Simon Rushworth
All this month Quireboys‘ guitarist Paul Guerin is giving RUSHONROCK readers the lowdown on life on the road.
In the latest instalment of his must-read diary the lads check into Pekin, Illinois and PG does a Def Leppard fan the ultimate favour…
Look out for news on the band’s trips to Richmond and Nashville here soon…
Up at the crack of Jack and off we headed to Pekin – a smooth journey with nothing but corn to gaze at. Good job I’ve got my book.
I’ve been trying to talk to Trish (my wife) for days but Skype, viber, FaceTime and my trusty pigeon have all failed me. I can’t help wondering how on earth they sent men to the moon in the 1960s in a tin bucket with the equivalent technology of a Casio digital watch but I can’t do an ET and phone home…booo.
We pulled up outside the venue (Goodfellas) and what was next door ? A dollar shop….back of the net! After 30 mins of buying shite that I don’t need I checked out the venue – a huge room with the stage at one end and a stack of pool tables at the other with what seemed like the cast of the Dukes of Hazard all drinking and playing pool. This is real America…brilliant.
But as they say ‘you can’t win em all’. The sound crew hadn’t got a clue what they were doing which made for a very frustrating soundcheck. How the sound engineer couldn’t hear what resembled the foghorn I used to listen to at night in Blyth when I was little is beyond me. Luckily they smoothed things out during the support act’s set, a great band called ….Great Affairs.
I hit the stage expecting all sorts of feedback etc. but it actually turned out to be one of my favorite gigs so far. The band were tight as two coats of paint, Spike was kicking up a storm and the crowd were loving it.
We had a meet and greet and got chatting to some great people who were so pleased we were back in America . One lady had all of Def Leppard’s portraits tattooed on her back so I took a photo of it and mailed it straight over to Joe Elliott. He promptly replied with his seal of approval which made her day. It’s nice to be nice.
Apparently the Sex pistols played this joint on their ‘78 American tour. I bet they didn’t get the friendly reception that we got…
PG
* The Quireboys’ new album Black Eyed Sons is out now!
* Click here for a full list of tour dates in 2014.