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On The Piss With The Bay City Rollers

It was sometime during the years of '96 and '97 whilst promoting gigs at The Witchwood in Ashton Under Lyne that I made the inspired decision to promote some shows for the Bay City Rollers, those tartan pants wearing teeny bop sensations of the 70's.

It was quite a thing for me, and in a way not too dis-similar from inviting the old school bully round for tea. You see, when I was at school I hated the Bay City Rollers with a passion. For whilst I was going through teenage desperation craving the attention of girls, the girls were themselves at that time totally smitten by Les, Eric, Alan, Derek and Woody. And why? Because they wore tartan pants that's why. They didn't even go to our school and yet without even cracking one good joke in class or chatting the charm at the rain-soaked school bus stop, they had the doting love and affection of every girl I took a fancy to.

It kinda surprised me then that when our paths crossed many years later, the Bay City Rollers and I got on really well. The band had acrimoniously split some years earlier, and singer Les McKeown had gone off to live on the back of his own Rollers touring show. I had however been offered the opportunity to work with Eric Faulkner, Stuart Wood and Alan Longmuir, three original members who formed the backbone of the Bay City Rollers as they were at that time (rumour is that Les has since rejoined the band).

It was quite a risk taking on this show as I had shaped The Witchwood as a venue known for new bands and lookalike tribute shows, and to actually bring in such a mainstream pop band in their later years was quite an unknown venture. I did however stick my neck and took the band on a two night stint, knowing I would be flying in the face of severe financial difficulties should the tickets not sell.

I'll never forget the look on good friend Brian Mitchells face when I told him I had booked the Rollers. In his mid 30's, Brian begged me for his band Yootha Joyce to be granted the support slot and of course I obliged. To say that Brian jumped up and down like a spoilt brat with a choc ice is an understatement.

And so to the shows - what a scream! Women who in their younger days had thrown their knickers at the stage had shopped especially at Marks And Spencers to buy new knickers for the occasion. Now a little more mature, some with their husbands along for the ride, they threw them, mostly I must add without even bothering to remove the price tags.

It was a great opportunity to chat with the Rollers and I got on particularly well with Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood. Away from the post-gig hysteria which even in this watered down state was still quite frightening, I gathered first hand reflections of pop stardom from two of the pioneers of teeny bop pop sensationalism.

Firstly Eric struck me as a man bothered by the poison of the music industry. The split with McEwan and the ongoing legal wrangles to find thousands in 'lost' royalties had obviously taken it's toll and I would recommend any new boy or girl band to sit in with Eric for 30 minutes and to learn some of the harsh realities of the music business. For someone of his stature in the world of UK pop to be still on the road was not below him, for here he was still putting heart and soul into his performances. There was still however a sense of bitterness, not towards his fans who still worshipped his music and presence, but aimed at faceless suits, lawyers and the like who had been the pariahs of his life and career.

Stuart 'Woody' Wood was a man with a much more relaxed sense of well-being, a man who was deeply in love and missing his newly acquired wife. In my own naïve way I was at first surprised by this, perplexed that a man with so many adoring females should take the love and marriage road. But then of course I realised that my own cynicism and lack of faith in human nature was at this point letting me down badly. Our conversation veered swiftly away from the pop thing and to the more realistic issue of separation from a loved one due to work, to what had been for him a beautiful and moving wedding and without fear of shadows from the past, to the future. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Woody, what a really nice man.

And so, when was it you might ask that we went 'on the piss'? It was actually on the third night for having played two storming shows back to back at The Witchwood, Alan Longmuir and Stuart Wood chose to stay in Ashton an extra night and more specifically, to come out on the town with Brian Mitchell, the chaps from Yootha Joyce and myself.

The night started with us ducking away from an early doors punch-up in The Witchwood front bar (a very rare occurrence back in those days). We went on into Ashton town centre where I proceeded to tell every bar maid I knew who I was out on the town with (sad, yes) and the night ended with staggering liquor swilling in the company of Big Friday DJ Ant Atkinson back at The Witchwood.

Ant played a lot of 70's that night so it kinda became like The Twilight Zone in there for a while. I can honestly say it was a strange but pleasant experience that would only have been stranger if we had been 5 miles away in Glossop, the home town where I had spent those somewhat emotionally traumatic school days, plagued by The Bay City Rollers.