The Rec Room, Buffalo NY, and the story behind that ADIDAS T Shirt

This might just be the shortest blog I’ve ever written, don’t all cheer at once.

Walsall v Mansfield Town (Full Time 2-1) Saturday 18^th February 2024.

Cutting a very long story very, very short, in the winter of 2023, I was invited to Buffalo NY, to see Hearts & Hand Grenades play a sort of album launch home town gig type thang’ at the Rec Room, in the spring of the following year.

I was asked not to mention it to anyone because nothing had been confirmed, but, I was given a date, a time, and a place, so at least I could start the planning process, even if I then did completely forget about it.

At the time of the invite, I was just about to go on holiday and attempt to complete 17 gigs in 17 days, 12 of those gigs being a Wolfsbane UK Tour, so I didn’t so much forget about it, I just had other things on my mind and being very ill simply complicated the whole situation.

The 17 gigs in 17 days came and went and so did the end of 2023 and before I knew it, it was the second week in January 2024.

Messages flew back and forth between myself and Mike and before I knew it I’d booked the time off work, a Virgin Atlantic return flight and a hotel, the Hyatt Regency, one block from the venue.

Eventually Saturday 03^rd February 2024 arrived and so did the sort of album launch home town gig type thang’ at the Rec Room.

The reason I spent close to £2000 on one gig.

I walked into the venue, it was an oblong shaped room. I entered from the rear left, there was a stage at the far end of the room, a bar running the length of the left hand side, seating on the right hand side and a large space in the middle for standing.

I made my way to the bar where I saw a member of staff wearing a Rec Room T Shirt. It was a black T Shirt with the ADIDAS Trefoil logo in white and the word ADIDAS replaced with the word “rec room” and I just wanted it, needed, had to have it, at all costs, at any cost. That T Shirt simply had to be mine.

“Nice T Shirt mate. Where did you get that from? How can I get one?” I asked the barman in one breath. “It helps if you work here” he replied. Well, there was no faulting his honesty.

“No mate, really, I’ve come over from England for this gig, I’m an ADIDAS whore, look” I said as I lifted up my left leg to put my Baby Pink ADIDAS Gazelle on the edge of the bar for him to see, “How do I get one of those T Shirts? I’ll give you $20 for one.”

The day I found out that taking selfies isn’t as easy as it looks. I feel over three times trying to take that image.

Day Two, Gig Two, of 17 gigs in 17 days, Saturday 25^th November 2023. Wolfsbane, The Parish, Huddersfield, England.

I wore the same clothes at the Rec Room.

12 different colours of ADIDAS Gazelle’s and counting. 

And so, the game began.

Every time I went to bar, I’d ask. Every time I caught the barman’s eye, I’d point at the T Shirt. It got to the point where the poor barman was starting to avoid me, but I was already one step ahead.

I’d spent all evening being introduced to the band’s family, Mums, Dads, Brothers, Sisters, Cousins etc and once the introductions were over I’d say, in a whispered voice, after looking over each of my shoulders in a comedy style spy type way, “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get that T Shirt off that barman…”

Four hours later and the gig is over. It’s also GAME OVER! There’s no sign of the barman and there’s no sign of that T Shirt. I’d lost. For the first time in a long time, I’d failed to bag my blag.

 Gran and the Set List.

Deflated, I decided to include my bladder in the experience and took the opportunity to void it and get rid of almost four pints of fluid that was threatening to float my back teeth.    

As I left the toilets I literally bumped into the barman, we smiled at each other and we both put out our hands to shake hands, “Mate, I’m sorry for hassling you so much over that T Shirt, it was all in good humour I hope I didn’t wind you up too much” I said, while shaking his hand and giving him a hug.

“No, it’s fine, my Manager is having a really bad time and I didn’t want to ask him about the T Shirt so have mine” he said while gesturing across the room to the merchandise table, while still shaking my hand. It’s at that point, that I noticed that he wasn’t wearing the ADIDAS rec room T Shirt anymore.

While still shaking hands I looked to my right, where I saw Stef and Nick standing behind the merch table waving a black ADIDAS rec room T Shirt. WTF!? The barman gripped my hand tighter and I responded, “Really? Hey! What!? Is that for me?” I asked him. “Yes, it’s now yours…” he replied.

I hugged the barman and thanked him as well as I could before walking over to Stef and Nick at the merch table who were still waving the T Shirt at me.

There must have been half a dozen people at the merch table all laughing and cheering and clapping at my good fortune. Then came the twist.

