45. drumming up gigs
Didn't matter that we'd played another so-so gig at the Cape. It was only two days before our next one - and this time we really did reach the top.
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Has to be said: I always had the feeling Bill Drysdale never really warmed to me. Found me a bit much, I think. That's alright. Bands and football teams don't have to be bosom pals to function, and you can't expect to be liked by everyone.
The age gap may have had something to do with it (Bill didn't socialise with Pat or Harry either) - but even so, after the Song Contest we went places together.
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As I say, I think he may have been there when I negotiated the last Cape gig with Nightshift. And he was certainly with me when I went to meet a girl in a college.
She was the chief organiser of an outdoor rock festival, planned for the end of Broad Street. She was there with another organiser, a smiley guy who kept that face when I said we wanted to go at the end of the show or not at all.
Sounds like I hadn't learned from the show with Nightshift, but this time I had good reason.
There was never any point putting us on early in proceedings. The crowd wouldn't have built up and it wouldn't have drunk enough, so people would've stood and listened to us, never a good idea. Give us the final slot, when people are ready to dance, and we had a chance. It's what happened not long afterwards.
I explained this to the organiser - but from the look on her face, she probably thought I was an arrogant prick. Not that it mattered in the end, because they couldn't get a license for the event. Maybe there'd been too many decibels at an earlier outdoor show...
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It's possible Bill came along with me because he wasn't in his final year, so no pressure of exams. Pat and Harry revised harder than I did, and Bernie was working. Whatever Bill thought of me deep down, he was always cheerful company. And he got us our biggest gig to date.
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We're in his room at Pembroke College. It's on the other side of St Aldate's from Christchurch, a bit overshadowed by Tom Tower. We're talking about forthcoming events - and Bill is drumming.
I mentioned Buddy Holly's drummer slapping his thighs. Bill Drysdale was tapping things with a pair of biros. His desk, his lampshade (as a cymbal), his self. All this while we're chatting. I'm not sure he knew it was going on; it seems to be what drummers do.
When I've done that occasionally, I find I can keep a rhythm, even quite a complicated one - but not for long. I end up thinking about it, and it all goes haywire. Drummers tell me they do it through some kind of muscle memory.
Now I think about it, maybe it's not too different from remembering lyrics. You get to know a song backwards, so when you start singing you don't think about it at all. The words, like your part in a play, just sort of come out because they're there, and you sync them with the music automatically. Decades later, I can still do it with those old songs. Human beings are good at remembering things. We know a lot of words.
In his room, Bill had the dreaded Tubular Balls on in the background, the only place for it - and he was one of the few people to buy a Dennis Waterman album. The title, Down Wind of Angels, reminds you of Spinal Tap's Break like the Wind. It was serviceable power rock, but Waterman was better as an actor. Even singing those theme songs for TV series: nah.
Bill was in the process of arranging for us to play at his own college. And this was a very big deal for a band like ours.
When we were hired by St Peter's back in March, I described it as something of a pinnacle. Being paid to play at an Oxford College was something we'd never imagined. But Pembroke's bash was different, much higher up the social scale. A commem ball, more or less.
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Commemoration balls are exclusively an Oxford thing.
I don't know what they commemorate, and I ain't about to look it up. They take place at the end of the summer term and there's always a few every year, colleges taking turns.
I presume tickets still cost a fortune. For your money, you got a sit-down dinner and enough fizzy wine to bring up your prosciutto and prawns in the college fountain at four in the morning. Male students had to wear a bow tie, the girls donned any dress they liked - the usual sartorial discrimination! - but the ties didn't stay on all night: there was a disco and various bands to fall about to. Sideshows included jugglers, puppet shows, folk bands, steel bands, even full-length plays - but nobody cared about those. All you wanted was smoked salmon, champagne, heavy petting, and dancing badly. Sounds a good evening to me.
Strictly speaking, Pembroke 1977 wasn't a full-blown commem. They advertised it as their summer ball. Tickets were only £12.95 for two, an odd figure but great value. On top of the jazz band and steel band, a play, films, morris dancing (dear god), and buskers, you didn't go short of the things that mattered. Three-course dinner, free bottle of sparkling, and three rock bands.
One of those had a Pembroke student on drums. And a support act for the ages.