

So, it's just like that, you know? It's fun.

MUSIC: Children Of The Revolution by T. Rex

If you thought those early '60s tours were weird concoctions,

guaranteed to scramble any discerning musical mind,

have a taste of vintage 1977 tour madness.

Unicorns in UB40 land, T.Rex and the Damned.

Punk audience, my audience.

I mean, it was three quarters Marc Bolan audience,

and a quarter Damned, and it ended up 100% a rock and roll fan club.

Marc was really cool, but I mean, I didn't...

I'd heard all the stories about Marc being this way or that way,

but he was totally, kind of, clean and fresh.

And he'd be, sort of, jogging around the forecourts of a services

and, in his little green tracksuit.

And really open, I mean, he would talk to you about anything.

He was really helpful to us.

Punk's got to get away from

all this terrible...on the streets. It's all wrong.

They were constantly out trying to out-punk us.

Getting fishing wire and tying it, so that people in the services,

like, carrying the plates and stuff, would trip over it.

All these kind of things, you know?

MUSIC: New Rose by The Damned

Punk them up.

Be outrageous.

Rip your knickers off.

Do whatever you're going to do.

# I got a feeling inside of me

# It's kind of strange like a stormy sea

# I don't know why, I don't know why

# I guess these things have got to be... #

As it travelled deeper into the '70s, British touring began

more and more to reflect the changing make-up of the nation.

# I can't stop to mess around

# I got a brand-new rose in town... #

REGGAE MUSIC PLAYS

But what was being played still had to do the same things.

Unload a van, perform, load a van, drive.

-VOICE ECHOES:

-Unload a van, perform, load a van, drive.

Unload a van, perform, load a van, drive.

Unload a van, perform, load a van...

My first thing in touring was with a sound system.

Now, sound systems, to those who don't know, are really just,

like, a portable DJ system.

But, obviously, in reggae, you have, some boxes that have

massive 18-inch speakers and you have a massive truck.

So, I spent quite a few journeys up and down the motorway,

in the back of a truck, lying on a speaker.

There was no real tours. Tours didn't happen until, I think, later.

I think, the advent of Bob Marley.

MUSIC: Natural Progression by Aswad

We had a show in Scotland, Lochmaben.

We drove, actually, through the town and suddenly there was a...

"Hold on, wait a minute, wait a minute, we've gone past it."

We had to turn around and come back. And I remember, we'd got to the...

We got to the gig and it was like, whoa, this is...

You know, it's the middle of nowhere. You know, what's going to happen?

Time for the show, and the place was absolutely...

You know, it was corked.

Fantastic gig, and then, as the gig finished,

bang! Everyone was gone.

It was...it's one of those.

The ultimate tour cliche, which began in the '60s

with legendary lunatics like the Who's Keith Moon,

is that we all enjoy trashing hotel rooms.

The ultimate expression of the true tedium of touring.

STATIC HISSES

I mean, Keith used to be well-known for throwing TVs out of the room.

And that's basically because either, they'd been on to room service

at midnight, asking for a cup of tea or a sandwich or a beer,

or something. And they wouldn't answer the phone.

So, he just used to throw the TV out the room...

-GLASS SMASHES

-..and then they'd ring up and say,

"Did you did you just throw the TV out the room?"

He said, "Yeah, pick up the bloody phone next time,

"I want a cheese and pickle sandwich."

Let me tell you, room-wrecking is something that needs to happen...

-GLASS SMASHES

-..in every band's life.

I'm trying to say this with a straight face.

It needs to happen.

Things happen sometimes, like,

-accidents, you know?

-Accidents?

-GLASS SMASHES

But no, I've never chucked a telly out of a hotel window.

Do you know how much fun it is?

It's absolutely blinding.

I guess the whole thing is, to leave it plugged in

and see how long the TV plays for

before it hits the ground. GLASS SMASHES

But it's just the length of the lead, isn't it?

You know what I mean? It's like...

And you'll be with a bunch of people, going,

"Yeah, wouldn't that be great? Hey, watch this, you!"

And I've found that, it's a drag, man,

because they...they don't break. GLASS SMASHES

You know, you can throw them, and you throw them out,

and they just bounce, man.

And so, people talking about a television exploding, it won't.

It doesn't break. It just bounces.

Boring, it's just not worth doing.

-'Have you got the price?

-What does it mean?

'Is that included in the deal?'

That was rock bands, and rock bands have had an earlier association

with that, touring and throwing TVs out the window, and whatever.

Remember, these were bands that had signed to companies,

so, you know, they had some kind of backing.

We were a young, black band and where the punks could get away with it,

a young, black band couldn't.

I've almost come full circle on my time-travelling tour bus.

After 30 years on the road, here we are, back touring on British Rail,

without Bill Haley, but this time we're stiff.

Stiff Records, in fact, on its UK tour of 1978.

Happily, third class was now a thing of the past.

In fact, according to this stunt, everyone was first-class

and most importantly, this train didn't answer to British Rail.

It was paid for by the record company.

