Read The Alternative Hero Online
Authors: Tim Thornton
“You’re all dull as shit. Oooh, look at me, I’m so dark and damaged.”
“Mate, why don’t you just mind your own fucking business?”
Another of them. Less quiet, not particularly kind at all.
“I was! But you’re fucking …
prohibiting
me from enjoying myself!”
Ah. The logic of the heavily intoxicated.
“Go and stand somewhere else, then!”
A girl this time. Knee-length black hair, face jewellery, Nine Inch Nails T-shirt. Apparently about three feet tall.
“I was bloody here first!”
“It’s not fookin’ reserved seating, mate.”
Birmingham accent.
“Yeah, but it’s a bloody festival, you could at least fucking—”
“I’ve heard about enough of this shit.”
New guy. Big guy.
Enormous
guy. Shaved head. Beard you could store cigarettes in. Sick of It All T-shirt.
“If you don’t button it or fuck off, I’m going to personally see to it that you finish your evening locked inside an overturned Port-a-loo.”
Sometimes a hopeless drunken argument is assailed by a moment of clarity. This is such a moment. But you’re still drunk. To completely back down now would be as unnatural as mooning in front of your girlfriend’s parents. So, unable to bend, you break.
“Yaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!”
This is you. You’re screaming. You’re hurling out limbs in every available direction, pushing past the massive dude and tearing through the comatose herd of metallers. As only the very fucked can, you leap and shove and sprint, hollering abuse in a language that doesn’t resemble English but perhaps Hungarian, ignoring the various observations (“Oy, watch it, you cock”) that drift into your ears as you pass. On and on you race, until the black and Judas Priest give way to the brown and Teenage Fanclub, then finally the white and Oasis. Not that you prefer this brand of people, but they’re at least dancing and the danger is over. The Boos are on their last song by now, you’re about twenty yards away from Mister Carr himself, you’ve got that sweating-buckets heat-rush thing going on and the stage lights are illuminating everyone in your immediate vicinity. Suddenly the festival seems very small, intimate, like it’s taking place in a school sports hall with oversized equipment. You look around frantically for something to drink. A girl next to you has a pint, but … naaah, even you can surmise that she won’t want some gurning fool nagging on her beverage. Instead you approach a nearby Graham Coxon look-alike who has a camping water bottle dangling from his rucksack.
“Mate, can I have a sip of your water?”
“Nah, man, it’s vodka and blackcurrant.”
“Wicked.”
Although this isn’t perhaps the reply he expects, Coxon shrugs and hands the bottle over. You’ve drunk about half of it before he grabs the bottle back.
“That’ll do.”
You acknowledge his generosity with a grunt and a belch. It’s only then that it hits you how strong the mixture was. The guy probably just added a small carton of blackcurrant juice to a whole bottle of vodka. Oh well. Needs must when you’ve an evening of meat-and-potatoes guitar music to get through. You catch your breath slightly at the hot tingling sensation all over your body and turn your somewhat flexible attention back to the action onstage.
[From the
Daily Telegraph
, 14 August 1995.]
POTTED MAGPIE
Lance Webster, 28, vocalist with the indie-rock group Thieving Magpies, was arrested on Saturday night for drunk and disorderly behaviour. Webster had brawled with security staff and repeatedly insulted the audience at the Aylesbury Festival, during a headline appearance which was abandoned after twenty-five minutes. The band, best known for their 1992 album
Bruise Unit
, have subsequently cancelled several concerts in Europe and the US.
“I stare at my face, I know every trace, and I make it hard to get along, to get along with me …”
“Yeah.”
“Bills and heartburn …”
“Yuh … ills and s-soaps …”
This is you.
“And flickin through the books you’ve read before …”
“Read befo-ooore-ah …” You’re singing.
“Tears come easy …”
“… ears come easyyyyeeeah …”
You can’t sing. But you’re singing all the same. To a song you’ve never heard before.
“Words come hard, but there really isn’t much …”
“Much to say no moooo-ooorre.”
“I stare at my face …”
“Yeahh-aaye stare at maaah face …”
“Sorry man.”
It’s Coxon again.
“Uh?”
