Most performers, musicians, actors, dancers, are reasonably self aware. You have to conjure up some kind of illusion beyond the footlights, some sort of willing suspension of disbelief no matter what level you are at. But behind them, for most bands there is little pretension. You are on the nightshift, doing a job like anyone else and things go wrong. There are broken strings, dropped sticks, feedback, forgetting to reset the transpose button, (my particular speciality). There is a wary eye on the crowd. I mean, have you got one in the first place? And if you have, is it hostile? Resentful? Is the car safe outside or should I have taken the radio out?
It is the proletarianisation of art.
The audience see some kind of magic, the band see forgotten lyrics, missed chords, stuck hi-hats, faulty cables and dodgy staging. Pulp were once doing a gig in a big theatre in London. At one point Jarvis Cocker accomplished a dramatic high kick, spot on the pulled beat, Van Morrison style. The guitar solo segued in seamlessly. Turning away, Jarvis danced by the bass player and groaned,”Jesus Christ my bloody hip!”
Of course, for some musicians there is none of this self awareness at all. They are disconcertingly convinced that it is all real and they are, in fact, a ‘star’. It's difficult to react sometimes when you realise the person you are dealing with is, in fact, mad. I was asked once to audition for an Elvis impersonator. This is a very particular and sometimes weird subset of the ‘tribute’ act. It is still incredibly popular though, and on any given Saturday night in any town, you can always go and see an Elvis somewhere. In 1997, this particular Elvis was pretty much top quiff, certainly in the North West. Scenting decent money for once, I pitched up at a small working men’s club one afternoon in Nelson, a small town in East Lancashire. I had set up, gone through some of the songs with the band and then Elvis turned up. I mean really Elvis, Elvis reincarnated, in a white high collar jumpsuit with an old Buick parked outside. He introduced himself in an American drawl from somewhere in the Deep South.
It was Two ‘o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and he was from Barnoldswick.
I had explained I was an amateur and had a day job. I was a head teacher, so I wasn’t going to give that up. Later that week he rang me up, I was at my desk in my office. He still sounded like he was calling from Tennessee. He was kind of sweet and complimentary and would I join? I explained that I wasn’t a full time musician but I’d be happy to play in the band. “That’s cool Nick, I get it man. No problem. Erm, can you do Hamburg next Wednesday?”
He was a decent Elvis actually, but the market is saturated. There is an Asian chap in Bury who does it apparently, and does it well by all accounts. He goes out as ‘Patelvis’.
Then of course there are the name droppers. The ones, generally older, who never quite made it, but were on the fringes of success and stardom, sometimes it can be quite endearing. There is a well known professional blues player from Manchester who comes to see The Cheating Hearts quite often. His wife makes him, she likes us. He’s a thoroughly nice guy and a very good player and not at all big-headed. It has to be said however that he is a terrible name-dropper. Actually, that’s not fair. He is a first class name dropper. Shug and I were having a pint with him at the end of a gig and bemoaning the fact that whenever he came to a gig our guitarist, a very good player in his own right, starts extending his solos and cranking up the volume. “I know” he said, “We can’t help it. I’m exactly the same when Eric walks in”.
Sometimes the tenuous veil of mystery between audience and artist breaks down mid show, and reality intrudes. This can happen at any level. Things go hopelessly wrong and the quotidian walks in unannounced. There is nothing you can do about it. Years ago there was a Royal ballet production of ‘Swan Lake’. In one of the big set pieces the dancers exited onto sumptuously built swans which then mechanically glided off into the wings, each carrying a dancer. It was a splendid coup de theatre that required immaculate timing. One night they slightly missed it and by the time the lead dancer got to the back of the stage he had catastrophically missed his cue. The orchestra ground to a discordant and appalled halt. With great presence of mind the dancer stepped to the front of the stage, shielded his eyes and asked, “Does anyone know the time of the next swan”?
In London I worked with an ex actress from the RSC. Her husband was himself a well regarded actor, Clifford Rose, who had been in the RSC with her and was now a bit of a telly star. As a young aspirant he got the part of third spear carrier or something in Nichol Williamson’s ‘Hamlet’. There was a scene in this production where a messenger enters a crowded scene and announces, “Sire, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead”. Cue shock horror, muttering and general hubbub amongst the cast on stage. One evening there was a second’s beat before the required reaction and Clifford was clearly heard to say, “I didn’t know they were ill”. His defence that it was what he said every night didn’t spare him a severe bollocking from the director.
Alcohol (or drugs) can be a problem of course, and quite a common one at any level of performance art. Peter O’Toole once made a staggering opening entrance in a Shakespearean play in the West End. Clearly and untenably drunk, the audience reacted with something of a shocked gasp. O’Toole stopped and glared at them. “If you think I’m pissed”, he roared,”You should see the Duke of Lancaster”. The spell we try and weave is fragile and easily broken.
One night the Hearts were setting up on the stage of Colne Municipal Hall for an early evening gig at the Lancashire Beer festival, a gig we did every year. It was an odd one really. The seats were taken out of the downstairs auditorium, beer stalls were set up round the outside and the place was packed with rather earnest beer enthusiasts sampling and taking notes of a vast array of beers from all around the country. The first time we played was rather disconcerting. After the first number there was almost complete silence. We looked at each other apprehensively. We may be a bit of a shambles as a band but to be fair, we always go down well. The second number seemed to be greeted by the same apathetic response, a kind of awkward silence. I peered out through the stage lights. Every member of the audience had a pint in their hands and nowhere to put it. They couldn’t clap if they wanted to, and largely they looked like the sort of people that normally struggled juggling a buffet. If they had tried clapping there would be beer and pencils everywhere.
This evening I had set up near the wings, as usual, (for safety really, I like to have an eye line on an obstacle free exit, just in case). I was sat at the piano just waiting for the mikes to be checked by the sound engineer up in the gods. The festival had been going all day and there was a good natured background of beer drinker’s chatter and the floor was packed. Shug sidled up next to me and leaned over conspiratorially. “Just look at them” he said quietly, “with their anoraks and beards and hydrometers, what do they look like?” The noise began to recede a little. “I mean for fuck’s sake, have they looked at themselves recently, with their specific gravity this and their hop count that, who’d want an evening’s pub crawl with this lot? You’d have to be pretty desperate.” The hall had fallen strangely silent by now and several pairs of eyes were looking at us intently. “Erm,” said Shug tapping the microphone gingerly, “Is this thing on?”
The audience themselves can interrupt and disconnect the mystery quite easily of course, it doesn't have to be the band. I went to see a show at the wonderful Picturedrome in Holmfirth and the a woman in front of us decided, rather unselfconciously I thought, to give birth between the support act and the main show. Charmingly the band we had gone to see was 'Little Feat'. But nothing can puncture the moment and dissolve the carefully crafted illusion of art like a good heckler. Fortunately I haven’t really had to deal with much of this kind of thing, I’m not a front man and by and large we always go down well. One night in some pub or other we’d started tastefully, got into a nice groove and the atmosphere was warm and responsive. By the time we came to the fourth or so number we were sailing it. “This next one is by Steely Dan” The Watson announced. “Oh” groaned a voice from the very back. “And you were doing so well”.