15. voice activated
The big day at last.
The morning of the big night.
We thought we'd have a last late rehearsal. So we set up in Pat's basement as always. Some lookers-on again, the last thing I wanted at the time.
We ran through a few numbers. At the end, a heavily built guy called Mac, who used to strum guitars with Patrick, gave us the benefit of his wisdom in a stage whisper.
Yes, you do need backing vocals.
Charming. This meant Pat had been suggesting the same thing to him. Understandable maybe, but not what I needed to hear. Fucking cheek, frankly.
Backing vocals were never on. Patrick wanted to concentrate on playing guitar, Harry had his fingers burned in that french club - and our bass player kept shtum.
I didn't know till many years later that Bernie Cook had sung in choirs. At school (Gilbert & Sullivan, Benjamin Britten) but also in cathedrals: St Paul's, no less, and Sheffield. But did he offer to help his mate with the vocals, rather than leaving him out there on his own with that foghorn voice?
If he had, I wouldn't have let him. I was still protecting my place in the band, and any kind of second singer would've felt like undermining. I just wanted to see it through to the end of our only gig, then the rest of them could start a choral society for all I cared. Maybe Mac was applying for the job.
He seemed an arrogant bastard generally, but so do a lot of men at that age. One of Patrick's schoolmates, Tim Cotton, was surly in college days (he had a sexy girlfriend) but a sweetie in later life. And I know how I came across at times. We grew up later.
I'm looking at this Mac and thinking I'm aware what my voice is like, arsehole. But I'm singing and you're watching. Find Roger Proctor and start your own fucking band.
That was my attitude to the whole gig. We're the ones up here performing. However bad I am, you'll give me some effing credit, because you haven't got the nerve to do this.
Other things add to your confidence. The acting I did at school taught me that audiences are on your side. No-one wants a best man's speech to turn into a car crash. These were all Patrick's friends. They willed his band to be OK.
Plus I knew I was always better on the night than in practice. Comes from being a natural show-off. At school, I enjoyed rehearsals, especially directing them, but I came into my own in the actual play. And I've made speeches at weddings, birthdays, and funerals. Long time since I was intimidated by an audience.
Even my voice got the nod. Sort of. That last morning, after we'd finished Sympathy for the Devil, a girl there said I sounded like Bryan Ferry.
She may have thought it was a compliment, but I didn't. The man couldn't sing any better than me! She must've thought his version of Sympathy, with that posh voice and strained delivery, was a bit like mine - though I can't hear it myself. I never sounded that camp.
But he was distinctive, one of the sounds of the decade (can't imagine anyone else voicing Dream Home or The Strand). I wasn't flattered at the time, but I thought we'd be fine that night.
Look at me, everyone. It's actually going to happen. Me singing in front of a crowd. Me.
*
To do that, you need a microphone.
I was using the Shure Omni, which was probably one of Bernie's. It sure wasn't top of the range. The metal felt thin and the sound seemed tinny. So it needed help. We taped it to another one, a thin black directional mike underneath it. This one had an echo to it. The other guys probably thought anything was better than my voice in the raw. I told them it was so good they amplified it twice.
Since we were playing just this once, I wasn't worth buying a proper mike stand. So the same tape was used to stick these two microphones to the top of a wooden lamp stand! You had to hold everything together to stop it falling off. I could never call myself a punk, but my equipment was.
*
Brace yourselves then, Oxford. A seminal moment in the annals of music.
Saturday night, 27 November 1976. 88a (the basement) Banbury Road, OX2 6JT.
We gave the Sex Pistols a year's start, then filled a venue more than they did. And we lasted longer!
Looking at photos, it's astonishing that we played in that small room. When we went back there on the 40th anniversary of this first gig, we couldn't believe how tiny it was. I honestly thought it couldn't hold a dozen people as well as a band.
