Chucked out of my own gig
QUESTION Has a musician ever been denied access to their own concert?
AS LEAD singer in the band Jet, I was refused entry mid-set!
In the 1970s, we were on tour supporting Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson. We played the Apollo in Glasgow, which then had the highest stage in the country, with a small hydraulic platform immediately in front that was used to take up equipment from the deep orchestra pit.
During our soundcheck, the platform was 3 ft below the main stage and I thought it was a permanent fixture. I decided it would be a great rostrum to which I could leap down as I was known for stage diving and other stunts.
At 8pm the lights dimmed and I somersaulted over the drum kit as the band blasted into the first number. Ripping off my shirt, I threw it to the audience below.
Halfway through the song, I thought it would look good if I leapt into the darkened void onto the platform just below and sing from there. As I jumped and kept on falling, I realised the platform had been lowered 15 ft into the orchestra pit.
I hit the ground hard. Stunned and bruised, with the microphone still in my hand, though the lead had snapped, I crawled to a small door and raced down a long corridor assuming there was a quick way back to the stage. I found myself in an alley at the back of the venue.
‘Oi, yooo Jimmy, gee us a song,’ said a bemused drunk, staring at the topless man holding a mic.
I raced to the front of the building. I could hear the rest of the band banging away at the song. I had to get back in, but I must have looked like a crazed madman, covered in dirt.
Running up the steps and pushing past some stragglers, I entered the foyer. I tried to explain my predicament to a large, heavily tattooed security guard: ‘Please let me past . . . I’m the singer!’
He obviously thought I was a nutter and proceeded to march me back outside before throwing me down the steps.
Undeterred, I got up, charged like a bull back into the foyer, leaping through the legs of a line of security guards, then crashing through the doors into the auditorium followed by a mob of angry bouncers. I ran down the centre aisle, climbed the scaffolding supporting the speakers and, to the roar of the crowd, swung out onto the stage.
The band were not impressed. They had been desperately trying to make two chords sound as exciting as possible for quite a long time. I grabbed a working mic and proceeded to sing.
There are more crazy adventures in my forthcoming book Stunt Rocker.
Andy Ellison, Wraysbury, Berks.
GEORGE MICHAEL had a hilarious encounter with a security guard. There is footage from 2007 of the singer arriving at Wembley Stadium before his concert, but being turned away.
The over-zealous security guard can be seen shouting through the window of the car: ‘Sorry, I’d know him a mile away and that is not George Michael! Before you go, I want to see some ID.’
The star sits in the back of the car in fits of laughter saying: ‘That’s fantastic!’ They drive off to find another entrance.
During his 2001 Love And Theft tour, Bob Dylan, who has a habit of shambling about incognito, was refused entry into the Jackson County Exposition Centre in Oregon. There was heightened security following the 9/11 attacks, but his managers hadn’t felt it necessary to issue the main man with a backstage pass.
Rich Lee, Sheffield.
BEETHOvEn’S Overture Leonore no.3 contains a dramatic part for an off-stage trumpet. The trumpeter usually stands in the wings out of sight of the audience, waiting for his cue.
On one occasion, when the trumpet did not sound, the conductor sent someone to see what had happened. A member of the theatre staff was discovered struggling with the trumpeter and saying: ‘I keep telling ’im ’e can’t play that thing ’ere. There’s a concert going on!’
Clive Ashwin, Aylsham, Norfolk.
QUESTION Who invented the baseball cap?
NO ONE is credited with the design of this cap with a circular top and forward projecting stiff rim. It appears to have evolved from other sporting headwear.
On April 24, 1849, the new York Knickerbockers became the first team to wear a uniform, complete with a straw hat. Over the next few years, they began wearing a floppy merino wool cap produced by sporting goods company Peck & Snyder. This had a flat, panelled crown and short visor to help shield the players’ eyes from the sun.
A pivotal moment came in 1860 when amateur baseball club the Brooklyn Excelsiors wore a cap with a longer brim and a deeper, button-topped crown.
Other styles were introduced over the next 40 years, including the pillbox — a cap with a horizontally striped round crown and flat button top — but it was the Brooklyn Excelsiors cap that became the norm for baseball players by 1900.
Pat Williams, Coventry, Warks.
QUESTION Were there only 60 millionaires in Britain in the 1950s?
AN INLAND Revenue official claimed that in 1953 there were just 36 millionaires compared with more than 1,000 in 1939.
In the wake of the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II, Western economies acted to limit the powers and wealth of corporations and develop state support for workers. In Britain, this was called the Great Levelling.
According to the wealth historian William D. Rubinstein, by the early 1960s, ‘large fortunes were extremely rare’.
He described the post-war period as ‘age of affluence for everyone except the very affluent’.
In his study, The Distribution Of Wealth In Britain In The 1960s, Anthony B. Atkinson used estate duty to calculate the number of millionaires. He concluded there were between 610 and 750 by 1968.
Today, there are 177 billionaires and countless millionaires.
Keith Preece, Ellesmere, Shropshire.
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