Road Life 7
Let me get one thing straight before I start unfolding this tale of a day in our life on the road. I love Poland. This story is in no way a dig at Poland, days like this happen all over the world, fortunately not too often. This one just happens to be in Poland. I love the people mostly because they are so resilient in the face of hardship – and they have endured much. And they are lovely with it. When we first played here in 1993, we were treated to an unprecedented welcome worthy of The Beatles; as our cavalcade pulled up outside the venue, we could see people everywhere, straining to get a glimpse of us, snatch a photograph, and cheering us on as if we were a triumphant, returning football team. They were hanging from the windows, crowding onto balconies and lining the streets – I can barely imagine what the Fab Four went through day to day.
Anyway, we recently flew in for a gig at a spa resort in the countryside where a rock festival is annually held. The three-hour journey by van from Gdansk airport went smoothly enough, at least as far as I was concerned. Of the three vans (and a crew bus), one of the van drivers was an awful driver. When I say he was awful, let me relate how Don Airey and Steve Morse described his driving skills. He would come up behind a car much too fast, slam the brakes on, straining everyone’s seat belts, and wait until he had the opportunity to overtake. Then he’d hesitate too long and one can imagine him talking to himself, saying, “What kind of man are you? Go for it, you can make it.” By the time he had convinced himself that he had enough time to overtake, it was too late. He would pound on the accelerator, shoot forward with a stomach-churning lurch, veer around the other vehicle, scatter the oncoming traffic, and leave the passengers shaken but lucky to be alive. He was promptly ‘let go’ as nobody wanted to drive with him again.
Tired and hungry, we checked into the hotel, the lobby of which was crammed with people all a-quiver with excitement, offering flowers, taking photographs and generally gawking at us. My room was simple yet reasonably comfortable with the exception that the desk was nowhere near either the mains outlet or the Internet cable socket, something that is certainly not unique to Poland (the same thing happened at the ultra-posh Kempinski in Dresden the previous day). Fortunately, having frequently encountered this lack of good design, I am prepared for such occurrences, plugged in my extensions and settled in.
I waited long enough to let the lobby return to calm and went down to locate the restaurant for lunch. I exited the lift to be confronted by a horde of fans racing towards me and shouting, “Mr. Glover, Mr. Glover, Mr. Glover” and thrusting CDs, albums, photographs and bits of paper for me to sign. Now I am always polite to fans and customarily sign and pose for cameras all the time. However, this time I beat a hasty retreat back to my room and decided on room service. It arrived and I ate, only to start feeling rather unwell about an hour later. Unwell would not quite do justice to the desparate, hurried visits to the toilet as my body valiantly attempted to rid itself of the offending what-ever-it-was that was attacking me. Fortunately, I recovered in time for the concert.
Since the stage was a mere couple of hundred meters away through the woods, a room in the hotel was set aside for us to change. When the time was right we filed out of our dressing room and dutifully followed a taciturn, black-clad, walkie-talkie laden security giant into the lift. How it is possible to get lost between the second and forth floors I don’t know but somehow he managed it and in true Spinal Tap fashion we found ourselves walking down what was obviously the wrong corridor. You can imagine the banter of the band… “Hello Cleveland” etc.
Although the distance to the stage was touted as a ‘walk’ a couple of vans were waiting to transport us and we were glad of them. Negotiating the very bumpy dirt track through the trees in the dark, we eventually arrived at the stage only to be stranded by our driver who somehow managed to wedge his vehicle between a truck and a fence, all within plain view of the crowd who must have been more than amused at the sight.
As we started the show, we were confronted by a huge gap between the audience and us – something that we in the band all loathe. The gap consisted of an inexplicable platform, a few feet below the stage, covered in gravel and populated by large, black speaker cabinets, a couple of video cameramen and about a dozen well-armed police who roved in front of the crowd in a decidedly intimidating manner. Our trusty production manager soon cleared them away to the sides where they stood staring balefully at the crowd, ready and waiting for trouble. Soon, trouble arrived in the shape of a happy fan waving his crutches in the air. It took five of these brutes to wade in and confiscate his crutches, much to my incredulity.
The rest of the show went well enough, the audience gave us a heart-warming welcome and we left the stage with their cheering ringing in our ears and boarded the vans to take us back to the dressing room. Unfortunately, in the dark the drivers got hopelessly lost in the maze of dirt tracks between the trees and we found ourselves surrounded by hundreds of fans who couldn’t believe their luck at peering through the windows and seeing the members of the band sitting uncomfortably staring back with as much, or as little, dignity as they could muster. Again, you can imagine the band dialogue, which at this point wasn’t so funny. Fortunately, solace was waiting in the bar…
The next morning, we had to drive the three hours back to Gdansk. Because we now only had two vans and the crew bus, some of the band and management went on the bus. Two hours into the journey we learned that the bus had broken down and was stranded by the side of the road somewhere ahead of us. As if that wasn’t problematic enough, it was also stuck in a huge traffic jam. When we eventually caught up we managed to cram some in our van but there were too many to fit. Fortunately, the awful driver who had been let go yesterday was on the same route with his empty van, so he was contacted and, notwithstanding his track record, managed to save the day and we arrived at the airport, late but thankfully intact.
This is not an isolated incident; we encounter some equally bad drivers all over the place. As Count Basie (or was it Duke Ellington?) once said, “I play for free – I get paid to travel”. How true.
Good luck,
Roger Glover
One thought on “Road Life 7”
Hmmm I think we’ve had the same driver , or his brother on a run from Gdansk to Kaliningrad ….fear knows no bounds as a driver running late…
Dave Claxton Production Manager for Midge Ure and Ultravox
PS Midge says he has fond memories of RG and IG recording in Monserrat…. late 1980’s ???