Red Wine Express

The child bride and I took off for the Gold Coast on Thursday. The last time we went, to see Status Quo (reported on here), we hadn’t planned the most efficient route and therefore encountered about 47 red lights. This time we did it right which is just as well because the CB drove. I’ve been feeling like death warmed up since Wednesday or as an old boss of mine used to say “half fucked and let go”.

But I wasn’t going to let that prevent us from seeing the Hollies so, as I said, the CB drove. Now I’m not going to comment on her driving because we are safely back at home now. Suffice to say, I don’t tail-gate, I don’t lane-hop and I manage to keep my road rage more or less under control. And that’s all I’m going to say about that, as a great philosopher once said.

We’ve been lucky enough to see most of our musical heroes from our yoof so while it was great to see the Hollies last night, I’m sure there’ll be other opportunities because they tour relentlessly. They are probably the longest surviving band in history having performed and toured every year since the formative year of 1962 and the eventual settlement of most of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame line-up in 1963. Bobby Elliot and Tony Hicks have been with the band since 1963 – no hiatuses (hiati?), no taking a year off to pursue individual projects. Now that’s stamina. Actually, we may not get to see them here again because as you can calculate, those two are getting on a bit.

After performing Bus Stop, Carrie Anne, He Ain’t Heavy etc etc etc for all of those years you’d expect them to be pretty tight. Of the other four band members, two have been there almost 30 years and the other two 15 years. So they are able to reproduce that typical sound. Peter Howarth, the lead singer said some heckler in the audience at a previous concert yelled out “I didn’t expect you to be this good”. That sound was honed back in the 60’s with some rather accomplished session musicians – how about Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Elton John.

And when they came on stage at the start, they were all dressed in white shirt, black tie, black trousers and shiny black shoes. The drummer had his top button undone and his tie was all over the place but that’s drummers for you. I haven’t seen performance uniforms like that since I went to see the Halle Orchestra in Manchester in 1973.

The crowd was the Status Quo crowd and the Eagles crowd – SKI’s (spending the kid’s inheritance), COB’s (cashed up bogans), GLAM’s (greying, leisured, affluent, married) and GOFER’s (genial old farts enjoying retirement). We were six rows from the front so I’m speculating on those who were behind up but I’m pretty confident in my CUOA (compulsive use of acronyms).

So as I said, I’ve not been well, in fact I’m not well now so this post is not quite as hilariously funny and irreverent as previous ones. The concert was a welcome distraction but I hit the wall a few hours later and woke up at 4.30am thinking I was sleeping on the inside of a water bed. Hopefully a course of antibiotics will do the trick. Personally, I think it was the mouthful of bacteria I experienced during a tooth extraction two weeks ago. Maybe the course of antibiotics that followed didn’t complete the job. Let’s hope (well you don’t have to but I certainly do) this course does the trick.

It’s all I can do to tap on these keys at the moment but it just goes to show – if the desire and incentive are there, adrenaline will get you though.