Simon Rushworth
All this month Quireboys‘ guitarist Paul Guerin is offering fans an exclusive insight into life on the road with one of the best live bands on the planet.
And with the group’s first North American tour in 20 years in full swing it’s fun all the way for a band celebrating 30 years at the top.
Look out for more fascinating insights all month…
Our travel day went swimmingly well. We were reunited with our merch and we had a TGI Fridays opposite our hotel where we spent the evening eating, drinking and having a right old laugh. And we made friends with Dean the ex-marine. Top bloke!
The traffic driving into Nashville was brutal due to the fact that One Direction were playing the enormodome – 50,000 revved up girls were on a mission. It was great to see the bat building again – what a skyline. Last time I was here was in 1996 with our Keith and we were recording with Bap Kennedy and Steve Earle. We stayed in the Spence Manor Hotel in the suite that Elvis always had when he was in town just off music row…magic darts.
The Rutledge Theatre is an impressive venue with a terrific sound engineer – Frank knew what he was doing. Things went slightly pear-shaped when the amp I was using blew up in soundcheck but thankfully Pat from Great Affairs lent me his Marshall so we were back on track pretty soon. We were hoping to head downtown for a couple of hours before the show but as usual time just zoomed by. Probably just as well as the heat and humidity was stifling .
Doors opened and the punters were flooding in. Then, to my surprise, in walked Chris Lamarka who I haven’t seen in 15 years! My jaw nearly hit the floor. The last time was in Tokyo when we were on tour with UFO and Michael Schenker flipped out, smashed his Flying V, stormed off stage and proceded to attack Mr Udo (not the wisest move). We were sent home the next day…tour cancelled. It was great to see him.
Grand Affairs did a storming set (check them out – you won’t be disappointed) and we hit the stage at 9.30pm. We were drenched by the end of the opening number…it’s hot in Nashville.
The sound onstage was great and the crowd were with us. As usual the set seemed to fly by. We came back on for an encore of Dirty Town and we were joined onstage by my friend and mentor Warner E Hodges, Stacie Collins on harp and our very own Cherry Lee Mewis.
Great fun was had by all and I love this town. A whole city dedicated to music doesn’t get much better than this.
I was thinking when I grow up I could go back to the North East clubs and do a one man country show and call myself Canny Rodgers or do a duet with Jesmond Decker. We could call ourselves the Symbolics and I could say ‘good evening Blyth, I’m Sym and he’s the Bollix’.
Tooodaloooo for noooo!
PG
* The Quireboys’ new album Black Eyed Sons is out now!
* Click here for a full list of tour dates in 2014.