HERE I GO AGAIN On The Road
WHITESNAKE/UFO legend Bernie Marsden recalls the highs, lows and baggage-carousel neurosis of touring
Charlie Watts once inadvertently summed up life on the road, when he answered a question about how long he’d been with The Rolling Stones. He said: “About 25 years. Five years of playing and 20 hanging about!”
I know exactly what he meant, and many others will understand if they have ever been on the road. Sure, it’s a wonderful thing to play the guitar for a living, but never forget that it’s also a job. I’m not comparing it with clocking in at 8am every day of the week and leaving at 5pm, but at least there you know when work starts and work ends.
When I turned professional at the age of 21 (at the end of 1972), everything was magical. I grew up in a town where you could count the number of cars on the road every day and so, to me, even traffic jams were enjoyable. Riding in a Cadillac along the whole length of the A5, the M1 or any new motorways, or starting a long trip to Scotland, Cornwall or Haverfordwest was initially exciting. The fuel was cheap and time seemed to evaporate into thin air… at least at the beginning. As the first few months of excitement dulled down, I realised that the job was going to be very hard work. Nobody ever believes that musicians work hard, but take it from me – they do.
The first time I played in Europe was with my first pro band, UFO. I flew to Frankfurt and the UFO crew had been on the ferry from the UK a couple of days before us in a three-ton truck with PA and backline heading to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. This was the first tour I embarked on and all was splendid. The foreign food, cold beers, cheap wine, a vastly superior motorway food service, my first time in hotels, hotel maids, angry managers, taking LPs, signing glossy band pictures, encountering people who would do literally anything for tickets for the gigs and, most valuable of all, a pair of Levi’s jeans to get you through the East German border as fast as possible! I knew nothing of carnets – a temporary import and export licence, a document that allowed the roadies
to take in our equipment – but in those old days the truck would be fully searched for any East German looking to emancipate themselves from the regime. Looking back, significant political events more or less passed over my head at the time, something I look back on with a little shame.
Currents & Currency
In the 70s, it was almost a necessity to take your own gear to Europe, and that always posed problems. I wince these days to think of my precious Gibson Les Paul being thrown, night after night, into the truck after a gig. I never gave it a second thought as I knew the boys would look after it, which they always did.
The electrical power in Spain would radically change in different parts of the country, and so the crew took various transformers to try and tackle this problem, but sometimes the worse would happen and a Marshall would blow up. This happened big-time in Germany, but the people at the old factory at Bletchley were very good at getting a replacement sent out within a couple of days, or they would contact a local dealer to borrow an amp. I never missed a show because of a broken amp, and how those boys kept the trucks running was a near miracle.
Another big problem was currency, and it felt like we were forever changing money. During my first time in Italy, I was most confused when I received some small sweets for change. I then understood that the amount was so small and insignificant that I should instead have a sweet and a smile – which I did! Being in Switzerland the first time was eye-opening in more than one way. Being on very low wages, the UFO boys warned me how expensive the country was. I checked in our hotel and thought I was clever and ordered a freshly squeezed orange juice. That was half a week’s wages in one drink. I soon learned.
As my career progressed, travelling in the band van or car became less frequent as more regular aeroplane tickets were used. I then became very familiar with the terrible wait at the airport carousel. Bag after bag would come around and you would stand and stare as your guitar didn’t arrive. As the rush of panic began to set in, a local baggage handler would arrive with a smile on their face and your guitar safely in their hand. Back in those days, the airline staff pretty much observed the ‘Fragile, Handle With Care’ stickers.
The Carousel Blues
Micky Moody was a perennial worrier at these times, and he always assumed that his guitar would not show up. I remember one Moody Marsden Band show when both of our guitars failed to show on the dreaded carousel. After waiting a very long time we gave up, and it turned out that the guitars were still in London. The airline assured us they would be with us the next day, but what use was that with a gig that night? We went out to be met by the promoter who called a friend, who had a friend, who called a friend, and apparently, someone literally broke into a shop to get two guitars for us to use at a festival. The show must go on!
I have talked to a lot of younger musicians of late about such things, and there has been a big change as far as ‘The Carousel Blues’ is concerned. The consensus these days seems to be if your guitar doesn’t show up you can cope, but if your pedalboard is missing, the show gets cancelled.
There are always salutary tales, though. I flew to Ireland a few years back for the Rory Gallagher Festival. I was waiting for the guitars to come through. They duly arrived and I picked up the electric and acoustic guitars, both in travel cases, I add. The acoustic Washburn 12-string I have used for many years was in two pieces inside the case; the head was broken cleanly away from the neck. I took it to the baggage office and was met by a lovely and burly red-faced Irishman looked at the sad sight. “Oh, what a shame,” he said. That was it from him. I tried in vain to get him to accept responsibility for the airline’s handling, but he was having none of it and told me to complain when I returned to London the next day. I did so, but the nice Irish lady smiled and said, “You should have sorted this in Ireland.” I have never flown with the airline again, no matter how cheap the flight is! I had the guitar repaired, it was later broken again, but I’m still using it today.
You’ve probably seen the video of the USA baggage handlers throwing a guy’s guitar around after landing, and I have seen the same thing in real-life on more than one occasion, but I like to think that it’s unusual… well, I hope it is, anyway. Ultimately, the best thing that you can do when travelling with a guitar is to keep your hands on it. Joe Bonamassa is known to regularly buy a ticket for a Mr Gibson to sit next to him, as we all know he has some fantastic guitars, and my credit goes out to him for using them out on the road, which is where I think we began this column.
“As the first few months of excitement dulled down, I realised that the job was going to be very hard work…” BERNIE MARSDEN