“Sorry pal, can you give it a rest?”
“Give what a rest?”
“The singing. Sorry. Trying to listen.”
“Am I not allowed to sing?”
“Sorry friend. It’s just that—”
“What?”
“It’s, um, not very good.”
“Who are you? Freddie Mercury?”
“No, but … the words …”
“It’s a fucking gig.”
“I know, but—”
“Everyone’s singing.”
“Well, not really to this one—”
“Uh?”
“Well, it’s a new song. He said it’s a new one.”
You puff yourself up.
“Well,
I
know it.”
“Um … how?”
“How?”
“Yes. It’s brand-new.”
“I have the album.”
“Mate, the fucking album isn’t out yet.”
“I got an advance copy.”
“Bollocks.”
“I’m a music journalist.”
“Fucking right, man. I’m a music journalist too, and they haven’t even finished recording the damn thing.”
“They gave me some demos.”
Coxon is shaking his head, exasperated.
“Mate, you’re full of it.”
You ponder this charge for a moment as the band play on. Unable to fully disagree with the man, you change tack.
“Who d’you write for anyway?”
He ignores you.
“Come on! Who d’you write for?”
He turns back to you and gives a wide, sarcastic smile.
“Craze.”
“Craze?
That pile of crap?”
First he looks astonished at your intuition, then turns away. “Fucking weirdo,” he mutters.
“You’re a bunch of clowns, man,” you continue. “That rag is so fucking superficial they should give it away for free with packets of chewing gum.”
“Fuck off.”
“Are you proud of your work when it comes out?”
“Why, who do you fucking write for?”
You’ve become an expert at sidestepping this particular question.
“Plus, you’re the only pieces of shit that gave the Magpies album a bad review.”
Finally at his wits’ end, Coxon spins round and grabs you by the neck of your T-shirt.
“I know! I wrote it!”
He glares at you for a few seconds, then pushes you away. The rest of the crowd are now heartily cheering as the triumphant Boo Radleys leave the stage. You, however, are oblivious to this.
“You’re Tony Gloster?”
He has his back turned now, joining in the applause.
“Oi! Are you really Tony Gloster?”
This has clearly impressed you, one way or the other. You tug on his rucksack.
“Tony!”
“Piss
off!”
he roars, shoving you off again. “What do you want from me, knobhead?”
He angrily turns to go.
“Hey! Tony! Where you going? You’ll miss the Magpies.”
Gloster glowers at you for the last time, then spits out five words that contain not one trace of doubt.
“The Thieving Magpies are finished.”
[From
Melody Maker
, 18 August 1995.]
LANCE: WHAT THE F*CK HAPPENED?
Oh dear. And it was all going so well.
As you surely know by now, Lance Webster put a slightly unusual slant on the Thieving Magpies’ triumphant comeback appearance at Aylesbury last weekend. At the moment no one—
not even the
Maker
—has the slightest clue
why
any of this happened, but we can provide you with an eyewitness account of precisely what went wrong …
Approx. 3 p.m
. Thieving Magpies’ tour van arrives on festival site. Band disembark and disappear into dressing room.
4:30 p.m
. Band arrive in backstage bar for press conference. Lance sipping champagne. Lance seems argumentative and a little unhinged in responses.
6 p.m
. Lance and Magpies’ drummer, Craig Spalding, spotted watching dEUS on second stage, Lance with pint in hand.
7:15 p.m
. Lance seen strolling around backstage area with girlfriend, Katie.
9 p.m
. Lance due to be interviewed by Radio 1 in backstage bar—no sign of him. Craig Spalding and guitarist Martin Fox interviewed instead.
10 p.m
. Magpies’ scheduled onstage time.
10:15 p.m
. Magpies walk onstage to enormous applause and launch into current single, “Contribution.” Lance performing normally.
10:20 p.m
. Halfway through second song, “The Cool and the Crooks,” Lance abandons usual lyrics and starts to sing Blur’s “Country House.” During final chorus he sings
“the c*nt and the c*nts.”
