The Roadies:

Pete Buckland (28), chief roadie and tour manager. Trained as an engineer, he first went on the road with the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation and has been with the Faces ever since they reformed minus the “Small” and Steve Marriott.

Royden Walter “Chuch” Magee III (25), from Oxford, Michigan, was managing the In Club in Van Wert, Ohio, when he met Russell U. “Russ” Schlagbaum (23) from Ottoville, Ohio, lead singer with the Blueberry Circus. They subsequently worked for several bands, including Frijid Pink, and formed Rent-A-Roadie before meeting the Faces in San Antonio, Texas, in 1971. Chuch joined the road crew that October and Russ hitched up the following July.

Andy Mills (22), left school at 16 to become a motor mechanic in Watford, Herts. As a roadie he worked his way up from $50-a-night bands to Black Sabbath, the Incredible String Band and Stonegtound, then spent six months working for John Morris at London’s Rainbow Theatre. He joined the Faces crew just for this tour.

Larry O’Neill (24) from Philadelphia. Worked for the Sundown Theatre house crew, then became a roadie for Stumble, the band that supported the Faces throughout the tour. Since his band’s equipment was packed in the Faces’ truck, he travelled with their road crew.

Introduction

Me, I’m twenty-five, six foot three, and a few pounds over 200. Those seemed like good enough qualifications for the job, though when I’d laid the same notion on Ten Years After’s chief-roadie some weeks before, he’d said it would take a month to learn, to pull weight. But they were good enough that when I went to the Faces ’ office to meet Pete Buckland, he’d already booked me into hotels for the whole tour.

The moment I passed through the splintered doors - my first encounter with this crew’s capacity for demolition - I received some ominous instructions: “Don’t ever leave your room unlocked, and tell the desk clerk at every hotel that no-one — but no-one - has permission to have a passkey.” This came from Mike Gill, the Faces’ publicist, and it was cause enough for some quick second thoughts.

Nevertheless, I turned up for rehearsals at the Fishmonger’s Arms, Wood Green, on a cold, damp Monday afternoon the week the tour was due to begin. I got there well after the scheduled two o ’clock start, but I needn’t have worried. The Faces didn’t arrive until after four, and even then weren ’t keen to work. They fooled around a bit, and left shortly after five.

The band did better on Tuesday, but then it was their last chance to polish up before the tour. The other difference front the day before was that the bunch of kids who’d seen the flash cars and heard the music on Monday had told their friends. When Rod stepped into the doorway for a change of air, the windows of the school across the way grew faces in a hurry and, come the four o’clock bell, the road outside was jammed with kids calling his name and scrawling their love in the dirt on his car.

Day 1

Pete had said he’d pick me up at seven AM, and he couldn’t have been more than two minutes late. Andy and Larry were already in the car. Here I should explain the transport arrangements; Chuch and Russ always drove the equipment, while the rest of us were granted the use of a slightly cramped Volvo Estate. I piled into the back seat and we were off for Scotland, and the site of the first gig.

Dinner at the hotel that night was my first encounter with the double-takes that were to become commonplace as the tour wore on. There we were, t-shirted at a table for six, with a roomful of Scottish straights rubbernecking as if we’d crapped on their cordon bleu. Russ took his flu to bed after the meal, but Andy, who’d been appointed Social Secretary for the night, had lined up a discotheque for the rest of us.

As it turned out, Wednesday was Dance Night. Inside there was a race to snatch a booth. No need. It was nine o’clock, and our only company was a lady disc jockey, a couple of waitresses and a foursome left over from a wedding somewhere that afternoon. After some crummy records, a band called Grass came on and did their best to outnumber the audience.

The main objective was of course to get anything in a skirt back to the hotel. As the evening wore on, however, the lads grew progressively rowdier; shouting and whooping, throwing ice beneath the dancers’ feet and goosing passers-by. The ladies weren’t exactly begging to come with us. This situation evidently wasn’t new to Pete, who remarked, “Why does it always happen? We always blow it with chicks because we get too rowdy.” By 11:30 the club was emptier than it had been at nine, and there were only three candidates for the trip back to the hotel. “Is there really a party there?”

I was doing fine back in my room until I forgot the warning and opened the door to Pete and Chuch. Giggling maniacally, they destroyed my room in two seconds flat. When they left, I was slow to close the door and just barely avoided a second attack with a fire extinguisher. I came across Chuch later, when he was ordering sandwiches t6 eat in Pete’s room. Feeling hungry, I stuck with him, but Pete’s door was locked. Inside, he and Andy sounded like they were engaged in a singularly unsuccessful attempt at persuasion. “I’ll scream. I will.” (Faint scream.) “I’ll scream louder.” She did. The door opened and she beat a hasty escape. When i left his room some time after two, Pete was still wondering why they always blew it.

