[nani]

10th April 2010, 05:36 AM

Maybe I shouldn’t even think about writing anything until February 13 Th when the jet lag has leveled out? What If I say stuff that I’ll later regret? That would probably be the most interesting stuff to read anyway, what If I don’t say enough? I’ll simply tell it like it is, that’s the best I can do, no covering up embarrassing moments, you the reader will make your own mind up anyway.
Before I know it its 8:30 pm time to meet in the lobby and depart for the gig, we have two bus’s a non smoking and a smoking, Ali travels on his own in a separate car same routine as the UK tour, driving to the stadium we hardly see a soul out there on the street, a good sign it means they are all at ‘The Ragamuffin’ that’s the title of the tour by the way, not ‘ The Ragamuffin show ‘, or tour, just ‘ Ragamuffin ‘. All this is the brainchild of Andrew McManus our promoter, well, actually an amalgam of his money and organizational genius and our desire to play a festival with loads of great Reggae bands, we spoke about it last time we were down here, he said
“ Leave it with me Pommie’s bedwetters, it will be done! “
He has brought us down here on three occasions, during the last trip we chartered a Qantas airbus and he put shows on all through the south Pacific Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, new Caledonia then on up to the Hawaiian Islands. It was the trip of a lifetime, Lesley flew down to Auckland to join me on the tour and it was totally incredible, the memories will stay with us forever, we often talk about it. Every place we landed there would be that massive Pacific welcome on the airport runways, drummers and beautiful girls dancing in grass skirt’s and the gigs, well the only way I can describe it is Beatle Mania, breathtaking unconditional love from the audiences. Even the king of Tonga invited us to a civic reception; we were presented with medals from the Royal House. Anyway Andrew McManus being not only a man of his word but one of the world’s great promoters, actually more than simply a promoter, he’s what I would define as an Impresario. There’s not many like him, its like this, we’ve worked with many promoters who I’ve never met, couldn’t tell you what they look like, they are just a name on a cheque. Andrew McManus after putting a bill together then turns up at sound check, strolls the gig with his assistants taking notes, listens to the sound, checks the toilet facilities, the first aid service, water supplies, security teams etc, its all about catering for the audience in the best possible way. That’s why A.M. P. ~(Andrew McManus presents) is one of the great success stories in Australian entertainment. As Harvey Goldsmith, Andrews fellow ‘do’er of good’ in the UK says
“ You ain’t a proper promoter till you’ve lost a million quid on a gig “ That’s the real point, real promoters put their money where their mouth is and don’t always win, but when they do its a great gig to be part of. And our business wouldn’t exist without them.
As we approach the Rotorua Stadium we are knocked back by the sheer size of the crowd, think of Wembley Stadium packed to the roof although I’m told it’s merely a thirty-five thousand-person capacity and its full. Its not that we haven’t played lots of gigs like this before It’s just very exciting to be playing down here again. As we drive back stage The Wailers are mashing up the crowd with an extended version of ‘Exodus’ Elan playing up to the huge crowd and everything feels good. Its only a matter of minutes before we get the call from Paul, “ fifteen minutes everybody “, we change into our stage clothes, tune the horns, Norman gets his hair done by Sonia the newest member of the crew. Laurence blows the cobwebs out of his horn, some big super high octave notes. Caroline Summers our last wardrobe mistress has called it a day while she stays at home to have a baby; Paul Hunter is the proud father to be. We are all looking forward to another little UB40 baby, but pull Paul’s leg about how hard it is going to be like the experienced Dads we are (how predictable), truth is I would love another little kid, two or three even running round the house, I missed that while mine were growing up, we were always on the road. Of course we will miss Caroline she’s a great girl and had a very calming effect on the back stage atmosphere, especially when the Diva’s were getting all important about themselves, She could suppress a hissy fit in seconds, stop a swinging handbag with a few well chosen words of a ‘put downable’ nature anyway this is Sonia’s first gig with us but she seems to be taking it all in her stride, she comes from the theatre so this is easy stuff, usually she has a cast of hundreds to dress for the stage . I walk over first just to check it all out, and in turn blow a few cobwebs out of my tenor horn, its an incredible scene all these thousands of people just dancing to our ‘ Dub Sessions ‘ album that only took two weeks to put together, and is selling like hot cakes at the gigs even made number two on the iTunes download chart. We had to have something to promote on our UK tour, as our studio album Twentyfourseven was put back to accommodate the release of Ali’s solo album even though we had a sell out tour all lined up.
Of course standing there on the side of the stage with a smile like a cheshire cat is Andrew McManus, checking right up to the last minute that all is well. I shake his hand and he say’s “ What a perfect night for music “ he’s absolutely right, all the stars have lined up in perfect conjunction to give us a wicked starlit event, the southern sky is very different from our northern hemisphere constellation , the southern cross can be clearly seen up there. As we line up behind the back drop, there’s a few pre gig nerves being brought under control, some of the guys have a cigarette, some a spiff, some stroll up and down, Ali swigs back a big glass of white wine then its time. We hit the stage to our new intro tape, its a medley of some of our hit tunes orchestrated by Martin Meredith, in fact we used it on our 2007 UK tour and he received a million compliments, and lots of requests to purchase it, its the perfect arrangement to get us all ready to play, we open with our first single ‘ food for thought ‘ the crowd goes totally ballistic, I’m not joking when I say I couldn’t hear my self play over the roar from the crowd. And that’s pretty much how the whole gig went, they sang along word perfect to every song and even joined in with the ones they had never heard before by the time we hit the last chorus. Astro as always gives himself over to the audience, Ali played up to the crowd more than he has for months, I’m pleased because it only reflects on him when he is uncommunicative, and when he plays the crowd he show’s them just how good an entertainer he can be, there were a lot of comments in both the press and on our web site about him not talking or making contact with the audience on our 2007 UK winter tour and I think it damaged his reputation as a musician, But he’s making up for it tonight.
Before I‘m ready to leave, the gig is over. We are about to go back on for an encore, Paul tells us “you have to cut it down to two numbers or we will go over the curfew “ Shit we wanted to play the audience ‘ Ill be There’ a number from our next album 24/7, not released for another few months, so we finish with ‘Kingston Town’ the crowd sang along with my instrumental solo at the beginning, and ‘Maybe tomorrow ‘ just so we could experience the crowd doing their incredible chorus. They sing this chant over the horn riff that makes us all smile, a little bit nervously at just how powerful this thing is, I’m wondering at this point will we ever come back to New Zealand and hear this again? Who Knows? For now I just feel privileged to have been tonight.