.
| Hello all you patient and long suffering readers of this interminable tour diary. Once more fingers are put to keyboard (miss the ‘pen to paper’ days – or do I??) to relate the many and various happenings in the unscheduled life of Neil Innes + Friends.
Have just dealt (very firmly) with Boulevard Films – the makers of the ‘Do Not Adjust Your Set’ DVD. Having asked Neil to promote the thing and promising to pay expenses they then quibble with the bill and ask for a breakdown. Why is this odd? Well for many reasons. First they could not get anyone else to promote the DVD. None of the Pythons were interested. So they came to ‘nice Neil’ who will always try and help if he can. Not for totally altruistic reasons, I have to say, because he was just about to embark on a mini Neil Innes + Friends tour and thought he could at least plug the show in Liverpool and Edinburgh. Nevertheless, he would have to travel to London at least twice – which takes 6 hours there and back etc etc So I put in an invoice for £150. You guys in the US probably don’t know the cost of petrol here but it is at least £5 or $10 a gallon. London is 200 miles away so work it out. I had already done just that and it came to 800 miles at £0.35p a mile. You can do with a coffee and toast or croissant or Danish at least once which will definitely cost you at least £10 a go, so then £150 sounds so little. Anyway when we got back from Liverpool they quibbled and asked for a breakdown of expenses plus receipts. Well, EXCUSE ME!!! Anyway back to where I came in – pause for floaty music and fuzzy screen while I drift existentially back to SATURDAY 20th. |
SATURDAY 20th – The idea was to drop Neil at BBC for interview while I went to pick up Ken up from the airport. But there turned out to be enough time for us both to pick Ken up and as Neil was being interrogated, I was in bookshops looking for inspiration while Ken scoured Oxford Street area in search of, as yet unreleased, DVDs
|
| SUNDAY 21st
Tom arrives at Ipswich station with double bass and strange ears. Did he wear these on the journey or just put them on before he arrived ??? It is late. We eat and then sleep – not sure whether or not Tom actually went to bed. He is, as you will already know, 26, and the concept of sleeping in a bed for the 6-8 required hours, does not rest easily with him.
|
| TUESDAY 23rd
The eastern road to Edinburgh is not good. But it is quite beautiful. Suddenly there are heather-covered hills, stunted wind blown trees and pretty stone built villages and views over the rocks to the sea so that if you had days to spare this would be a good way to spend it . If you are in a hurry -well there is nothing to do but relax and know you can’t overtake and you will get there when you do and not before. Arrive later than we thought and go straight to the gig which is The Famous Spiegeltent in St Georges Square. The whole area is really buzzing and we load the gear in over some iron railings and into a small canvas tent where it can be stored till soundcheck. We are staying at the Pollock Halls– actually part of the university, making quite a packet by letting the student’s digs out during the long summer breaks. We have an hour before we have to go back so while the band rests, I wander through the gardens trying to remember the botanical names of the amazing collection of plants around the buildings. Since I began to organise the tours etc etc I have forgotten many plant names from my long and almost forgotten years as a garden designer, so it was good to look and remember - a sort of planting Sudoku. Got back to the Speigeltent for a brief soundcheck and it really is brief. Usually the band have the luxury of an hour or two, but in the Spiegeltent- 20 minutes to half- an-hour is all the time they have. Luckily the sound guys and gals are brilliant so it is all possible. As the doors opened the place fills up – it is a sell-out and the audience are great, laughing in all the right places and joining in when coerced by Neil, Tom or JJ. At the end they descend en- masse to the merchandising table and I think we sold about 50 CDs and 12 t-shirts etc etc. Neil came out to sign as I went back to pack away his stuff to find Tom and Ken had already done most of it.
Tom and Neil – apologies for quality. My camera is very sensitive to movement and even though I was leaning hard against a pillar and supporting the thing, the pictures are still blurred. Because I try to avoid using the flash whenever I can, I have to increase the shutter speed as well as increasing the aperture to get enough light and I haven’t sussed exactly how much of each to use. Looking forward to achieving it but you get the picture. (sorry)
So pack away the gear and go to the Spiegel garden to meet Doug, Ros and their three children Felix, Lily and Jelly. Doug has helped Neil for years arranging his New Zealand and Australian Tours. The family have just come back from a holiday in the north of Scotland and it is good to see them. They actually live in Suffolk a few miles away from us but we are all busy with different things, so at home it is difficult to make time to see each other. So chat and then go for something to eat ending up in a few ‘wrong’ places but finally fetching up somewhere vaguely Mexican where I seem to remember ordering a jug of Pear Drop cocktail. Only Tom is up for it so he and I do our best to get through it leaving the red wine etc to Neil ken and JJ. Later that night……... No all is fine but we decide to call it a night as the clock strikes 2.30 apart, obviously, from Tom who wandered back to the Pollock Halls around 6am. In fact I had only just got going by 2.30 and really could have gone on all night. As a result I do try to sleep but give up after a couple of hours, dress and sit in one of the flowery courtyards to work out a few Sudokus before dawn.