Stef and Nick handed me the T Shirt, “You deserve it” said Nick, I was laughing and grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “No guys, really, thank you” I said, while looking at it and holding it against my body to check the size. “How did you manage to get it off him?” I asked. “I bought it off him for $30” said Nick. I laughed while replying, “I only offered him $20”.

“No really, did you really buy it off him?” I asked, repeating myself, Stef and Nick nodded and laughed as did everyone else around me. At this point, I must confess, I wasn’t sure if they were joking of not. So, I just sort of played along. If it was a joke or if someone really had bought it, either way, I was completely floored by the T Shirt I’d been gifted.

Rec Room T Shirt, ticket, set list, wrist bands and the CD “Where I Begin” fully signed and the first one to be signed by Donny.  

Stef later confirmed that Nick had bought the T Shirt off the barman for $30. Nick is dating Stef’s sister, I’d only meet him four hours earlier.

Stef should have been busy promoting her band’s new CD and selling merch instead of holding a black ADIDAS rec room T Shirt above her head like she’s just lifted the FA Cup. And someone who I’d only meet four hours before, puts his hand in his pocket, after blagging the barman, and buys a T Shirt for $30 and then hands to me saying, “You deserve it”.

How do I begin to get my head around that?

How do I even start to process that?

Now do you understand why I kept bursting into tears every time I looked at it?

Walsall ADIDAS (artist unknown to me, image found on the interweb many Moon’s ago).

Walsall ADIDAS (artist unknown to me, image found on the interweb many Moon’s ago).

Noggin xx

 

 

 

On Tour For DUMMIES

A Fans Guide To Being On Tour

STOP PRESS

 

ILLNESS

 

Illness. Oh yes, illness, the one subject I forgot to mention. Illness the one single luxury that we all take for granted.

How so? I hear you thinking… Well let me tell you how. When you get sick, you take time off from work, and you go home, you go to bed, you rest, the world outside simply goes away. That is the luxury that you and I take for granted.

Never underestimate the luxury of going home to get better.  

That luxury simply does not exist when you’re on the road. Whether you are in a band, or in the crew, or fan following a band, the show simply must go on.

“The show must go on” isn’t just a throw away phrase. When you took time off from work and went home to rest, someone took your place, right. Well, who takes the place of the band member? Who takes the place of the crew member? And from the fan perspective, whether you are there or not, the gig will always go on. Just because you’re on the road and you get sick does not mean the rest of the world gets paused so you can get better.

“The show must go on” is believed to originate from the Circus industry, and that’s what a Rock n’ Roll tour is, it is a circus, a never ending, never pausing performance, that rolls on to the next venue, then the next, then the next. It’s just like a glacier slowly moving down a valley, it simply never stops. It doesn’t matter how sick you get, the show goes on, the circus rolls into the next town or city, the glacier continues to slide down the valley and if you need to evacuate fluid from your body then you find a toilet or a bucket or a window and you do whatever it is you have to do. 

And of course, a Doctor with access to drugs is always big help.

Let me very quickly tell you two of my stories.

 

Germany 2019

Before Covid-19 took my job away, I was working in events driving around Europe and literally living the dream.

I was working on an event in Germany, in the grounds of a castle, and everything was going great, until the Thursday evening when I basically woke up dead in the back of my truck. The next thing I know I’ve got paramedics putting a drip into my arm in what can only be described as a make shift field hospital medical tent type thing. Think Pre-Op in M*A*S*H. I was diagnosed with food poisoning and heat exhaustion.

The night passed and the following day we continued with the load out until I became ill again. This time I ended up in a German hospital and instead of a basic drip into my arm I’m now being pumped full of liquid morphine. It wasn’t just food poisoning and heat exhaustion. Still, I’ve had worse Friday nights.

The night passed, the crew loaded the truck, and on the Saturday morning I discharged myself from hospital. With no opiates in my blood, I was safe and legal to drive.

I then had to get a taxi back to my truck. Complete my truck checks and then drive from the middle German back to Somerset for a Monday load in at 09.00  

I arrived in Somerset late on Sunday evening.

I was the only driver on that job, the show did go on, it had too, and ironically enough, I have video footage of the ambulance arriving as Queen’s, The Show Must Go is playing in the back ground. Don’t believe me? Go and look at my Facefuck page, it’s all there. What you need to understand is this, lots of people kept me alive that weekend, literally. Lots of people took part in that event. Lots of money was raised for charity. Lots of people did lots of unsung work. The show went on and so did I. There was and never will be a pause button.

The following year, almost to the day, it happened again, but that’s another story for another day.

