A day in the life

Oh the joys of being a musician. Last night Paul and I turned up at the pub armed with Guitars. As we walked in this guy, obviously drunk, came up to greet us.
“Hey whens you’s guys playing? You’s guys are fucking great.” he’s pumping my hand with a vice like grip. Oh the joy of being famous and being recognised. “Remember me?” he went on. “I was at the front table when you’s guys played the Wheatsheaf.”
“Yeah great.” I said.
He turns around and shouts to whoever would listen “Fuckin top man this”, and he has his arm round my shoulder like we’re best mates or summat, but all I want is for him to go away. He’s a big fella, close cropped hair and a Ben Sherman shirt. “That’s my dad.” He says pointing to an equally drunk guy leaning heavily on a table. “Yo Dave!” he shout’s, then confidentially to me, repeats “That’s ma da’.”
Dave comes over and they play fight a bit, sparring, a bit of ducking and diving. Then they sit down. We order drinks and Ben Sherman man comes over a few more times to tell us how “Fucking awesome we are.” I just want to tell him to “Fuck off. “ but I stay polite and patient.
Simona turns up with his Bongos and Gibson J200 guitar, then Mike Fowler with his Gibson Epiphone Electric semi acoustic. We start playing and get through a few songs. The verve, REM, Stereophonics, U2. Suddenly there’s screaming and shouting. Ben Sherman man is flying across the room fists clenched, he crashes into a table occupied by a local football team having a post match pint or two, they’re really upset about their beer being knocked over. They all stand. One of them gets an elbow in his ribs. It’s enough, he wades in. Meanwhile Ben Shermans father picks up a chair to throw but it’s knocked out of his hand before he can swing it. The Landlord wades in and gets the shirt ripped off his back for his trouble.
We’re sitting there watching in disbelief. Mike Fowler breaks into “The Lion sleeps tonight.” And I sit back and savour the moment where we’re all playing and singing “wimoway, wimoway, wimoway.” while all around there is carnage. Chairs flying and fists blazing. The football team descend on Ben Sherman man, they have him on the floor, he’s given a good kicking, people give him a boot as they walk past, just because they wanted to. The biggest footballer is sitting on his chest telling him to calm down. But he wont be calmed, he’s still thrashing away so they kick him some more. The girlfriends are screaming to let him get up and the father is still waving a chair around and we’re still singing “Wimoway wimoway”.

It’s just another day in the life of a musician

iPod now playing – Wonderful world by Louis Armstrong