Doug with Neil in New Zealand
A more flattering picture of Doug with accordian |
WEDNESDAY 24th Neil has two interviews to do today so we walk back to the Spiegeltent garden where we are scooped into the tent for a programme broadcast daily about the festival. Two very strong coffees later Neil answers the usual questions- ‘what was it like working with The Pythons etc’ and then plays ‘Love is getting Deeper’ minus moustache and French beret, which, I suppose, doesn’t matter because it is radio. We go to The Pleasaunce for coffee and toast meeting up with JJ and Ken around lunch time. After lunch Neil and I walk back to the Pollock Halls for a siesta and around 5pm we set off again for the gig. Again the tent is full of real fans. The interaction between Tom JJ and Neil when Neil forgets the words or there is a duff note is enjoyed by the audience. Probably because it makes them feel part of the whole thing and they always join in willingly when asked, even on ‘All Alone’ which calls for some real note pitching. Neil ends by commenting that he gets a great buzz from hearing the audience sing ‘All Alone’ altogether. Another good merchandising night but tonight we have to load the van so we finish about 11/2hours later and around 9pm we are out onto the streets looking for a bit of a good time, but mainly for food. You know the sort of thing that happens. You find a good restaurant too quickly and think there must be a better one, and there never is. We decide to wander down to the Grassmarket. This is the area of Edinburgh I know best. All through the Grimms years in the 1970s, the ‘Nest Of Intervals’ years in the 1980,s and the ‘Jam Tomorrow’ years in the early ‘90s when Neil worked with Andy Roberts and a variety of headgear, we seemed to be based around this area. Memories come flooding back. It feels like home and all the small eclectic shops selling everything from polka dot dresses to lino are, thankfully, still here, although the streets have been cleared of the winos - avid listeners to lost poets and performers in the wee small hours, as the ablution lorries discharges jets of water onto them and the pavements. I hear this sort of cleaning up has happened in Greenwich Village. The Village was once a funky place to be but now houses those totally unnecessary Josephs and Calvins and Gallianos selling clothes to the very rich and causing house prices to rise so that it has become almost another 5th Avenue. What’s the point?? I get such a buzz out of finding things in charity shops now. It works for me, I have to say, because, as these ‘labels’ have spread rash-like all over New York, people find themselves almost always wearing the same thing as someone else. Muttering things like ‘ Oh fate worse than death’ they throw their cast- offs and once-worns into the charity shops, which is where me and a hundred other scavengers play patience and wait.
Huge detour there – trying to pull myself back to the future but it is hard. Memories of Brian Patten the beautiful but highly aggressive (when drunk) Liverpool poet punching an overkeen and very pushy fan, keep me in that time.
Hey ho, so eventually we fetch up in an Italian restaurant where loud rock is playing. I ask for some Italian music and we get the sort of thing the Eurovision song contest is renowned for – no you don’t want to know. Suffice to say that it is instantly forgettable. I have mussels and instantly regret it. JJ and Neil has steak and Tom pasta. Drive back to the Halls, without Tom, who spends the early hours in the company of a ‘brown eyed handsome girl’ or is that just a song I’ve heard?
