My parents and fellow students thought I was working on a play scheme in Blackfriars London during the long summer holiday of my second year at teachers training college. Instead I was driving a Ford transited van around the country, loading and unloading equipment. I got the job by happy accident. One of the girls at colleagues I shared musical tastes with was friendly with someone in a group back home in Burnley Lancashire. He came to visit her at college and over a few drinks told me how easy it would be to get a gig as a roadie if I could drive, had a clean licence and didn’t expect to be paid! He explained that as a roadie you keep recites for everything, even a cup of coffee and the tour manager’s accountant reimbursed you. It sounded exciting . I defiantly did not want to go back home to Hull and my parents for the summer and I had no money to go travelling. I said yes and then forgot about it. The weekend before we broke up I got a message via my friend that if I wanted to roadie I needed to be at Keel service station Monday mid day.
I was initially hired to drive the transit and load and unload equipment for the 2 week, UK leg of the European tour. It’s in the casual nature of the work and who it attracts that there is a lot of hiring and firing in the initial stages of a tour. People get drunk, take drugs, start fights, steal equipment and try and fiddle their expenses. I established my self as reliable, trustworthy and inoffensive so was offered an extension for the reminding 6 weeks of the tour. Only I had a new job.
The lead guitarist was not the easiest of characters to get on with. Like many in the profession he was very precious about his axe. The greats can make any guitar sound good because the magic is in their figures. He was convinced the magic was in his special guitar. He required a roadie to look after the instrument that he had used to write the one hit song that was funding this tour. An easy job you might think but I was not allowed to let the guitar leave my person at any time, if I went to the bathroom( it was an American band) it went with me, it slept next to me in bed, it occupied the seat next to me at meal times and as we travelled. He would have had it handcuffed to me if he could.
Of course members of the band took the piss and thought it was hilarious to hid the guitar and watch their band mate have a full on melt down before some one would produce it saying, “is this what you’re looking for?” It was due to such incidents that the two previous post holders had got the sack. Not only was I never to let it leave my sight but I was never, ever to open the case. This was because he really believed that if someone other than him touched the guitar it would lose it’s magic powers. Everyone knew this including their die hard fans especially the groupies who tried to persuade me to let them have a quick look inside and maybe give the instrument a gentle stoke.
The guitarists paranoia about his axe started to rub off on me, what if I got mugged, the guitarist would pay everything he didn’t have to get it back. But my biggest concern was crossing the boarders as we traveled from one European city to the next. There were a lot of drugs around and the group were enthusiastic users to kill the boredom hours travelling and before a gig. However after some high profile busts of much more famous bands the group members never had any drugs on their person, they gave them to the roadies. I was never asked to carry drugs but I was aware that the guitarist had a significant coke habit. It crossed my mind every time we crossed a boarder and went through a customers check point that I didn’t know what was in the guitar case I was carrying.
One tour was enough for me.
Blair Mcpherson former Director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
