… time passes …

… a year or so goes by… I’m in England… kindof fucked, kindof stuck – by this point I was living in a squat in fucking “Pimlico”… which happened because I befriended Ant – who’s girlfriend worked in the anti-squatting department of the local council, so had a list of the best places to squat, so we chose the one at the top of the list… posh neigbourhood (posh neighbourhoods are shit).

And then me and Thompson (actual name Susan, but I call her Thompson, because my heart is breaking – her surname is Thompson)… went to this massive gig in Finsbury park in London.

It was fucking pandemonium.

It started out in daylight, it wound up dark. The videos of it are kindof blurry:

Mary’s band – I can remember fucking Clint getting up on stage in his underpants (which was disturbing – boxer shorts weren’t invented yet), and dancing about.. and after the first song Mary was all “Ok Clint, fuck off now, we’ve got to get on with the gig”, and Clint was like “No way man, I’m here for the innings”.

Which he was for a bit. Sometime later during Clint’s gig someone was gobbing at the other singer guy, and he just looked at him for a bit… judging him etc, then jumped off the stage and fucking punched the cunt.

I was so impressed I almost fell over sideways. This moment would come back to haunt me.

And Hawkwind played – with actual Lemmy etc – some audience random climbed up the central supporting structure and wouldn’t come down even tho they shouted at him thru the PA and such… eventually shot him with a laser-beam from the lighting rig, and he fell off like an autumn leaf… even though lighting-rig laser-beams are basically really bright, concentrated flashlights.

I drunk a ton of cider.

I had never seen so many weirdos in my life. It was brilliant – back in NZ everyone was a total cunt from the 80s. (Me and Thomspon called them “custard squares”. They looked liked the fucking pet-shop boys or whatever – their trousers came up past their belly-buttons. God I hated those people.)

This was new – there was about 30,000 people who were just like us.

I wrote a letter to my old band back in NZ… (Phones had been invented yet) – I told them to come over.

It was going to be brilliant. It was going to be funny and exciting etc. There are 30,000 weirdos just like us. Come over.

So I wrote that on a piece of paper, put a stamp on it, and they came.

…………………………..

Vicky.

If you google Acid Daze, her photo floats to the top. Here’s the link to the guy who took it.

We met about 2 years later – 25 years later, I still get flashbacks. She’s got a smile that curls up at the edges and it makes my whole heart/brain turn to a cross between sherbet and jello – she’s as clever as fuck, and I love her and I miss her.

About 10 years after we broke up we were in a band together – she sacked me after about a month for being a drunken cantankerous wanker, and I can’t argue with that – I was well into the downward arc at that point. I’ve got a couple of MP3s of her band… they’re really good. Smoky, misty-eyed… one day I’ll post them here (or they’ll be lost like tears in rain), but not today.

Meantime… I told The Wild Poppies they should to come over, and they did.

Which kindof surprised me at the time. Still. There it is.