See Dereham And Die

I can't remember if I've written about this before and frankly, I can't be arsed to check back and find out, so if you've heard this already just ignore it.

Since I found that box of old tapes the memories have been piling up like a … well … like a huge pile of crap, I suppose.

I tried to remember the first gig I ever played but my brain is so riddled with decay that it eludes me (unless it's the one I wrote about in yesterday's comments).
I won't write about the really great gigs because they're boring to read about ("It was fucking amaaaazing, man! Twenty-five thousand people going apeshit!" … etc. blah, blah, blah) and similarly, the bad gigs are simply too depressing to recount.

But the weird gigs … Ah! There's a subject!
When I say weird, I don't mean the usual sort of weird, like turning up with my heavy metal band to find we'd been booked into a country and western club (yes, it was just like Bob's Country Bunker in The Blues Brothers movie and we played a great country set in our ripped jeans and long hair and huge Marshall stacks).

That's just another day as a jobbing musician; if we're talking genuinely weird, then we're talking The Dereham Death Gigs.

Sheesh!
Picture a big old theatre. Using the Blues Brothers again it was very like the Palace Hotel Ballroom only taller.
Big balconies and boxes and the main floor cleared for dancing.

Nice room.

Nice people, too.
We were playing a big charity "do" for research into a particularly nasty illness (I feel awful about this but I can't remember what it was).
The soundcheck went fine and coach-loads of people started coming in from all over the country.
We kicked back in the dressing room and sorted out set lists.
Then came a knock on the door and a couple came in with a really pretty teenage girl on crutches.
No … This isn't one of THOSE tales (and wouldn't you just love to hear THOSE?)!
They introduced her and then slapped the news on us that she had a week or less to live and that this gig would be her last treat.

Fucking what?
I mean what the hell are you supposed to say to that?
Talk about a burden of responsibility.
This poor girl was going straight back to the hospital after the gig and then she would die.
So we decided we would try our hardest to give her the best night of her short life (well, musically, anyway).

She was so pitifully glad to see us and we hugged and chatted and tried to make as happy small talk as we could, then when they led her out to the auditorium we just sat back stunned into silence for a minute or two before suddenly leaping up and shouting "Holy shit! Get the set lists and take out EVERY song with a reference to death in it!"

This was a covers band, hired to play hits from the fifties to the eighties (when the gig took place) and you would not BELIEVE how many songs have death hidden in them!

Anyhoo; twenty minutes of frantic weeding later and the dressing room was littered with discarded lyric sheets and we had a "safe" set list.

Time to hit the stage.
House lights down …
Curtain up …
Slam into the first number as the stage lights blind you …
That's always one of my favourite moments.
And the place was rocking.
The gig was going really well …
… right up until we started in on the list of requests the young girl's parents had given us.
Which started with "Oh, Carol" …

Classic old songs can be busked.
Everybody knows them and you don't need sheet music or lyrics.
It was only when we were halfway through the first verse that our eyes (wide with horror) met and sheer panic set in.
And so it happened …
You all know the line I mean.
The one where the band stops for four beats to add emphasis to THAT word.
The line "I will surely DIE!" (two … three … four …).
One unaccompanied word … "DIE" and three beats of silence before the band kicks in again.
My God, those were the longest beats I've ever counted.

And there was the little girl in her wheelchair, happily singing along as if she didn't have a care in the world.
Boy, did we feel like shit.

So …
The gig actually went great. Everybody loved us and the little girl was so happy and we had lots of hugs and kisses and tears afterwards and then waved them off in their coach and started the laborious task of packing everything up; made even more laborious by being totally emotionally fucked.

Two days later, the father called and booked us for an anniversary gig the following year.
The girl had died the next day.
He was insistent that she had the most wonderful time at the gig and that everyone wanted there to be a remembrance gig on the anniversary.

Hey ho.
Of course we agreed. How could we not?

So …
One year later, we turn up at the theatre, set up the gear and soundcheck and the coaches start rolling in.
Then a phone call comes in that the coach from Ipswich won't be there because one of them died on the way to the gig.

Holy crap!
After a conflab, they insisted that the gig go ahead to celebrate the little girl's life and the life of the poor guy who'd died trying to get there.

And once again it was a great night.
They asked us back the next year but bollocks to that. We could only take so much!

Whenever I have to drive past Dereham I shudder.
Brr …