Day 2

The problems started when Stumble arrived for their sound check. There vyas buzz on the organ, hum on the bass, and feedback flashing about like aural lightning. Larry was speeding around the stage, swapping leads and soldering connections; all he would say, through gritted teeth, was “It’s the first gig.” By chance it was discovered that the house electrician had run the stage power and the lighting through the same circuit instead of separate ones, causing an earth ldop. They were quickly split up. No hum. Everyone was relieved; the possible consequences of having all that interference when the band hit the stage were too dire to even think about.

There was nothing to do during Stumble’s set, but I hung around the side of the stage all the same. Pete, Chuch and Russ were in the dressing room slipping into their satin stage suits — trousers and waistcoat with FACES and their name in yellow on the back. Pete wore his only occasionally, but the others always added white shirts with gartered sleeves. Fancy indeed.

Most of the action took place between sets. Stumble used the Faces’ PA and Mac’s organ, but the amps and everything else were theirs and had to come off. The four vocal mikes were replaced by Stewart’s one monogrammed Shure on its aluminium stand (that’s how he juggles it without breaking a wrist or a head), and Kenny Jones’ drum kit was set up. The first sign of the band’s imminent arrival was the sight of John Barnes setting up bar on stage, with booze from two attache cases and a bucketful of ice. Barnes is boss of the limo company the Faces hire cars from, but this tour he was along as their personal road manager.

Finally the band breezed on to ecstatic applause, and my job then became to keep the side of the stage clear and make sure that no-one leaned on Mac’s Leslie box, which was parked there out of the way. Mac is extremely sensitive in this area, and at the end of “Too Bad” came bounding over to hustle people away from the instrument, although no-one had actually touched it. An aggressive little usher didn’t like being shoved and told Mac so. Mac didn’t like the usher and told him to watch his lip, son. The start of the next number broke it up and I promptly booted the usher off the stage.

That wasn’t the only heavy scene going on. Ever since the band’s appearance, kids had been swarming down to the front so you couldn’t tell seats from aisles. (When the hall cleared it was revealed that there weren’t any seats left down front, just a mess of sticks and horsehair stuffing.) The hall manager was completely beside himself. At the end he didn’t want the band to do an encore — they ignored him, though — he just wanted everyone out of his hall. And he didn’t want another rock concert there again. EVER.

Day 3

I wanted coffee, but it was tea that came in to wake me, then Pete called to say no time for breakfast. We were out on the frozen pavement before eight, numbly watching Pete shuffle cases into the back of the Volvo. When we finally reached Newcastle, we checked into the hotel but couldn’t stay any longer than it took to order a drink.

At the auditorium, Sandy turned up. Sandy comes from North London, wears owlish glasses and a serious look. She’s the Faces’ No. 1 Fan. Once when Pete and Chuch had limped through snow-drifted autobahns to a gig in Berlin, they found Sandy waiting patiently backstage. Another time she appeared in Switzerland. She would turn up at several more dates on this tour.

This gig I wasn’t going to let anybody onto the side of the stage, even though the Leslie was barricaded on a landing way up behind the stage. For the effort I was fortuitously rewarded with my first paper-cupful from John Barnes’ bar: about fifty-fifty brandy and coke. Not my favorite drink at the time, but one which, by the end of the tour, I could pour down my throat many times a night with both speed and pleasure.

Day 4

We usually stayed in the best hotels, but there must have been a mistake at Blackpool. The Norbreck Castle may have been the biggest, but there was no way it could’v^ been the best. The lights in the corridor didn’t go on; the room phones were out of order (“Oh, don’t worry, so are half the phones in the hotel”); the bedside lights didn’t work; the heating wouldn’t turn on, and there was pubic scum in the bath. We tried making a few... alterations, but things didn’t look any better in the morning.

Day 5

Fortunately, Blackpool has a better Opera House than hotels. Easy access, big stage, perfect acoustics. There was panic during the gig when, after the opening numbers, the crowd swarmed into the orchestra pit, where they were met by one ancient commissionaire instead of the thirty ushers Pete Bowyer had asked for. The police arrived backstage and Rod came off to talk to them. It seems he was a little nervous as well. But .there were no disasters; the kids had gotten as close as they wanted.

Back at the hotel there were uniforms in the lobby and a big dog that snarled and slobbered at anyone who came too close. Being rotten with the flu, I fell into bed and didn’t break consciousness until midday. Apparently that dog hadn’t done his job very well; I missed some more alterations to the hotel while I slept.

Day 6

What I didn’t miss was Chuch’s exit. He took a brick pillar and ten feet of wall with him.

Day 7

Qne of the hangups of touring near Christmas is that the best venues are often booked for pantomime. The Liverppol Empire was one, so the Faces had to play the Boxing Stadium — a place the size of an aircraft hanger, colder than a ten count and smelly as an old mitt. A scaffolding crew had been hired to construct a stage, but when Pete checked early it was just planks stuck out from the ring. So the whole thing had to be rebuilt, fifty feet wide with wings for the p.a. and thirty feet deep. We sat in a pub around the corner until they’d finished, then moved the gear in in twenty minutes flat — a tour record.

