Colm Brady

Bryan Adams

"Bryan Adams is a Bollocks!"
The insult was delivered by a barechested skinny youth who had just handed over his fifty Euro ticket to see…Bryan Adams. Horace was standing at the end of a corral of metal barriers checking the incoming patrons.
His job for the day was to confiscate any alcohol and/or drugs from prospective concertgoers. In addition he had to remove the caps of all bottles as when full they were effective missiles (apparently).
He had got this gig after intensive training on how to search male punters for drugs and weapons, Horace had to admit this was not the career he had in mind when he was in college.
"Roi , its gonna get really busy in a minuh so just check the big bags for gargle – ok?"
Horace nodded at the speaker who looked like he could visit a world of pain on demand. Mickah was squat and middle-aged with a shaved head, tattoos and Oakleys that betrayed no emotion. He smoked players blue pretty much non-stop and had the liberties habit of easy familiarity with all the punters.
Horace had decided he liked Mickah as it was far less painful than not liking him. The dub had a certain charm (like a Rottweiler with a pink bow) and had years of experience at this concert business.
"The first thing ye have to learn is that people are sheep – if you can shift the first few the rest will follow, ok"
This was the first in a daylong soliloquy about the art of a snaking queue and its collective mood. As it happened the lane was opened and a couple hesitantly started down it looking nervously for approval. The other three lanes were full but people had avoided this one because it was empty previously –they now scrambled to get in.
"Baaaah"
The pioneering couple were dressed in expensive casual style – "I am cool but not enough to interfere with business" – said their clothes.
The guy leaned proprietarily into the girl despite the fact that the lane was one person wide. They didn’t look like they were carrying any rocketlaunchers or bottles of white lightning so he waved them on. He guessed they were 21 years old – the same age he had been the last time Bryan Adams played Ireland…..
Adams had been the headline act at FEILE 1992 in Thurles – Irelands Woodstock. The ticket had been forty pounds – well beyond the grasp of the youth of the country at the time. The crowd barriers had held back music heads dressed in unisex woolly jumpers and enormous doc martin boots.
He was awakened from his reverie by the arrival of a couple of tattooed young lads in black baggy shorts carrying a holdall bag.
"Any drink in the bag lads?"
"No way man" came the reply on the double.
"Give us a look then"
They scowled as he tried to lift the bag with one hand – Jesus it was heavy. He opened it to see some clothes, on lifting these he found six cans of Heineken and two flares with Chinese instructions.
"Gotta take these off ya I’m afraid"
Mickah nodded his approval and Horace couldn’t help feel that he had switched sides since 1992.
Then he had brought his uncles old (and incomplete he later found) tent and set it up in a beet field outside Thurles – so far so good. The problem was he and all his friends had brought a booze budget but had neglected to factor in food costs. They were in possession of bottles of gin carried all the way hitching from Galway and a can of club lemon – that was it for the night. They drank the gin in a tent that wasn’t Horace’s - his had collapsed pretty much immediately. Then the hunt for food had begun.
He looked up to see a figure making laboured progress between the barriers, in truth this guy was so wide he was nearly jammed.
"A bih of help there suh"
Horace obliged and shifted one of the barriers. He got a proper look at the behemoth as it approached. The man was tall like a mast with a huge torso hung from it,. He had a large head held in by a fisherman’s hat and no front teeth.
"Blessins oh god on ya suh – I’m thradin inside"
"Trading what?"
"Cowboy hats – look at me stall suh"
Sure enough a large stall had been set up inside the entrance selling all manner of said hats with sparkles, sequins, and feathers. It looked like the dressing room for Priscilla Queen of the desert after it was hit by a grenade.
The hat trader gave a cheery wave to the guards as he passed - obviously they had a professional relationship.
"Fuckin Pig Bastards" came the hissed comment once they turned away. Horace wondered how many hats could the guy sell and was brought back to his meeting with the Hare Krishnas in 92.
Word had got around that there was a big tent on the campsite giving out free food. They wandered through the beet field stopping only to uproot beets and throw them at each other. They soon came on a huge marquee with bongo drums and chanting coming from within. A bespectacled young man in saffron robes came to greet them.
"Would you like to pray with us"
"Nah, we are just here for the food – what have you got?" came the reply from a party clearly unused to dealing with other religions.
"We have porridge and, well that’s it"
"We heard that you put drugs in the food – is that true"
"I can assure you there are no drugs in the porridge"
"Ah well sure we will have some anyway"
2006: A big athletic guy came strolling down the queue wearing an expensive top that was almost but not quite cool. He was accompanied by a girl with a nose ring. Instead of Tickets they flashed wallets that proclaimed they were members of the drug squad. Behind his sunglasses Horace gaped. So many times he had heard tales of this shadowy organisation. He hadn’t touched a drug in years but still he wanted to grab them and scream.
"It was me, me I tell you …I ran the Medellin Cocaine Cartel, I supplied Bob Marley, Keith Richards has my number on speed-dial and all the rest".
He managed to restrain himself and turned to the gap-toothed trader and mouthed the word "Cops"
"I fuckin know ya eejit " came the unenunciated reply.
1992: "Right I am going to sing HARE HARE RAMA and then you are going to reply HARE HARE HARE, ok"
A huge roar of assent came from the porridge eaters and bongo dancers surrounding him. The robed man with the guitar raised his hand and the drumming became frantic.
"One…." Everyone danced in time with the drumming.
"Two…." The tension rose, something was about to occur, but what?
The guy with the guitar opened his mouth to speak but was intercepted by a communal roaring of the words "Pile on". He was instantly swamped in a mountain of bodies and only emerged after a few minutes with the neck and strings of his former guitar.
2006: A chain of six shiny people carrying a picnic hamper appeared in Horace’s queue. They were all tanned and impossibly glamorous. They looked at Horace in bemusement when he asked what was in the basket. The leader of this utopian flock shook his head.
"We have stand tickets- do you know how much that costs?"
"I have to check the basket or no entry"
Again the refusal and conferring whispers. Horace got the impression he had just committed a social gaffe. Any minute now yer man was going to ask him if he knew who he was.
"Excuse me do you know who I am?"
Mickah appeared in his customary puff of Players smoke and looked threatening.
"Roi, ye either open it or no entry and I do know who you are, fuckin nobody!"
The Adonis opened the container to reveal canapés and three bottles of champagne. Mickah growled and grabbed the bottles.
"Will we get them back after the show?"
"No bother just come to the main gate afterwards and you can get them."
The beautiful people moved on and Mickah took off with the champagne chuckling to himself.
"The missus loves this stuff"
1992: On the way across the campsite a campfire was burning and a large party surrounded it. Horace and the lads sidled up and nodded to the party folk. Beside the fire was a case of beer sitting on a seventies vintage couch – purple threadbare velour looking very out of place in a field. On the basis of a nod they took a beer and looked at the couch in a puzzled manner.
"That’s our travelling peace couch, where are ye from lads?"
"Longford, Offaly, Monaghan and Mayo"
"Right you three are in but we already have a Mayo person"
"We are in what exactly" asked Horace
"We want one person from each county…"
"North and South!"
"..One person from each county on the peace couch for a photograph and you three complete the set"
"What the fuck is a peace couch when it is at home?"
"Well when it is at home its just a couch but when you hitch from Armagh to Thurles with it it becomes a peace couch"
"Must be tricky enough getting people to stop I suppose"
"Yeah but at least you have somewhere comfortable to sit while you’re waiting"
"Well there is that"
After some discussion Dublin, Clare, Armagh and Leitrim sat on the couch to be sat on in turn by five more counties. Cork and Tipperary wouldn’t sit on the same level so Galway had to swap with Kerry.After much huffing and puffing all 32 counties formed a human pyramid on the teetering couch which lasted just long enough to be caught in the photograph. As the camera flashed the unsteady couch legs collapsed and the whole pyramid landed in a muddy laughing heap. The thirty-two counties swore undying love and promptly ran out of beer leading to a rapid dissolution. Such is politics.
To date nobody has come across the picture but thirty-two people remember it well.