This being Patrick's 21st, naturally most of the guests were people he knew, including his brother Johnny. Harry invited a couple of guys from our french set at college, and Bernie brought along a few people to mingle with all the toffs: his housemate Roger Wickstead and a group of girls - who happened to include the silent nurse. Bit of a bizarre sideshow, because I had my girlfriend there. I doubt they compared notes.
Don't know how many people in total. Eighty-odd? The flat had a number of bedrooms and a communal area, so there was space for that number. How many fitted into the room where we played? All of them! Like the million people claiming they were at the '66 World Cup Final.
Naturally it was a good bash. Patrick cut a cake and said a few words. Halfway through, the jazz band started up.
Patrick had a trombone, not what you expect from a rock guitarist but no surprise with him. I saw him play it years later in a ska song.
They called themselves the Catte Street Rhythm Wreckers, similar self-deprecation to Atrocious Les Milkins. Catte Street leads into the square with the Radcliffe Camera, a famous landmark. Students sometimes added a dab of white paint to turn Catte into Cattle, and Turl Street into Turd. Being at Oxford doesn't necessarily imbue you with wit.
The band dressed for the occasion. Black trousers and tail coats. They had a drummer and someone on keyboards, the trumpet player was tall and thin, with a long pale face, and the big one with a beard played a tuba. You get some crap instruments in jazz.
But they went down fine because Pat was playing and, well, some people like jazz. If they'd been the only band, it would still have been a very good night. I wasn't wishing it away waiting for our turn.
Under the long jacket, Patrick wore a black-and-white striped top. Harry had speckled braces over a t-shirt with something in spanish across it.
Bill stood out most, in a white t-shirt with Les Milkins Band in black capitals, plus a white panama hat and big black bow tie. You couldn't top that.
Bernie probably wore one of his jackets, but I say 'probably' because there's not a single proper photo of him, which is utterly criminal. You can't blame anyone. There were a lot fewer pictures in those days before mobile phones, and whoever took them that night naturally concentrated on Pat and his guests. But it's still wrong that the only snap of Bernie is half a profile on a contact sheet. A genuine shame.
Me? A striped top too, but a cream background with blue stripes in different thicknesses, a kind of american preppy look. I was still wearing it when I started work the following year. It was a sweatshirt, which surprises me looking back. I sweat easily, it wasn't all cotton, and this was underground. But I don't remember being uncomfortable that night.
I had the leather thong round my neck - and I decided to go theatrical, though not in the way I dressed. Some oddball makeup instead.
When I worked in my dad's mental hospital, they used to put iodine on cuts, which turned the skin yellow. I discovered that if you wetted some of this, it turned a brownish orange and looked like a bruise. I thought I'd dab that on my face.
Why? Fuck knows. A nod to punk? Whatever, there it is in a photo, as if someone's punched me so hard they bloodied my cheek. Maybe they knew what I'd sound like.
*
But at least I'd know the words.
Not just because I'd had six weeks and it it was only nine songs. It was the way I was. Same as acting in plays at school. I might occasionally trip over a line in rehearsal, but never on the night. Most people would freeze in front of audience. But it concentrated my mind. It cleared of everything except what I had to say next, so you could get on with your performance. A useful knack to have.
And singing in a rock band has more of a safety net. Fluff your lines in a play and somebody might notice. But in a band, the audience can't hear you all that well, hopefully they're dancing rather than listening, and it doesn't matter anyway.
*
We played where the jazz band played. Bill's drums in the window bay, right next to a speaker on his left, the window open behind him because a small room was going to get hot for an active drummer. Another speaker in an alcove on the right-hand wall as you looked at us, with amplifiers on top of it.
While we were setting up, I gave the vocal cords one last run-through by telling Pat and Harry yet again: attack those guitars.
We will, we will - though I don't think they did really. Bloody jazz musicians!
After that, a quick look around. The guitarists to my left. Someone announces what key we're starting in, but that doesn't involve me. Then no going back.
Nervous? Fuck that. We couldn't wait. I met a gin soaked bar room queen in Memphuuuurz...
