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And on cowbell: you!

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A propos of nothing, I have just discovered that I have the power to transport you to any gig in history so that you can perform on stage as part of the main act. As if by magic, you can play any instrument (and/or sing, if you like). Which group/singer would you like to join, and when?

To start things off, I will be joining Taylor Swift’s band for the gig that is hopefully linked here, which was part of her 1989 world tour. I could play the triangle, tambourine, or anything, as long as I can be part of what looks like the most joyous time anybody has had on stage (or on a huge revolving platform).

Next I will be off to the Pasadena Rose Bowl for Depeche Mode’s 101 show. I will stand alongside Dave Gahan and get everybody’s arms waving for Never Let Me Down, and discover what it feels like to be in a band at the moment they realise they have really, really made it.

Finally, I will join the Beatles at Shea Stadium. It doesn’t matter what instrument I play as nobody will hear it anyway, but I’d like to find out what it’s like to be at the centre of that pandemonium.

What about you? Maybe your light touch with the cowbell could calm things down for the Stones at Altamont. Or maybe you could give Beyonce a boost by contributing some wild funk guitar during the Superbowl halftime show. So, where to?

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Comments

  1. Can I go to the Lesser Free Trade Hall on 4th June 1976.
    I will stand on stage providing kazoo interludes to No Fun in front of the 200,000 people there.
    Tony Wilson would be so impressed I could get a 5 album deal with Factory (as long as Vini Reilly is allowed to play along)

  2. 19th September 1974, at the Ultra-Sonic studios in Noo Yawk, hitting that cowbell alongside Sam Clayton and grinning from ear to ear as the Feat power into the finest live set ever committed to tape.

  3. Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Donny Hathaway.

    Not just sing/play alongside him, but actually be him… so I could get to experience what it feels like to have possibly the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard emerge from my mouth, and to see the effect it has on people.

    As a very close 2nd choice, I’d be Sarah Vaughan, please & thankyou, for the same reasons.

    As for where and when? Don’t care.

  4. What an opportunity. I’d like to be one of the psaltery players at the Abbey of Disibodenberg back in the 12th century when Hildegard Von Bingen and her ensemble were performing one of their gigs. Who would not want to meet this extraordinary woman?

    Fast forward to the 1970s. George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic were making the funkiest of waves. A party I would not want to miss. I could contribute by being snake handler for George’s python.

    • KFD, this prompted me to dig out my only HVB album… which I ended up not being able to find. Which was annoying. Did you nick it?

      Anyway, I agree with what I think was your unspoken underlying premise, which is that you can get away with any old rubbish singing when you’re deeply embedded within a choral ensemble (especially if they’re a load of early C12th non-judgemental God-botherers), even if you drone on like an un-emptied vacuum cleaner.

      So, a little bit of Hildey posted here wouldn’t go amiss for this correspondent, who appears to have completely forgotten how to do that sort of thing.

  5. I’d like to be on stage at that Pistols gig at the 100 Club and take a register. Just about everyone claims to have been there

    And you’re right about 101. That film was quite a revelation because in the UK their popularity seemed to be on a plateau – recent singles had barely made the top 20. I’d heard that their shows had gone down well in the States but actually seeing 80,000 fans going berserk was quite a thing. They’d been at it for 7 years in the UK with diminishing returns and now the US crowds were greeting them like a new and exciting up-and-coming band. They had all that live and experience and 6 albums and only about 26 years old. Heady days.

  6. The rooftop of the Apple building, Saville Row, on 30 January 1969. I’d play drums and I’d keep playing until the police dragged me off.

    The Queen Elizabeth Hall on 25 June 1973 and I’d be on the tubular bells.

    • The rooftop for me too, however it’s the roof of Rutle Corps for me.
      Watch me catch a falling crew member as I wield my giant electric triangle, see sparks fly (hopefully Russ and Ron will be available).

  9. Coming to end of our band’s set, we’ve done our usual array of Commitments-style covers and a Lone Justice deep cut many think is our own (we don’t bother to correct them). Our singer says “This is our last one tonight, we hope you like our new direction”. The drummer starts, Shaft-style, on the hi-hat. After four bars, the guitarist starts his wah-wahing. Keyboard player, Fingers, starts his descending chords on the piano, I start up the chugging bass line and we’re off, doing the new song Fingers and I wrote on our holiday in Wales, one afternon while everyone else was outside in the sunshine playing football.

    The audience storm the area at the lip of the stage and start to pogo. I start to bounce up and down as I chug away – I appear to have springs in my feet. We get to the end of the song and the audience are still boucing around so, pumped full of adrenaline, I dig into the intro bassline, the rest of the band lock in, and we do it all again, with an improvised lyric and a set-of-the-pants guitar solo. The crowd go mental as we finally leave the stage. A woman in the audience makes a beeline for me, hands me a pint, which I down in one (thirsty work, that bass playing) and we spend the rest of the evening (ahem) together.

    The most amazing part of the story is it all happened. Somewhere in Great Dunmow, circa 1995. Just the once – we spilt up after our next gig.

    I’ve only performed on a stage once since then, 25 years later, only for one song at my 50th. The crowd didn’t go wild, but I did go home with a woman (Mrs F).

  11. ABBA on their mid 70s Aussie tour. The one that’s on ABBA: The Movie. Apart from the Sydney show where it pissed down. What shows. What a tour.

    Then, any show from Queen’s 1975 and 76 Japanese tours. The best Queen bootlegs are from the early Japanese tours: great audiences and Freddie loved the place.

  12. I’d stand behind this fella any night of the week, even if I had to be one of the dancers in enormous trainers. And even then I’d know I didn’t have the worst footwear in the band.

  13. In a sweaty Hammersmith pub in 1979 adding essential tambourine to The Jam’s sound as they rip through the songs that would become In The City. I’d even learn how to do the jump…

    This is the nearest I could find

  15. As per Captain Darling, I’d be bizarrely happy to be part of Taylor’s backing band, maybe as part of the Reputation tour in 2018. Bigger, bolder and cracking tunes. Great fun.

    Rewind to the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956 and I’d have them dancing in the aisles as part of the Count Basie Orchestra, rocking out with Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue. All fourteen and a half minutes of it, together with a couple of dozen choruses of tenor sax. Transcendent.

    And finally, to be onstage at the Last Waltz for hi-kickin’ Van singing Caravan, perched behind Levon and wailing on the tambourine. Where would you be, indeed?

  16. I’d join Little Feat on the Waiting for Columbus tour for lead guitar on “Apolitical Blues” for the nights where Mick Taylor wasn’t available.

  18. I think I’d sooner be backstage for any of these, the well connected friend of the band. (Noooooo, not that friend, although I did fantasise, as a young man, how Hank Wangford got the gig as Gram Parsons’ dr.)

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