 

Wolfsbane UK Tour 2023

The blogs you have been reading were written in the spring of 2023 and they just sat there, waiting to be posted on the Wolfsbane tour of Nov/Dec 2023. It was my intention to post one blog on each of the nights and that’s what I did, except for this one. This one was written today, 31^st December 2023, because today is the first day I’ve finally been well enough to put down my thoughts.

It wasn’t until I became ill that I realised I needed to write about being ill.

About four to six weeks before the Wolfsbane tour started I caught a cold, it lasted a week and I thought nothing of it, especially as it disappeared so quickly. Less than a week later and the cold returned, but this time it came back full armed.

I was a mess. I was in trouble. This wasn’t just a cold, and I knew it. If I wasn’t careful I was going to end up in hospital. I was running out of time and I knew that too.

I was going to work rattling because of the amount of pills I was taking. Like a fully functioning alcoholic all the drugs did for me was to leave me numb, pain free, a shell of a human being, and as long as I was legal to do my job, I was winning, right.

The tour was due to start on Friday 24^th Nov. On Tuesday 21^st I was told not to come back to work and to take time off because I was so ill. I relented and followed orders. I spent two days in bed basically unconscious.

In my weaker moments I gave genuine thoughts to pulling the tour, the tour I’d spent all year planning and looking forward to.

The opening night arrived and so did I, drugged off my tits, and that’s how I spent the whole tour, drugged off my tits. I took every legal drug I could and I doubled the dose when needed and sometimes more. Whatever it took to get me through the days and then the nights I did. If the virus wasn’t going to kill me then organ failure might, but I’ll worry about that later.

I thought Norwich was going to be the lowest point of the tour for me because of the pain I was in. I was wrong. By the time I got to Blackpool on the last but one night, I was numb, I was literally dead on my feet, it was only the numbness that stopped me from constantly bursting into tears. I was an emotional and physical wreck. I knew people were concerned and few people took me to one side and genuinely asked me if there was anything they could do. It just made me want to burst into tears even more.

I’m not proud to admit that I almost pulled the last night of the tour in London. But I did get there. But at London I just couldn’t hold it in anymore and I did have my moments of bursting into tears. That release. The relief of not quitting.

I didn’t quit. I completed the tour. I’d pay for it later. And I have.

As a side note. All the time I was feeling sorry for myself, I saw Jase going on stage every night, sometimes in a wheel chair and playing with that big daft smile on his face, like he’s always done, except this time he has cancer. Danger really is playing with crippling arthritis. While Blaze had a heart attack and quadruple bypass. If they weren’t going to quit the tour, then neither was I.

My own self-pity left me feeling more numb than the drugs did. I felt a fraud.

 

So, do you really still think I’m “Lucky”? Then go through what I went through and then we’ll swap our experiences over a drink or two.

So, do you really still want to be in a band? Then go through what Wolfsbane are going through or you can tell them about how you were in a band at high school.

“They want to get there, but they don’t want to pay for the ride…” *

So, you want to have these adventures? Then what are you prepared to go through to experience them? Me? I volunteered.

 

* Wolfsbane, “Broken Doll” from the album “Down Fall The Good Guys” (1991) 

 

Thank you Denver.

And good night.

 

Noggin xx

 

 

 

On Tour For DUMMIES

A Fans Guide To Being On Tour

 

EPILOGUE

 

What have we learnt? If we have learnt anything at all. Also, please note the word we. I guess we can say that we have learnt two things, two things that personally I learnt many years ago.

Firstly, chase your dreams and secondly, live and let live.

Sounds simple right? Then I’d like to ask you two questions. Have you given up on your dreams and do you really live and let live?

If your dreams really are your dreams, then are you still chasing them? If not, then why not? They are your dreams right? If you don’t chase your dreams then someone else will, and ultimately, they will end up living your dream, well if it’s your dream why should someone else live that dream. No, really, why should someone else end up living your dream? And if you did stop chasing your dream? Were they really your dreams in the first place?

But if you’re still chasing your dreams, then may you soon be holding them like a new born infant.

Learn to look around you, once you have mastered the art of looking, then learn to see and not just look. Anyone can look while very few people see. See the difference in other people lives, in their passions, in their dreams.

Everything about the next person you look at is telling you something intimate about themselves if only you take the time to see. Witness their footwear, their clothes, their hair, the way they stand or walk or sit. Take time to properly look. To see.

Those people are just like me or you, they too are chasing a dream, they too are desperately holding on to something that is fading in front of them, that is always somehow, someway, always just out of reach. Or maybe they are about to give up the chase and let the flame die in the breeze. 