One of the Famous Spiegeltents. There are several as we found out in Edinburgh. The one we had this time had pillars all round the inside so Neil Tom and Ken had to set themselves up between the pillars with JJ right behind them. It actually worked but the Brighton tent (with no obvious pillars) is the favourite.
|
THURSDAY 25th
And into the van around 10am for the journey to Liverpool. This takes about 5 hours and is noteable mainly for the lack of conversation and the sound of deep snoring. Even the Sudoku books lie unloved on the floor of the van. The weather, which has up to now been good for England in august – cold and fresh but dry, turns suddenly. Rain, hail and all manner of repentance material – although I missed the frogs and locusts -falls from the sky. We arrive at The Cavern to unload the gear before getting to the Adelphi Hotel. The Cavern is, as its name suggests, a cave – dark, dank, smelling of cellars. There will be two ‘Beatle’ bands before and after NI+F so slight crush in the single dressing room as well as half a dozen Beatle wigs and suits. The sound man Otto is great and works hard to get it right. After a couple of hours we drive to the Adelphi which is just a walk away. In the van, however, we quickly realise that at least half of Liverpool is being rebuilt and the road diversions take us almost out of Liverpool and across the Mersey. Sharp minds are working in unison, however and an hour later we reach the hotel. Everyone at one time and another has stayed at the Adelphi, including The (actual) Beatles. It is a big rambling hotel where you can get either a very nice room with views over the town, or an awful room with frosted windows which don’t open. Have to hand it to the Adelphi staff– Tom and JJs room has a big non-smoking sign. When they ask if they can be moved to a ‘smoker’ they are told that the hotel is too old too worry about that sort of thing and given an ashtray. Later Tom JJ and I go to find food while Neil rests. Not sure how the subject arises but we are suddenly thinking about where we would like our second, third and even fourth houses. For some reason I am sucked in and start thinking about rivieras and nice places to be when in fact if the second house was on the North Pole, the third on a ledge on the steep side of Mount Everest or in a difficult part of Mombay and the fourth somewhere hot and uncomfortable on the equator, how hugely nice it would be to be on the east coast of England. What if we had….what if etc etc. The gig is great. Far too hot – must be in the 90s but a very appreciative audience. Sell very little – too dark and uncomfortable but many people come to say how much they have enjoyed it and I still get a buzz when someone says they are following the tour diary. Neil signs the required number of CDs and it’s back to the Adelphi and the American Bar. Something is bugging Neil so we leave suddenly and unexpectedly and drift into unconsciousness once more. |
FRIDAY 26TH Not an auspicious start. The Adelphi is hosting a Beatlefest type of event this weekend so the dining room is crowded with a long queue. Many people recognise Neil and comment on the show. The Liverpool Beatlefest has far less emphasis on selling mountains of merchandise than the US ones- just one small kiosk tucked away in the foyer. Today the band must to pick up the instruments from the Cavern and transport them to the Carling Academy. When we arrive at the Cavern there is no-one about so I offer to go and seek out a human. This results in my getting stuck in the depths of the Cavern with Otto, loading all the gear into the lift- mainly on my own because there is no way of getting in touch with those above ground. Finally up and breathing fresh air and on to the Carling. Mickey is already there with all keyboards set up and soundchecked. John and Griff turn up having had the same problems with the multitude of diversions criss-crossing the centre of Liverpool.
If you want to know how exciting it is ‘behind the scenes’ ……………. |
Again there will be a few ‘Beatle’ bands playing before and after Neil’s set, including an ‘Australian Beatles’ who would rather JJ’s percussion wasn’t around when they were playing. Neil points out that if JJs percussion wasn’t to be around then maybe The Rutles would choose to use their own drum kit rather than busking on the Australian group’s gear and suddenly the request was dropped. It is difficult for John to use another drum kit because of a very stiff leg etc He manages, as he always does, brilliantly. The Carling buzzes. The only drag being that they will not allow T-shirts etc to be sold in the hall and I have to be located down in the foyer. Watching hundreds breeze up to the venue without a second glance at the merchandise is wearying and was glad to have sold so many CDs at Edinburgh. The gig goes well, as always. The good feeling between the members of the band spills onto the audience. The inter-reaction between Mickey, Neil and John is quite special and no matter how many times I see the show, I still enjoy those moments. After the show Tom sells quite a few t-shirts by modelling them aka Victoria Beckham. Suddenly see the potential…maybe in New York, after the show…… Leave the gear at the venue which is always such a luxury and head back to The Adelphi. This time the place is alive. Beatles bands as far as the ear can hear. Into a bar where the music is so loud, that try as you might be tempted to, talking is the worst option, so it has to be dancing or going somewhere quieter. One band is exceptional and, not surprisingly, Neil knows them. He goes over to say well done, thinking they have finished, and ends up playing tambourine and singing to ‘Revolution’. No-one remembers much about that night. Tom has a gig the next day so leaves at day-break by train and somehow Neil, JJ and I drive back to Suffolk with many more coffee stops than usual.
|
|
