Music Weblog

We all have heroes, often those gained in childhood are the most unreal. It is a factor of life that as we learn, grow and gain experience the scales fall from our eyes and our heroes become mortal but those childhood heroes, Steve McQueen, Al Pacino, David Bowie, Madonna, Prince or whoever yours may be, still have that aura of otherworldliness about them.

What happens when you come face-to-face with your hero? Obviously this may simply be finally seeing them live after many years of loving their music rather than actually being allowed entry to their world. Whichever the case may be the outcome is the same, either a sudden, wonderful return to a more innocent time or the realisation that everyone has feet of clay.

My own experience of this has been mixed. I first noticed David Bowie when “Space Oddity” went to number one in 1975. When I seriously got into music in the late 70′s I sought him out and remember the thrill and wonder of both the single “Ashes to Ashes” and the attendant album “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)”, in particular the otherworldliness of the video for “Ashes to Ashes”. I almost saw him live around 1990 but relationship issues meant my ticket went to an ex, although I still paid for the privalage. I finally caught up with him on the Reality tour after a wonderful run of albums including the sublime ” . . . hours”. He was spellbinding & “Life on Mars” was so good he received a standing ovation at the end of the first chorus and had to stop singing for a couple of minutes. Unfortunately after that tour he had some heart problems and has not toured or released an album since.

It is little remembered now but around 1980-81 there was a real attempt to bring Japanese pop music (J-Pop) to the UK. The leading exponents were the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) who even had a Top 10 UK chart hit with an electronic song called “Firecracker”. I found a number of groups that hit the right note with me, so much so that to this day I still trawl Amazon’s Japanese website for CDs to add to my collection. YMO split in the mid-1980s and although they sporadically reformed they were limited runs on far away places. Until the 2008 Meltdown festival at the Royal Festival Hall when Massive Attack invited them to play a date. I could not believe my luck, especially after I managed to score front row tickets! They were to be joined by Fennesz, a more recent musical infatuation of mine. However the gig itself was let down by a breathtakingly bad sound mix, inexcusable these days. I was able to watch all three members create magic but the rabbits all died as they were pulled from the musical hats, killed by the mix. I have bought the live album using my US iTunes account (at the time it was not available from the UK site) and the mix is much better but it was a disappointing end after a wait of almost 28 years.

however, the worst encounter is not mine but I relay it here as a warning to all. A reasonably famous UK musician who was a huge Prince fan managed to get invited to meet the great wee man at his hotel after a sound check for a gig that evening. Left in the suite with some very boring people and feeling like a schoolboy waiting outside the headmasters office he spotted some wine and had a small glass. Prince does not drink but as this was also the PR suite not his personal suite presumably some WB peeps needed refreshment. Anyway, said musician/fan was still nervous so had another glass of wine. He eventually finished the wine but spotted some spirits and started on those feeling much more relaxed and imagining how witty he would be when Prince arrived. Unfortunately by the time he arrived our hero was collapsed on the floor in a drunken stupor and all he saw and all he remembers were stillerto boots passing close by his face as it rested on the floor of the suite. The invitation to the inner sanctum has not been made again.