That night the music ricocheted through the rafters like artillery fire, but it was a fine show and most everybody was drunk. And what a party there was going to be at the hotel. The promotipn man from the Faces’ record company, John Darnley, left for the site with five girls, two more went with directions and a key, and we followed with another twQ. Wheeee!

I was pumping the cigarette machine, in the foyer when war broke out. What happened was that Andy stepped into the elevator with one of the girls, whereupon a night porter horned in on his tail to explain the house No Girls Upstairs rule. Wdll, Andy promptly slugged him full in the face, and Larry pulled him off just in time to prevent the rest of the night staff from jumping him. They’d phoned for the police, who breezed in moments later, but by then we’d pushed Andy into the elevator and had taken the girls to the lounge. Pete eventually cooled out the police and hotel porters, stuffing a fiver into the reluctant victim’s pocket.

Day 8

Due to some karmic series of coincidences, our public activities rarely passed unnoticed. Like our arrival at the Queens Hotel, Leeds. In the narrow slip road by the main entrance was just one space to park. When Pete pulled past and prepared to back in, a taxi nosed in behind us. We piled out, telling the cabby to haul ass, but he refused. Instead he went berserk and began to scream, “I know what you lot are, you’re. .. a bunch of scrubbers!” Then, turning to an adjacent bus to seek witness, he added with a crazed TV courtroom gesture, “And they know what you are, too. They know you’re scrubbers. They know!” He was probably still bellowing at the top of his lungs as we were checking into our rooms.

Day 9

The Town Hall was another bad venue: flights of stone stairs, a tiny stage, and, believe it or not, court in session as we were moving the equipment in. It took hours to shift the gear in, even though we had some local help (half of which dropped off when they realized that their efforts wouldn’t be rewarded with a personal audience with Stewart).

Days 10-13

The London gigs were on the following Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The first was at Brixton, the other two at Edmonton.

Brixton was a pain. The band was late, the auditorium hot as fever. By the end of the night I’d pulled more than thrity faint girls over the front of the stage (and they weren’t all lightweights, either).

Edmonton was easier, and flash to boot. There were a half dozen potted palms, mirrored balls, and a huge silver backdrop to the stage. Also an insane French circus troupe, who caused hysteria at the front of the full house before the bands came on with Roman Candles, Juggled Tits and a Fire Eater.

There was no circus at the second gig, but the Faces had been saving their best show. The crowd rushed the stage at the end, and we had to link arms to keep them from the band. Afterwards there really was a party, and a riotous game of soccer in which most of the players seemed to be on Rod’s side. I wasn’t and, outnumbered, got kicked worse than any Saturday afternoon player in the District League. Luckily, I Jiad three days to convalesce before the last two tour dates at Sheffield and Manchester.

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Day 17

Sheffield. Yes, after the show there was to be yet another party. By the time we’d finished packing the truck, though, the girls we’d lined up had left and the mood at the hotel was drab. Apparently, there’d been a row when Lane and Jones had insisted on going back to London, But we were still in a party mood and decided that John Darnly’s room would be as good a place as any. Rod, Woody and Mac were there too, and everyone had a (literally) smashing time. Everyone, that is, except John Darnley. He had eyes for two young ladies in the roorn,^ and didn’t even notice the closet cabaret act staged by Stewart and Wood. Also, he was frantic about what' Warner Brothers would say when they received the bill for damages to the room which had been mounting steadily.. In the end he lost both girls, but harminpp was restored when Stewart ordered the desk to charge the room the Pete Buckland.

Day 18

The Faces had played the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, before. As soon as Pete walked in, the house electrician remembered him and let out an agaonized scream. After the band’s last visit, it seems, a fire hose had been mysteriously left on, and it had taken several hours to drain the elevator shaft.

The Faces pulled off the best set of the tour and the crowd roared their recognition. As Rod put it, “Manchester, you’ve never let us down.” He was in an especially good mood anyway, since he’d been to Old Trafford that afternoon to watch the United soccer team and had met his^ supreme idol, Denis Law. Everything was good vibes and party hats.

The end of the final encore was a sad moment, but we packed up in a hurry to get to the last party. There was almost no drink left when we arrived and the band were about to leave. Rod started into “Auld Lang Syne,” and the song soon filled the room. A final knees-up chorus and that was it. We drifted back to the car, said goodbye and Happy Christmas to Chuch and Russ, and drove off. Toward home.

A week later I ^yas still having dreams about it. We were doing a gig in a posh hotel. There were naked girls all around, and by accident I knocked the Steinway off the edge of the stage. I looked round 'To see if anyone had noticed, but the rest of the roadies were on their hands and knees, ripping the carpet to shreds.