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TEENAGE WASTELAND IN THE VALLEY Mark Cunningham recalls the day his hearing took a turn for the worse.
O
ne of my school friends was called Alistair. He
after school; Nan adored his constantly smiling, angelic
was a short, upbeat and quite unusual Geordie
face while Grandad praised his impeccable manners.
boy who wore a Brylcreemed barnet and a
Alistair wasn’t the sort of lad one would readily associate
gabardine coat that would have been the height of fashion
with rock’n’roll but he had somehow forged a link with the
in the ‘50s but was now strikingly out of sync with the times.
Curbishleys, the famous music business and football family
I sometimes took him with me to my grandparents’ house
who originated from Canning Town and Plaistow in east London. Alan Curbishley, an ex-pupil at our school, Trinity, had recently signed up as a West Ham United player, while brother Bill was The Who’s manager. This not inconsiderable piece of trivia emerged when Alistair asked if I’d like to help him make some badges in a house off the Barking Road, one afternoon. It seemed a little odd but I went along with him all the same, especially as there was the promise of a few quid, not to mention a portion of fish’n’chips. I soon learned that the badges were to be part of The Who’s merchandise at some forthcoming concerts.
03.2017
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41 DAZE OF YORE
The main man in charge of this little operation was Bill Curbishley’s brother Alfie who was given a concession to make some of the ‘swag’, a few of the items being themed around the band’s latest album, The Who By Numbers. Inside the house, one of the rooms had been refashioned as a micro factory, with several people on a small and quite bizarre production line. We joined in the light-hearted fun as the badges dropped off the end of the long table into a large cardboard box. (I may have slipped one into my pocket as a keepsake.) At the end of the day, someone gave each of us a modest amount of cash and offered the bonus
Outlaws, Little Feat and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band
of a free (£4.00) ticket for The Who’s concert at The Valley,
were really on the money. The SAHB had been eye-popping
home of then Second Division football team Charlton
from the moment they hit the stage.
Athletic, on May 31st, a Bank Holiday Monday. Having been into The Who since I’d first heard Tommy and Who’s Next a few years earlier, I was extremely
My only gripe was that their set failed to include both ‘Boston Tea Party’, their new single, and their brilliant cover of ‘Delilah’.
grateful. Alistair accepted his ticket but was less enthusiastic.
The other not-so-great aspect was that at the end of a
When we left the house, he said that he was chuffed
month known for its 24-28°C temperatures (with the hottest
that I’d taken him with me to see the Stones at Earls Court
British summer and drought just on the horizon), it was the
a week earlier but wasn’t really into live music as much as
only day in recent memory to witness rainfall, although it
I was. In return for that favour, he gave me his Who ticket,
was mostly overcast, hence the free sun visor inside the
allowing me to invite Graham, an old junior school friend
‘Bellboy’ souvenir programme remained unused. Mustn’t
who had moved away. Gra’ could hardly believe his luck.
grumble, though – the promise of seeing The Who for the first time was off the scale of excitement.
OFF THE SCALE As well as The Who, the rest of the bill was also strong. We
REVELATION
missed Widowmaker, the outfit fronted by The Love Affair’s
Moonie’s legendary character was upheld by his fiery
Steve Ellis, and although I don’t remember much about
drumming style and cheeky humour. I recall him spouting
Streetwalkers (featuring Family’s Roger Chapman) or The
forth in his fake posh accent when he introduced ‘Squeeze
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42 DAZE OF YORE
As production manager, Wiggy was working alongside Norman Perry (Stage Manager), Bob Pridden (Sound Engineer), Dick Hayes (Sound Engineer), Alan Smith (Sound Engineer/Guitar Technician, Mick Double (Drum Technician), Alan Rogan (Guitar Technician), Bill Harrison (Bass Technician), Roger Searle (LD), Tony Haslam (Lighting Technician), Jim Hubbard (Lighting Technician) and Richard Ames (Production Assistant and author of the Grateful Dead piece in Load-In’s last issue).
“It wasn’t like the James Bond films; these lasers wouldn’t actually killyou.”
SUPER HEROES According to biographer Richard Barnes, Charlton ’76 was “one of rock’s greatest and most climactic moments”, thus disagreeing with Pete
Box’, but in their own distinctive ways
Townshend’s claim that it was not one
Townshend, Daltrey and Entwistle were as
of The Who’s better performances. I
much of a revelation.
take Barnes’s side on this one, because
Although the band only included a couple
amidst the scuffles in the crowd, the bottle
of songs from the new album, they did
throwing and the balloons, The Who
play a half hour selection from Tommy and
were super heroes to me on this inclement
a contender for my favourite Who song,
Monday.
‘Behind Blue Eyes’, but nothing prepared me for the closing number. This was my first experience of lasers. Appearing in the middle section of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, the effect was staggering. Many years later, I would meet the man responsible for bringing lasers into The Who’s arsenal – John ‘Wiggy’ Wolff – who took the time to explain how it all worked. It wasn’t like the James Bond films; these lasers wouldn’t actually kill you. Or so I was led to believe.
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43 DAZE OF YORE
Annoyingly, the legacy of Charlton, for me, was its
stadium. Consequently, when I returned to school,
long-term effect on my hearing. For most of the gig, I was
I was struggling to catch my history teacher’s words
foolishly standing about 30 feet back from the front of the
as he waxed lyrical about Napoleon. Struggling so hard, in
stage left PA wing and although the sound quality was
fact, that I was forced to move to the front of the classroom.
crystal clear, as the show progressed I noticed that my hearing started to crackle and distort. This happened to be the concert that saw The Who break the Guinness World Record for Loudest Concert Performance. Costing £7,000 to rent for the Charlton show
Coming in my early teens, this was the first of countless ‘audio hangovers’ I would suffer over a lifetime. It was only rock’n’roll, we thought, and very much part of the gig experience. There were no rules, no guidelines about protecting one’s
alone, the 76,000 watt Tasco PA system was driven by 80
precious hearing. People talked about huge PA systems
800W Crown DC 300A amplifiers and 20 600W Phase
making your ears bleed and some of us would go in search
Linear 200s, producing 126dB at 32 metres (104 feet) from
of the gigs that might deliver such masochistic pleasures.
the stage. It was a record that stood for many years. As one might imagine, I was unwittingly doing myself considerable harm, just by standing where I was in the
In my case, it all started with the ’orrible ’Oo. Photography & archive content: Rigoberto Gruner, Mark Cunningham, Time (UK) Ltd.
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