socks and drugs and rock’n’roll

Four lads, an old  van and a head full of songs.
That was then ….

……. this is now.
Four old men, a Fiat Doblo and an iPad full of songs.  On the road to Germany.

A Fiat Doblo? It’s not really the right image for a band on the road.  It’s too …. sensible for a start.  And comfortable.

When bands first crossed the North Sea to hone their craft in the Bierkellers of (then) West Germany, comfort was a mattress in the back of the van on top of the amplifiers and guitar cases.  They had the clothes on their backs and just enough money to get to the first venue.

The van served as hotel room as well as mode of transport.  As they became more successful - to the extent that they no longer had to sleep in the van - they took to trashing their hotel rooms.  

Some say it was because they were out of their heads on drugs.  I think it was a little more prosaic than that - I think they missed the van and were trying to recreate the ambience of the soil-pit on wheels that had been their home up until then.  

We travel in a little more style, as befits our age and station in life; we have seats, we carry a change of clothes and when it comes to resting our heads, we have a cabin on the ferry.   

We still use drugs though - and other therapeutic comforts; between us we have a decent supply of warfarin, statins and beta-blockers and John (leader of the pack) is wearing an ankle support sock, due to a recent fall.

Trashing the ferry cabin is not really on - we have an inside cabin, so there’s no window to throw the television out of.  Which we also don’t have.  And even if we did have a window, it would be a porthole and so any TV would need to be really small.  It’s not going to happen.

Tempus Fugit for the Rock’n’Roll lifestyle, which roughly means - ‘that was then, this is now’.  So these days when Rod Stewart relaxes in his hotel room, he plays with his train set.  Status Quo watch Coronation Street.  And Keith Richards has a thing about Shepard’s Pie.

Time has caught up with the lads in the van.  “I hope I die before I get old” no longer has any relevance - it’s long gone out the window - along with the TV set.  We need a new sentiment for the new age; perhaps the Jewish prayer;  ‘Let me not die while I’m still alive.’

We’re on the road for 9 days; 2 days travel out, then 5 gigs in 5 nights and then 2 days travel home.  I’m not sure I’d have had the energy to do all that when I was 18, let alone after cancer and all the other stuff that comes with age.  But that was then - this is now.

It may be sometime before I post again - not sure about wifi in the bierkellers of North-Rhine Westphalia.  I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.