28 Jan 22 – Concerts

Hi Everyone,

Please look away if you don’t like to see middle-aged (some would say old) people enjoying themselves.

That’s Pete and Kev at the Michael Schenker concert last year. The reason they look like criminals is because they are – they still owe me for those shirts.

I have a serious first-world problem to discuss. That concert is the only concert I’ve been to in two years (youngsters: insert sad face emoji here). It was a great concert and, as you can see, we were on the front row on Michael’s side of the stage. Brill. Schenker saw our t shirts, and now I’m producing all his tour merch.

I dreamt that, didn’t I?

It was a very civilized gig – notice the grey-haired gentlemen in the background of the photo. 50-year-olds rocking out is a much more sedate experience than gigs of old, when our hair was longer and the banging of heads looked miles cooler and didn’t involve spinal fusion and a bone graft.

Apologies to non-Schenker fans and also to Schenker fans for that needy and pitiful attempt at humour – if you didn’t know already, Doctor Doctor is one of Schenker’s/UFO’s best songs.

Moving on. We punched the air when Michael told us to, we sang the lyrics we could remember, and did the odd air guitar when we thought no one was looking.

Unlike days of yore, there were no plastic pint glasses flying over, filled with a yellow liquid that used to be beer before it went through a filtration system and out through a urethra.

Why did we buy t-shirts before the gigs and then put them on? Luckily for you, all Skwiggles t-shirts are specially designed to absorb urine and will not smell one bit if you get your mam to put them in the washer when you get home.

Still one of the greatest achievements of my life was having 5 pints before the Queen concert at Wembley in 1986, which started at 4 (Lineup: INXS, Alarm, Status Quo and Queen) and not weeing.

Come to think of it, that sign should’ve been ‘Don’t Go Me.’

I always think there’s a tension when you’re standing waiting for a concert to start.  You got there early, you’ve got your place, there’s no 7 foot giant in front, and you can see the whole stage without the use of the Hubble telescope. And then you see them, squeezing through, the Harlem Globetrotters and their girlfriends, slam-dunking towards you.

No apologies from the hoopsters, just shoving until they get directly in front of you and put their girlfriends on their shoulders at the exact moment the lights go down (youngsters: insert angry face emoji here).

At a Kiss concert at the SECC in Glasgow, there was a guy with his 10-year-old son. They were just in front of us and they had a good view. The lights went down and two blokes appeared from nowhere and one jumped onto his mate’s shoulders. Dad, Little Jimmy (sorry for the terrible stereotypical name) and us now had this view

Little Jimmy looked absolutely gutted. The father tapped the guy in front and words were exchanged. Detriot Rock City was hammering through the speakers so I couldn’t hear a thing but it must’ve been something like this

‘Little Jimmy, can’t see, can you get down please’
‘You can $%^%% go and @^%$ that up your *&%$, matey boy.’
‘It’s Little Jimmy’s first concert and …’
Rather unpleasant hand gesture (He didn’t say that, because that would be strange, he made it.)

The father turned to Little Jimmy, shrugged his shoulders then he carefully moved Little Jimmy back a few steps, pulled a ‘Oh dear’ type of face

And then he dragged the guy off the shoulders and administered, what I considered to be, using the governmental buzz word of the day, a ‘proportionate’ response. Maybe a little more than proportionate, that kick after the guy was crawling off was maybe a little too much. The carrier bloke also decided it was proportionate that Little Jimmy, Dad, Me, Pete and Kev had a great view for the rest of the night. 

Sorry for the violence there, it was two punches and kick, but he was my hero that night, which is why I lifted him onto my shoulders…

…okay, that bit never happened.  

That father did what my less cowardly inner voice wanted to do. But it’s all very well being a super tough inner voice when you know fine well you’re trapped in a cowardly outer body and nothing’s going to happen.

Anyway, thanks Little Jimmy’s Dad, you aggressive psychopath. And good luck with growing up Little Jimmy.

I have a few other concert incidents like Chris’s tattoo and Kiss’s Eric Carr throwing a drumstick at me, but I think I’ve outstayed my welcome. so maybe some other time.

That’s it once again.

Apart from to tell you about one final embarrassing concert incident when a load of girls threw their knickers at me. I know what you’re thinking – of course, look at him, wow, it’s totally reasonable that girls would throw knickers at him (youngsters: insert ‘does your mirror work??’ emoji here). But the embarrassing thing I have to say is – I was at an X-Factor concert, yes, please don’t unsubscribe, and I was watching One Direction at the time.

I have daughters, that’s my defense (and Harry is dreamy).

We were close to the front and, like the yellow beer, the knickers were flying over and I got hit on the back of the head. One question: do women keep knickers for throwing in their bags? For defense? Spares, in case of accidents? Or, worse still, were these current ones? 

N.B. These are rhetorical questions, I don’t need to know the truth.

And, you know I was complaining about people being on shoulders and spoiling the view, well at that concert, halfway through, I looked back over my shoulder to find a load of empty seats going back 10 rows. I’m 6 foot 2 with a big square head and everyone else in the room was 8 years old. Sorry. Thankfully Little Jimmy’s dad wasn’t behind me.

Have a great weekend. 

Take care and all the best,Ian

28 Jan 22 – Concerts

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