Backstage Pass
The Stone Roses
27th May 1990

Okey Mcdokey.....what do I remember about this one....Well a friend of mine was stepping out in that romantic old fashioned way with one of the chaps in the combo hence she had some backstage passes. I was heading back to my car parked at the back of Charles Barry Crescent after crashing out for the night at a friend’s round the back of the euphemistically named Clynes’s Wine Bar in Hulme, (or should it have been Wino Bar;nevertheless, whiled away many a good night in there with the best Oirish Jukebox this side of Ballysmutten). Well as I approached my horseless carriage I espied what appeared to be a very young small person sitting in the driver’s seat, with the door wide open, while his Seargent at Arms was sat on the kerb waiting patiently for things to develop. Well I was seriously the worse for wear and could only barely muster a “hey you, what ya flippin’ doin’” , to which said youth just gave me a disdainful glance, hopped out of the car and jogged off in a lackadaisical fashion. When I got to the my jalopy the 8, maybe 10 year old, still sat on the kerb, just shook his head and said “he’s always doing that, I keep telling him....” and so on, to which I offered my sincerest commiserations for his friend not heeding his sage advice, and off he strolled into the morning sun. How that young rascal was ever going to drive the vehicle was beyond my comprehension as his head barely came above the steering wheel; still I suppose practice makes perfect. Living in such a non- salubrious enclave I’d also had the foresight to put a cut-out switch on me motor as I’d had other such run-ins with the unauthorised loans of my vehicles before. Well I sat in the car and tried to make sense of the dismantled steering wheel column casing with its myriad of multicoloured wiring spilling out like the entrails of some disembowelled sci-fi alien composite ( to stretch a simile to within an inch of its metaphorical life...), and thankfully no irreparable damage had been done. As Chaucer’s motley band had wended their way to Canterbury Cathedral in days of yore, we too would make our way across the Cheshire Plains to the fair green fields of Spike Island; me being the nominated driver and all.
Just a quick aside (as per usual), I must have had the worst collection of cars in the whole of Christendom. Started off with an old Austen 1100, fair enough; same as me dad had when he took the family of ten, (Irish= catholic= make your own football team etc,.), to Scarborough one year; surprised we made it there never mind back! That was followed by a gloriously gauche jolly green Lada with canary yellow doors which the more peeps slagged off the more inversely proud I became of, to the point of contemplating having a Noddy hat made for the sole purposes of driving Big Bertha, but that may have embarrassed the car and made me look stupid....Well the engine seized up on that one, driving back from Stockport at the lightning speed of 60 mile an hour with little or no oil, and so she stood at the back of the flats for quite some time with my next ostentatious acquisition, a D.A.F. Variomatic parked alongside her; yes I was a one and a half car family.This particular breed was of the East German variety and basically ran on the principles of a wound up rubber band. This was the trusted steed we would set out across the plains of Cheshire in.
Aside number 2:- While Big Bertha was parked up waiting for me to seal her fate, for some unknown reason some party had smashed the rear window in what I could only assume was an act of senseless cruelty. A couple of evenings later there was a knock on my 4th floor door and 2 young lads, about 16 as I recall ,asked me if I owned the Lada downstairs. Well I answered in the affirmative to which they replied could they have the keys. When asked why ,they informed me that some bloke from The Iron Duke pub had sold them the car a few days earlier for 15 quid but had mislaid the keys and papers and of course when I asked had they smashed the rear window they said they had so they could get into “their” car. Well I suppose I should have been pissed off but as the car was already doomed I laughed and kinda felt sorry for them, one born every minute; a hard and hopefully worthwhile lesson to learn at such a tender age....When I asked how they found me, they said easy; they’d just gone into Moss Side police station, given them the relevant vehicle information and hey presto!. I was a bit non-plussed to say the least. Anyway I said on yer bike, let that be a lesson to ya etc., and duly sold it to Gresty’s for scrap, the same bastards who I’d caught one time chaining up my beloved 1100 in broad daylight and when I accosted the driver, told me he thought it had been abandoned, thieving bastards! Nevermind, I laughed last; driving around in my pride and joy Morris Marina; t’was then that I knew I had finally made the big time....To make a half-arsed attempt at making this particular Jackanory Story in any way musically relevant at all, the singer of The Stone Roses and one of his sidekicks (skinhead Rob as I recall), used to park their souped-up mod bikes next to my car(s), scientifically proving that rust is not contagious; and with the greatest irony, that all these crimes against the automobile industry took place on the very spot where the noble Rolls Royce factory had once stood; there’s poetic injustice in there somewhere.....
Right, what was I on about....Well the assorted persons who were going to this great gig in the sky blue yonder, rallied round and we hit the old frog, Widnes bound; me driving best I could with dangly bits of plastic extrusions and wads of wiring knocking between my knees; there were times in my life when I’d had slightly more fun. I have to say I was a tad miffed as I'd heard that Champion Jack Dupree, the legendary blues veteran, was playing at Burnley Mechanics the same evening, and I'm not sure if he ever ever made it round again....
So we got to the field in Spike Island (wherever that is/ was), without too much botheration except for a lot of traffic, and started over to the entrances. Pleasant day as I recall, with a few of the obligatory floppy hat, Co-op shirt brigade amongst the throngs. Hadn’t been to a festivally kind of thing like this since Deeply Vale, Zappa at Knebworth or Dylan at Blackbushe except for C.N.D. , R.A.R. and Miner’s rallies. Anyway there’s nothing better than pretending you’re at Woodstock on a fine summer’s day except fishing if you like that sort of a thing...
Actually I might as well ‘fess up ,I didn’t really see too much of anything; bit of a waste of a story really, it’s just turning out that way..... We just sat on the grass backstage most of the time as we took it in turns to queue for beer an hour at a time. I, of course, being the sensible one and nominated driver, barely partook of anything the whole day except for the odd hairy dog. Frankie Knuckles did the bizz. I recall Ian McCullough and Mr. Ryder being deep in conversation, one of them being of the tall variety , the other being of the badly in need of Oil of Ulay variety (ooh worra bitch!); and when the band played “Waterfall” with the sun going down and the fireworks going off, it was indeed magical. Not so long ago a fella I know from the South of the country informed me it was supposed to be one of the ten best outdoor gigs of all time. Well I don’t know how they gauge these things or why you’d want to bother; sounds like bollocks to me, but it was a very pleasant day out.....wish Champion Jack Dupree had been on the line-up though.....Roots and culture/ two birds, one stone etc....