So next time you see someone wearing a tour T Shirt or even better an event T Shirt, try to understand that that T Shirt is being worn with as much pride and honour as a veteran wearing medal ribbons on a proud chest. I understand that might sound disrespectful to veterans but it really isn’t all.

In exactly the same way that if I was to visit you at home, after you have returned from your holiday to that far flung place, I might find, “little bits of glassware, ashtrays with inscriptions, plastic things on pencils, bits of mass production, postcards, pretty pictures, little bits of plastic, covering up the bedroom…”  to show me you been there. *

Which is just a complicated way of saying what is good for you isn’t necessarily good for me, or to put it another way, live and let live.

 

* Soft Cell, “Memorabilia” from the album “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” (1981) 

 

Noggin xx

 

 

 

On Tour For DUMMIES

A Fans Guide To Being On Tour

 

COME DOWN

 

Oh Yes! The end of tour come down.

It either takes forever to come down because you are still buzzing your tits off, or it hits you like a snowball being thrown against the side of a passing bus.

Whichever way it arrives, when it does, it hits you so hard, and nothing can prepare you for it, it doesn’t matter how many times you go through it, when it arrives, it arrives. It is literally like a death or being dumped. Fine, your girlfriend’s fitter younger sister was a better shag anyway. I’ll find another band to follow.

Weirdly, you are partially relieved that it is finally all over, because basically she is a psycho bitch from hell and you deserve to be treated better, and really there is always a fitter younger sister out there somewhere.

Yet conversely, you are completely destroyed, because for all of her issues, those issues are what made you fall in love her in the first place, and her absence plunges you into a world of emptiness, darkness, loneliness, and you crave her ways you don’t understand and you’d do anything to have her back in your life reliving those wonderful times, those perfect memories.

Oh yes, those wonderful times, those perfect memories, where even the worst of times leave you with the best memories, the best stories to tell, “That gig was supposed to suck,” while the best of times gently places the largest cherry, on the largest cake of life, and you would do anything and everything to relive those moments again and again and again. *

And that is why I do it.

I love cake.

 

* Hearts & Hand Grenades, Molly Karloff, SoulSwitch, Subside Bar, Birmingham, if you know you know.

 

Noggin xx

 

On Tour For DUMMIES

A Fans Guide To Being On Tour

 

BACKSTAGE

 

Remember The Wizard of Oz? Remember the scene at the end when Dorothy pulls back the curtain? Remember what she found? And you still think that being backstage is the place to be?

Let’s nail this myth once and for all, just like The Wizard of Oz, being backstage is all smoke and mirrors, you pull back the curtain and what do find, well actually, two things.

Firstly, band and crew trying to do what they do on the road which is get ready for the gig. Whether it be psyching themselves up to go on stage and get over their anxiety and stage fright, while the crew check and then double check anything and everything before checking it all again and again and again.

Secondly, the band and crew are basically trying to live a normal life while working in a completely alien environment. Just like I mentioned in “Days Off,” doing the simple things like catching up on e-mails, voice mails, face timing family, friends, zoom meetings, or sleeping.

Think about it, think about all the normal things that you and I take for granted that bands and crew surrender to live that dream.

Birth, child’s first words, child’s first steps, first day at school, graduation, school holidays, birthdays, Christmas, first broken heart, engagement parties, weddings, divorces, deaths, funerals, the list is basically endless and the band and crew miss it all.

Even silly things like going to the pub with your mates on the weekend, going to the football, cinema, watching the latest thing on TV, see how easy it is to take what we have and do for granted. If you think it’s easy to give these things up then get in a band or get in a road crew.

So, unless you are in a band and you can hold a conversation with a fellow musician about whatever it is musicians talk about, or you are road crew and you can hold a conversation about Flux Capacitors or whatever it is road crew talk about, why in God’s name would you want to be backstage.

Saying “Backstage” in conversation is basically a wanker’s way of saying you have meet the band or you are going to meet the band. So why not simply say that you have meet the band or you are going to meet the band. Don’t be a wanker about it.

Front of house is the place to be, that’s where all the action is. Get up the bar and get meeting and greeting. Get to the merch’ table and get meeting and greeting and while you’re there buy a T Shirt and CD too, then ask the band to sign it, thus meeting them. You can get the screen on your phone signed too. FFS!

As a footnote, the smaller the venue you see a band in the less chance that there is even a backstage area anyway, so the band will be stood at the bar or merch’ table meeting and greeting. Think about it. Backstage at Wembley is massive while backstage down the Dog and Duck doesn’t exist.

 

Noggin xx

 

On Tour For DUMMIES

A Fans Guide To Being On Tour

 

SET LIST

 

“Spoilers” Fuck off you cunt.

