24000 Mile Round Trip To Take A Bow

I enjoyed the Olympics. The British team won a lot of medals, which is a bit strange. We’re so used to being good losers that we’re not sure how to act if we win. O.K, we won a few of them in sports I didn’t know existed (gold in being polite, picnicking and a silver in pretending mad people on the tube aren’t there). The Olympics makes me wonder- Are the weightlifting medals really really heavy? Do the horses in the Olympic dressage get a medal? It seems to me that they’re doing most of the work.

The amount of dedication that goes into being the best athlete is incredible. I imagine a diver practicing day in day out for 10 years trying to make a really small splash. If they succeed, they make a really big splash, so to speak. How crushing though to spend all that time training and preparing for the hundred metres not only to be beaten but beaten so convincingly that the winner has time to wave to the crowd before winning (and setting a new world record). I wonder what Usain Bolt’s trainer says? “O.K, when you hear the gun, run really really really fast”.

Watching China on T.V reminded me of the strangest gig I ever played. A brilliant duo called ‘A Man Called Adam’ were offered a show in Shanghai. They asked me to play guitar and get a band together for the show. We rehearsed for a week, flew to Shanghai and headed to the outdoor festival the day before the show. We had a three hour soundcheck and our VJ got some amazing visuals going on the huge video screens.

 The day of the gig, a typhoon rolled in. It was so severe that they lashed our dressing room down to stop it getting blown away. I’d never seen thunder, lightning and rain like it. The rest of the acts at the festival were Chinese pop singers who sang to backing tapes. We were the only band with amps and drums. By the time of the gig the gear was completely soaked and the stage manager decided that if we plugged in “we would die”. The only option was for me and Sally the singer to go on stage and play one song acoustically (less chance of death). It was beyond surreal. 50000 sodden people were watching as well as millions on MTV China. We decided that after we’d played the song that the rest of the band should walk onto the stage and at least take a bow. It was an absurd sight to see them troop on stage, bow, and troop off again.

After the ‘gig’ everyone was disconsolate. The promoter was sad for us. I said ‘chances happening of that- a typhoon!’  She said, ‘same thing happened at the festival last year, it’s typhoon season”. 3 days in China, 5 minutes on stage, but as Dan the bass player said while drowning his sorrows “At least you got to play, I’ve been on a 24000 mile round trip to take a bow”.