Life on Tour with Bowie. Sean Mayes
The lounge band didn’t seem so excited though.
Tuesday was hot and sunny, revealing blue sea and palm trees. I breakfasted downstairs on fresh pineapple in the coffee shop overlooking the Pacific. This is California!
Later I took a cab downtown and stepped out onto the sidewalk, camera swinging. I found myself opposite a small dark shop with an attractive girl sitting outside. She called me over.
“Hi - do you want to come in for a rap?”
A rap? A wrap? A federal rap?
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Come on,” she said, “is there anything you want to talk to me about?”
“That’s all right, honey,” I said shaking my head and strolled on up the road.
Soon I found myself on a sleazy side street with a few cheap clothes shops, bars and plenty of boarded-up windows. A cop car screeched to a rocking halt just behind me. They jumped out and ran into one of the doorways. America is just like the movies! A small crowd gathered but nothing happened.
Soon I ran into Simon and Dennis who were heading for a music shop. The guy there welcomed Dennis as an old friend and invited him to try a new drum kit, so he stormed his way around it.
Back at the hotel, everyone was feeling restless and beginning to get edgy. Somehow the prospect of another twenty four hours without playing was unbearable. We wandered between each others’ rooms - television, music, a few drinks, a little smoking - no one could settle to anything. Down in the bar, I chatted to Natasha Kornilof, a small and homely figure who designed David’s stage clothes and was making last minute alterations. Tony Mascia told us how the sewing machine had been delivered to his room and the small, fussy man had insisted on explaining how to use it - until Tony gently placed him outside the door. He spread his massive hands, “What do I want to know about one of them things for?”
Wednesday kicked off with excitement turning to nervousness as the day progressed. At 4pm we left for the sound-check. I clambered into the limo clutching plastic bags of stage clothes and got my cheap camera ready to snap our first stadium… then suddenly there it was - the vast, almost sinister concrete oval looming across the deserted parking lot. At the back-stage entrance there were a couple of security guards on the gate and a few kids hanging over the railings. The cars nosed their way down the steep ramp while the steel shutter-door wound slowly up. We drove into the gloom of the building and the door closed behind us, a modern portcullis. I headed straight for the arena, bags and all, and hurried up the steps onto the stage to survey the 15,000 empty waiting seats. It was breathtaking and I gaped.
I walked out into the auditorium to get a fan’s-eye view of the stage: a five-foot platform of scaffolding with a floor of shiny black plexiglass. The backdrop was a sixteen foot fence of white neon tubes. Above and on both sides was suspended a gantry of lights so we would be playing in a cage of black metal and white light, all reflected in the ebony mirror floor. The structure looked vaguely sinister.
We took a long time getting the sound and monitors right, while an army of road crew clambered about on the gantry illuminating us from every direction.
Eric was in charge now - he was the tour manager, an emigré Scot who lived in Los Angeles. He was responsible for every facet of touring - the technical side and the welfare of musicians and road crew. Some tour managers treat the star as God and everyone else can go hang, but Eric looked after everyone and had everyone’s respect. He even told David what to do - politely!
So we retired to the dressing-rooms - concrete, windowless and ugly with a lingering locker-room aroma. But for today they are transformed, furnished with carpets, chairs and long tables spread with a cold buffet and baskets of fruit and flowers. There were large ice-bins of beers and soft drinks, and bottles of wine and spirits - Chevas Regal, Jack Daniels, Remy Martin and Stolichnaya. We would need to go gently before the show!
Eric had an assistant, Ron, a young American who had the unenviable task of looking after fifteen untogether people - hotel to gig to airport. He told us the procedure for leaving the stadium after the show.
It was funny to see everyone getting ready for the show - seven guys and seven different images. George’s black and white Japanese kimono, (sometimes he wore a long jacket and cowboy hat, visible in silhouette next to David’s elbow on the cover of Stage). Adrian’s Hawaiian shirts, my punk/‘50s look and Dennis wearing anything that came into his head. Carlos started the tour in elegant mauve velvet, but by Australia he was looking almost as punk as me! David had his own dressing-room with a long mirror and Coco busy at the ironing board, but he wandered in to chat to us. He always dreams up some new look and appeared that first night in a green PVC lounge suit and a small smile that seemed to say, “I know it’s ridiculous but I dare you to laugh!”
Eric had been shouting the time to us, “18 minutes! …11 minutes! …3 minutes, you guys!” and now herded us out of the dressing-room towards the stage. Then, “Wait here!” and we were just around the corner from the entrance and could hear the crowd. We were all nervous but excited.
“How’s your voice?”
“Oh, it should be fine now I’ve rested it.”
I hate waiting to go on and started to pogo to release the tension. A moment later we were all jumping up and down and laughing, feeling much better. Then “Let’s go!” shouted Eric and we walked around the corner in a loose bunch, David among us. The house lights were still up, stage lights down. A few people saw us, there were a few shouts, but no one thought it was starting yet because of the lights. Then they spotted him, realised this was it and the shouts spread to a roar of 15,000, a thunder of welcoming noise.
The stage was polished like glass and I felt I had forgotten how to walk, how to put one foot in front of the other. I thought I might fall over before I reached the piano. Carlos picked up his baton and walked to the front of the stage. He turned to face us. David stood at his keyboard and watched Carlos calmly. Carlos raised his arms, began the count… BOOM! The first sombre note of ‘Warsawa’ rang out and the crowd roared. BOOM! There was a glow from the lights around the stage. BOOM! The auditorium started to dim. BOOM! Darkness beyond the edge of the stage - another roar. BOOM! My eyes were watering now as the lights blazed - it was like staring at the sun. The theme started like a church organ. David had a quizzical look on his face. Carlos beamed. David grinned back then looked across to me. I felt my heart would burst. The music swelled then came to a pause, David took the mike and Sula vi… deleo echoed around the vast stadium. A roar shook the place. Simon’s eerie violin screeched out the responses. The instrumental paced steadily on. The tension in the place was palpable. Then the last few measured notes… a pause… One, two, three, “HEROES”! A frenzy burst over the crowd, people were jumping to their feet, waving their arms wildly. “He’s back! He’s back! We love you!”
There is something miraculous about first nights. The things you always got wrong in rehearsals come out right, unexpected mistakes go unnoticed, a joyous fear carries you through.
‘What In The World’ - the first half of this was now a limping reggae beat. We had been fooling around at rehearsals one day waiting for David, when he arrived and liked it so it stayed. The last verse was at full tilt and the lights blazed again, showing up scores of faces down in front of us. More relaxed now, I started to scan for foxes (good-lookers) and anything crazy or funny - the different images, the look-alikes.
I soon noticed something eerie - hundreds of pairs of large, round pale discs of light gazing down from the sides of the bowl… binoculars were de rigeur at these big American concerts but I simply thought: Diamond Dogs! It was as if some strange creatures were peering out of caves in the walls.
I won’t go right through that first night, I was concentrating so hard most of it didn’t register.
‘Fame’ was David’s biggest hit in the States and it finished the first half.
“We’ll be back in ten short minutes,” he lied, and with a wave