We hired a train from British Rail

and put a big "Be Stiff" logo along the side of it.

It was great. It was really good.

The furthest north we get is Wick, which is near John O'Groats.

I'm told, I've never been there. It looks interesting on the map.

We've got a day off there, actually, just to excite everyone to death.

We got those Pullman carriages.

We could have had modern stuff, but we wanted the Pullmans,

to have those little... first class with the sliding door.

So, everyone was in their little compartment.

It was fantastic.

All the people who were on it, pretty much,

except Wreckless Eric, I think, who didn't enjoy it.

Everybody else thought it was, you know, the way to tour.

They thought that was as sophisticated, you know,

as, like, Agatha Christie. It was just fantastic.

And, so, finally, to the modern tour bus.

This was very much pioneered by the Americans in the 1970s

and was the answer to every single touring problem.

They were spacious, they were comfortable, they had all the

mod cons, and they were designed for both living as well as travelling.

Yeah, the music has changed, touring and some of the venues have changed,

but thankfully, the behaviour hasn't.

MUSIC: Loose Fit by Happy Mondays

You're hearing people farting. You're seeing things you shouldn't see

that fall out of people's underwear when they're getting up.

And me, as well. When you're climbing out of your bed,

you're not always dressed. And the beds are only that big,

and you've got your life that is in the bed with you,

your crisps and all that lot that you're hiding from everyone,

your drink. And, in your little bunk, that little space is yours.

It becomes like a travelling hotel room, doesn't it? So, if you're

going to do what you do in a hotel room, you do it on the bus.

There's very little sex on rock and roll buses.

MUSIC: Souvenir by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

There's too many people on the bus, you can't get any privacy.

And your bed is six foot by two foot, by two foot.

It's like trying to make love in a coffin.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

No, we were very, very, good, though.

I mean, we weren't that rock and roll at all.

He says... Is my nose growing?

Has it gone out of shot?

Now, it is true that some of us boys were very naughty way back then,

but trust me, some of the girls could be even naughtier.

I have taken a lad on the bus, but only to piss Shaun off years ago.

But...and I left him in Wisconsin in the middle of nowhere.

I'd just gone right off him. He was, he was like a proper vegan, though.

No, you know, his shampoo smelt of herb...no.

No, it smelt really herby.

Really herbal-y. Ugh.

I can still smell it now, no... Oh, yeah, as well.

And then, when you've got films to watch on the bus,

there was a choice - Dances With Wolves or In Bed With Madonna,

and he went for the wrong one.

He went for Dances With Wolves.

My favourite tour bus story was with Primal Scream.

There was a guy called Fatty Malloy, and they were at a gig somewhere.

They were all very well juiced

and Fatty said, "Oh, we've run out of beer."

And he went, "I know, I'll go to the band bus,

"they'll have loads of beer, and go and get it."

So he goes to the door, opens the door, steps out.

It was fucking going.

It was doing 70mph on the freeway.

It's a lonely, insular existence.

Nothing exists except the drive, going to some dive,

playing three or four sets a night, that was normal.

It's a funny kind of world, a twilight world.

You know, you get off the road, if you've been on the road

for six months, that's the... You've been in this bubble.

You know, I do remember once,

wanting to pick up the phone in my own house to call room service.

Thinking, "Oh, yeah, no, I'm at home."

The only person that's going to bring me food is me.

I used to find at about ten o'clock, I'd get twitchy.

At gig time, showtime.

And I'd be quite all right filling the day,

and just be hanging out, and then it would get to ten o'clock...

HE TAPS HIS HANDS

"I think I'll have a glass of wine." You know?

You have to do it. There is no other way.

If I was told by my agent one day,

"You can't tour for at least two years, anywhere."

Why? Why, why?

"Because nobody wants to see you."

Whoa.

There we go, good enough for an old boy. Woohoo!

Knock them dead, boy, knock them dead.

'And you can't just sit still. The competition is fierce.'

You've got to be loved by everyone if you can, you know?

You've got to reach into every home and every heart.

Suddenly, there's a realisation

that you have become what you set out to be

and there's no turning back.

Actually, you've overcommitted and now,

what's going to happen next?

In this discussion this evening, we've romanticised

and brought back some of the memories of some of those hauls,

and travelling around and some of the adventures that happened.

And you think, "Oh, that was great."

But I bet you, if I went back there now and had to drive that van,

I'd go, "I can't do this."

I think, looking back is better than being there, maybe.

You know, it really wasn't uncommon to do two shows in one night.

You'd do, like, an 8pm show somewhere like here

and then get in the van and go off and do a midnight show,

which is exactly what I'm going to do now.

Where's the van?

Come on, where's the van? I...

Oh, come on!

Come on, let me in!

Where's the van?!

MUSIC: Gotta Travel On by Billy Grammer

# I've played around I've sleighed around

# This old town too long

# Summer's almost gone

# Yeah, the winter's comin' on

# I've played around and I've sleighed around

# This old town too long

# And I feel like I gotta travel on. #