HERE I GO AGAIN On The Road Again (And Again)
Whitesnake hero Bernie reflects on the trial-and-error lessons of his early years of gigging
When I was in my teens and spent my days dreaming of playing the guitar for a living and being a pro musician, the thought of being out on the road was one of the most exciting prospects.
As an amateur player, and a little bit later as a semi-pro, I was doing gigs that were around 20 miles away from the house where I grew up in the rural town of Buckingham. Being 15 and getting picked up from my secondary school gate by the local beat group for a Friday night show in Oxford or Leighton Buzzard seemed to be the ultimate high. I enjoyed the fuss, being in a band was a big deal to me, but travelling to other towns (towns, not cities I stress) at that stage was exciting enough. As the youngest, I was pretty much given the ‘centre’ seat in a Ford Thames or Commer van. This seat was the engine cover, and a small cushion would be placed on it for me to sit on. I didn’t mind it so much in the winter time. If the ‘ageing’ band (whose members were all about 20-25 years old) became a little more successful, the Commer van might be upgraded to a Commer Minibus with windows. This was sometimes frowned upon as the windows necessitated taking the gear out of the bus after each gig, in case some fiendish thief took everything.
After my early years in a band called Skinny Cat we progressed from a Commer to a double-wheeled Ford Transit with four aeroplane seats fitted inside – we were in the big time! At this stage I was travelling as far as 100 miles for a gig, maybe to Thetford in Norfolk and an American air base or to Bletchley, Northampton, the Bedford Corn Exchange and a return to the Assembly Rooms in Aylesbury, the same place I saw The Cream play in 1967 when I was only 15. The doublewheeled Ford Transit was a bit of a status symbol, most bands moved up the ladder to a four-wheeled Tranny, and I remember
seeing Uriah Heep’s luxury six-wheeler at the Blue Boar café. They were in the premier league for sure – a record deal and touring in a big Transit!
Shadow Of The Blue
The Blue Boar was a regular haunt in my early professional days, a café at the Watford Gap services near Rugby in Warwickshire. All the bands stopped there, not for the food I can assure you, but there was a feeling that you were in a special kind of fraternity. There wasn’t any rivalry, but I know that there used to be a special table for bands of a certain level of greatness. I remember the room revering a Procul Harum night, and my long-time friend Del Bromham remembers Eric Clapton being in there with Derek and the Dominos in 1970 – now that was proper royalty.
I turned pro with UFO in 1972, and after a few weeks and then months of the UK roads with UFO and then Wild Turkey in 1973, the constant travel brought me back to earth very quickly. I learned almost overnight that to play a gig in Portsmouth on a Sunday night could easily be followed by a gig in Manchester on the Monday, which meant leaving London on the Sunday morning and heading down the relatively new M4 into the South West of England. I distinctly remember the groans when a gig at the Blue Lagoon in Torquay was listed. The M4 stopped a long way before Devon, and the journey was notoriously slow after that. Then, on the day after, we had to climb into the Chevrolet six-seater for the long haul to the North West.
It hit me: this is bloody hard work. The playing was easily the best part of the day, but to do that you had to do the miles. I got used to many truck stops, extremely dodgy B&Bs where, as the saying goes, ‘you get what you pay for,’ and some of those anecdotes you don’t want to read about! But, I did love every minute of it, and it set me up for the splendours of being in Europe.
My first trip abroad was to Germany with UFO. They had a Mercedes hire car but I was much more impressed with the German autobahns – they were a revelation to me, as were the service stations. As far as I could see there were four lanes of clear road into almost every city and, if you had to stop at a service station, you never had to leave the vehicle. A man cleaned the windscreen as another checked the oil and filled up the tank. You then paid in good old Deutschmarks; it all seemed so cheap compared to the UK.
Rock The Boat
In my first couple of pro years, I experienced the great French and British ferries either from Dover, Folkestone or Harwich. I despised every minute on them and dreaded it each time. I even crossed to France many times on the legendary Hovercraft – I didn’t like that either. I don’t think the early advice of “have a good drink” helped much on those stormy crossings. I avoid ferries to this day, and had to give serious thought when Joe Bonamassa invited me on his Caribbean Blues Cruise a couple of years back, but I survived. It wasn’t much like the ferries I was used to in the 70s. I think my hatred of ferries is why I still have such a great affection for aeroplanes. No long drive to a seaport overnight, no high seas, no spray in your face in the freezing wind, and the speed that one arrived in the next country always delighted me.
As the time passed on and more success beckoned, I left the ferries behind. Having said that though, I do vividly remember an early Whitesnake ferry to a gig in Belgium that was rained out. I remember a very quiet David Coverdale sitting by my side and making comments about “never doing this again”. It must have been a big change for him at the time from the Deep Purple private plane days, but he was a trooper, and the rest of us at that point were pretty used to it.
As Whitesnake prospered we moved onto the big buses and I thought they were the bee’s knees compared to the Commer vans. I’ve got to ask myself though, where would I be now if it weren’t for those Commers?
The last 30 years have seen a great change in the road systems in the UK, and these days the UK motorway system is far superior to the ageing German system. The hardest part of being on the road now, for me, is the travelling. I don’t mind driving myself to and from gigs if the football is on the radio or I’ve got a few BB King CDs in the player, but the great days of the Blue Boar are long gone! I think I was looking for the word ‘camaraderie’ earlier when talking about the Blue Boar. I met people there I still see around today. Yes we are all a lot older, but we share something that only we can talk about. Where else in 1973 could you share a table with Slade and The Beverley Sisters and footballer Billy Wright? Mary Hopkin sang the right song, “Those were the days, my friend.” See you next month.
“It hit me: this is bloody hard work. The playing was easily the best part of the day, but to do that you had to do the miles…” bernIe mArsden