Don’t get me started on these wankers. Easily up there with Paedophiles and Nazi’s are those people who insist on telling you “I don’t want to know the set list” or something similar.

How do you know someone is a Vegan? Oh, they’ll tell you… Don’t worry about that.

How quickly we have forgotten that KERRANG! and Metal Hammer would review bands on tour and print the set list, or would review the songs played, or would print a photo of the set list. How did these people survive then? How did they even look at a copy of said magazines? You couldn’t avoid the live reviews if you tried.

You know something, I’m about to slap the face a lot of people who I’m friends with, GOOD! I know people who will follow a band all over the UK and Europe and the rest of the world, for example, they will see Iron Maiden 20, 30, 40, 50 times on a tour, and they will still insist on shouting “Spoilers” at every opportunity.

What is wrong with these people? Are they really so preoccupied with their own self-worth, to not grasp that it isn’t about them. They run around screaming “Spoilers” because they don’t want to know the set list because it will spoil the gig for them. I don’t have a problem with that logic perse, what I have a problem with is this. They will go on to see Iron Maiden many times on the same tour, night after night after night, well guess what, the set list NEVER changes, so when you see Iron Maiden on the second night, has your gig been ruined? What about gig number 3 or 4 or 5 have those gigs been ruined for you too?

No. They have not been ruined, you have managed to turn someone else’s tour into it all being about you. Well, fuck you and fuck your ego.

Do you never listen to an album again because you know which order the tracks are in?

Do you remove the labels from all the tins of food in your kitchen cupboards because you don’t want to know what is in the tin?

Do you book a holiday to a far-flung destination and then not go because you already known the destination?

Do you never read Agatha Christie because the butler did it the kitchen with the lead pipe? (Frankly, I’d be more interested in reading a book where the Butler did it in the kitchen with the Maid, whipped cream, and sex toys… but I guess that’s just me).

And oh, if by any chance you’ve just started to read the Bible, let me save you a lot of time. The Devil did it. *

Making it all about you is no more than self-promotion, and you know what self-promotion is don’t you, masturbation. But let’s be honest, that’s exactly what you are, a wanker.

As a side note. When did bands start selling their set lists? SELLING!? What the fuck is that about? You are selling a piece of paper with some song titles written on it with a sharpie.

If you are in a band and you are selling your set list… You are scum. You are beyond scum. You are Super Scum. You should walk on stage wearing a cape such is your level of Super Scum-ness (I just made up a word). And we should be allowed by law to walk on stage and beat you to death with your own instruments. You just need to die.

 

* Speaking of the Bible, my Doctor and the NHS in general are constantly telling me that “Five A Day” and eating more fresh fruit is good for me. Worked out well for Adam and Eve didn’t it.

Just saying like.

 

Noggin xx

 

 

On Tour For DUMMIES

A Fans Guide To Being On Tour

 

MERCHANDISE

 

Is there anything better or more important than a button badge? Go on, admit it, you weren’t expecting to read that were you.

I’m going suggest to you that wherever you are when you read this, that the first piece of merchandise you ever owned or wore was a button badge. The single white T Shirt, or the Coco Chanel little black dress, or the black leather biker jacket, just like those one offs of classic fashion design, the button badge is up there with the best.

But let’s be honest, if I mention merchandise, you like everyone else will instantly think of T Shirts and tour T Shirts. The money makers money maker and haven’t we all suckled on its billion pound nipple for years.

Personally, I have three double wardrobes bursting at the hinges full of T Shirts, going back over 40 years.

In recent times I’ve met someone who is younger than me, when she told me her birthday, I thought, that rings a bell, yeah, you guessed it, I was at a gig that night and I’ve got the tour shirt to prove it. Funny as fuck. My morale compass kicked in and we are just friends. Shame really because she is fit as fuck. Moving on.

I love the idea of a band T Shirt, it’s a marker, a uniform, a call to arms, a membership card, a friend walking towards you that thinks and feels the same way as you do, about the same band, it’s also a great conversation starter, the ultimate ice breaker, “Nice shirt mate”, “Cheers mate”, and you’re off and running.

Tour shirts and Event shirts are the ultimate, they are best of the best, if Carlsberg did band T Shirts (now that’s the power of advertising).

When it comes to buying tour T Shirts, it is a straight race to who can get their hands on a tour shirt first and wear it to the next gig first, or down the pub first. It is nothing but pure ego, don’t let me or anyone else try to tell you differently, it is pure bragging rights.

It really is about who can piss up the wall the highest.

Long live button badges and T Shirts and the emotions that they awaken with us all.

 

Noggin xx