*
The order of songs was the one in Chapter 13. So we started with the cowbell on Honky Tonk Women. I don't think the Stones used it on stage, certainly not when I've ever seen them, live or on screen. They opened with a guitar instead, pinching two strings together, which Harry showed me how to do. Dur dur...dur dur..., like a phone ringing.
Decades later (a phrase that shows you're getting old), Patrick told me this was the track he's enjoyed playing and listening to most, all his life. That surprised me. I thought he was more of a Clapton and Ry Cooder man. But it's good to know the Stones songs we covered weren't just my choice.
Many years later, I'm on my first trip abroad with the woman who became my wife. We're in a small bar in Cadaqués, top of the Costa Brava, drinking spanish brandy, and she's moving to the band. Three americans in shorts, pumping out cover versions. Their take on Honky Tonk Women persuaded me to dance, though all I really did was hold hands while she swayed down to the floor and back, in a bodice, with that smile. Back in 1977, this was the first track I ever sang live, but it didn't get anyone to dance like that.
The cowbell meant Bill was the first of us to be heard by an audience. He didn't even start with Charlie Watts. The cowbell's played by the Stones' producer Jimmy Miller. Then the kick drum comes in, and we're away. Those creeping guitars. She tried to take me upstairs for a riiiiiiiiiiiiide.
*
Wish I could remember a lot more about the gig, instead of very little at all.
There's plenty of black-and-white photos - but nowadays you'd have a dozen videos on people's phones. I'd have to listen to myself, but it would be worth it for the memory's sake. Instead there's just the odd moment in my head.
At one point, I called out to one or two people at the back of the room, the only ones not dancing. I said I knew it wasn't very good, but come on they should get up anyway. Someone told me off for that. It was going well and you shouldn't put yourself down. But I was just being greedy. I wanted everyone to dance.
And they did. To everything. I remember a wall of bodies moving right in front of my face. I enjoyed Hand of Fate as much as I thought I would, wild-eyed on lines like I killed a man, I'm highway bound. People joined in the woo-woos during Sympathy for the Devil - and of course they wanted the encore we'd planned. Johnny B Goode - a song I knew backwards by then!
Bernie doesn't remember many details either. Except me with a half-bottle of brandy, which was unusual. I've never liked the stuff and didn't get even slightly drunk that night. Maybe I carried it for show, like the Stones with their bottles of jack daniel's.
Apart from that, Bernie says, just 'some idiot with a beard going hoot hoot'. That was the tuba player in Pat's jazz band. Months later, he tried to do backing vocals on Sympathy again. Obviously playing a tuba makes you yearn for proper music.
These snapshots aside, not much in the memory. Just an overriding impression.
Fantastic, yes. Went wonderfully well. But mainly that it was all so smooth, so comfortable. And I wasn't particularly surprised.
The vocals that made people wince at school and in the stadium - they were replaced by something that came out of me because I was on stage and not rehearsing in front of critics. I'm not claiming I sang better, in tune, just more confidently, which makes a huge difference. I couldn't manage that without a band and the right audience. I've never done karaoke and never will.
Through gritted teeth but savouring the moment, Bernie announced to a group of us that 'Freddi found a voice for the evening'. And Mac didn't mention backing vocals again.
Interesting that there was no real euphoria, or at least it wasn't overwhelming. Certainly no sense of relief. It was great to do and great to look back on now, but it also seemed quite normal. Yeh we can do this, what's the fuss?
The party still had a way to go, plenty of time to bask in the glow. People were coming up to us, and Patrick was pleased. We didn't ruin his birthday bash after all!
In fact one of our french class said we should do it all again. A fairhaired guy who Harry thought became a spy after college!
I told him we didn't know any other songs.
Who cares? Play the same set, Cris.
He was right in a way. People would've been perfectly happy to hear everything twice, especially after a few more drinks. But this was Patrick's party, not the band's. Anyway, leave 'em wanting more.
We knew the feeling...