Overheard in a pub last week:
“Mate, how’s it going? It’s been years! You remember the old days, you old rocker?”
“Great days!”
“Great days! But we need you, man; it’s been all gone wrong since you left the band”
“Hey, that was another life – things move on, you know? My rocking days are behind me – I’ve got a sweet house in the Cotswolds. I can feel what freedom is like – not bundled up in a hot, sweaty room waiting to go on against hostile crowds. It’s better here, with a wife and the children…”
“Yeah – how’s Sam these days?”
“Keeping well. Her sister often comes by to see if she can pick up any hot gossip”
“Is she with the NME?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“D’you remember when we were first bursting on the scene? There was that time I saw you off your head in the flat singing ‘Gordon is a Moron‘…”
“He was – and you’re copying all his moves!”
“Great days”
“Great days”
“We’re getting the band back together, Dave – one last tour, and it’ll be epic! We need you as our front man. You’re the face they want to see. On the international ours, you’re the one they know and they want you, Dave.”
“Great days! But I had to go when the rest of you didn’t want me, after that last international your, when, you know…”
“What? You walked out on us! You said you’d stay on however the results went, but then you whistled a little tune and were gone!”
“You got that clown in the replace me. What happened to him? And those two girls – I don’t remember their names.”
“Me neither. Yeah, we got the joker in and the fans loved him – we got our best returns ever. Then he turned out to be just another waster: wild when we needed him to be serious and sombre when we needed him wild, and he never kept the roadies in check so the roadies ended up running us, and running us into the ground.”
“I told you – didn’t I tell you? To keep it going you need the press to love you.”
“They stopped loving the joker soon enough. One of his discarded wives has become a scribbler herself.”
“With the NME?”
“With the enemy, yeah. Don’t you miss it though, Dave? The lights, the tours, the wildness? Just one more tour, one more and we’re all done. Even if the home fans are gone, the foreign fans love you – for them you are the face of the band and you’re the one they want to see up front. Come on, Dave – one more, and this time next year we’ll have gone out in a blaze and no one will hear from us again.”
“OK, Rishi: do I get the use of Chevening?”