10:25 p.m
. Lance straps on acoustic guitar, swigs heavily from red-wine bottle and begins extremely raucous solo rendition of Oasis’ “Roll with It.” Audience enthusiastically sing along. Lance messes up some lyrics and chords. When he reaches line
“I know the road down which your life will drive,”
he stops and shouts at crowd: “Why the f*ck are you singing that sh*t? That’s enough. Whoever was singing that b*llocks can f*ck off and watch something
else.” Uneasy looks from other band members—eventually Dan Winston speaks quietly to Lance and persuades him to continue with scheduled performance.
10:27 p.m
. “Try Blinding”—all is well until after first chorus. Lance wanders away from microphone, stops playing guitar and makes “wanker” signals at an unidentified person in front of stage. Remains on lip of stage until band have reached second chorus, at which point he returns to microphone and sings as usual. Remainder of song passes without further upset.
10:31 p.m
. Lance hands guitar to roadie, grabs red-wine bottle and addresses audience: “So who are you here to see? Elastica? F*cking Menswear? [Neither band is playing at Aylesbury.] Cast? The Bluetones? [Both bands completed their sets earlier on.] Well, f*ck off and see them, then. I’ve got no songs for you. F*ck off. We’re not playing another note until you leave.”
10:32 p.m
. Several audience members start to voice dissatisfaction with the evening’s entertainment. Hearing this, Lance screams, “Yeah, you can say what you f*cking like, you miserable little c*nts. I’m the one up here with the guitar getting paid. I can play the same song fifteen times in a row if I want.” Someone evidently shouts something like “Go on, then”: Lance nods, utters something off-mic involving the F-word, grabs guitar back from roadie and plays opening chords to “Try Blinding.” Crowd roars disapproval. Dan Winston and guitarist Martin Fox attempt to stop him. Webster stops playing, throws guitar down and leaps offstage to where security are standing.
10:34 p.m
. Webster punches male member of security staff in the face. Chaos ensues. Martin Fox and drummer Craig Spalding quickly join melee. Dan Winston strides over to main microphone: “Sorry, everyone, our singer’s decided to be a cock tonight, thanks for your patience.” Four security guards restrain Webster,
while Fox and Winston—shortly joined by Thieving Magpies manager Bob Grant—attempt to placate assaulted party.
10:37 p.m
. Incredibly, situation briefly improves. Assaulted bouncer is led away, Webster is encouraged back onstage and band resume positions. Audience by now extremely restless, although numbers do not appear to have dwindled.
10:39 p.m
. Martin Fox optimistically cranks out opening riff to “Look Who’s Laughing.” Crowd cheers. Lance approaches microphone, draws breath to sing, glances over towards where previous action took place, shouts “F*ck this,” throws guitar down
again
and dashes off into wings.
10:40 p.m
. Thieving Magpies’ 1995 appearance at Aylesbury Festival is over. General confusion, audience hurling beer cups, band members departing as speedily as possible.
10:41 p.m
. Pursued by security staff, festival staff, roadies, band members and manager, Lance Webster storms into backstage area, where he spots previous adversary being consoled by security management. Webster hurls himself at him. This time assaulted party fights back, scoring a direct hit.
10:43 p.m
. Compère Jonny Malone announces to furious crowd: “Well, sorry, everyone, that appears to be it for the main stage this evening—you can still catch the end of Dodgy’s set on the
Loaded
stage …”
10:45 p.m
. Fight still raging backstage. Roughly fifty people involved now—a large proportion of whom seem to be restraining Webster.
10:50 p.m
. Festival police appear. Following swift assessment of situation, Lance Webster is handcuffed and firmly requested to assist authorities with their enquiries.
10:51 p.m
. Heated negotiations commence between LiveTime Security, Bob Grant Management and Thames Valley Police.
11:10 p.m
. Negotiations transfer to Aylesbury Police Station.
Approx. 3 a.m
. Negotiations suspended. Lance Webster is released but instructed to reappear for questioning on 21 August.
Blimey. So what—as just about everyone must be asking this week—the f*ck happened?
It starts with an unusual dream.
Of all the dreams I’ve had in my life that feature Keith Richards boisterously playing the piano at the side of a large stage while a veiled Adam Ant slow-dances with Syd Barrett, this one is definitely the best.