2006: The guys who collect the tickets ahead of Horace turn and shrug as a furtive figure scoots past them. This specimen is sporting a Burberry cap, which is the uniform of the hat stand behind the gates.
"Hi Boss are you taking drink off de people comin in?"
"Yes that’s my job for the day man"
"Where do you keep it?"
"In a safe place" he replied thinking that Mickah looked after that.
"But sure you must have a stash for yourself?"
Horace kicked himself as he shook his head – he would know for the next time.
"You are a daycent man but ya bether wise up" spoke the traveller.
Horace nodded and let the man in.

1992: A lad they knew was working on a burger stand so they had a free burger with all the salad they could carry. Some would argue that taking a full tub of pineapple rings was excessive but you have to think of the future these dark days. They sat on a kerb munching happily.
"Where will we be next year"
"I got the Morrisson so Boston for Me"
"London"
"Me too"
"I got a job off FAS"
"A job!"
"Yeah but you don’t get paid"
"Screw that"
Horace watched people passing with the treasured wristbands that meant they could get into the concerts.
"Wouldn’t it be nice to have money?"
"And a car and a stereo.."
"And a computer"
"What would you want one of those gammy yokes for,for, for your JOB ahaaaaa"
"It will be a while before we can do this again anyway"
This met with an uncomfortable silence.
"We are missing nothing in the stadium anyway, that Adams lad is useless sure his career is over."
"Bryan Adams is a Bollocks anyway!"

posted by Colm Brady @ 9:48 PM