What happens on tour stays on tour... right? Wrong!The Shooting Tsars have reformed after a decade apart. Here are the unedited, unsanitised, unsavoury and unexpurgated diaries of a man back on the rock 'n' roll merry-go-round after a decade in exile ... and he doesn't seem to enjoy it one little bit!
Meet the reluctant and grumpy rock star, his dysfunctional band, a dodgy manager and the reunion tour from hell! Jump on board for an acerbic and hilarious tale of life on the road.
Excerpt: I've already explained how important it is to keep one's body adequately fuelled, hydrated and exercised while touring. But, I forgot to mention another equally important rule. One must keep the brain engaged! The mind must be stimulated on a daily basis to ward off the ravages of dementia and senility. The fact is, life on the road can be extremely boring most of the time. From hotel room to coach, from coach to hotel, from hotel to drug dealer, from drug dealer to brothel, from brothel to sound-check; the whole thing can become mind-numbing. And then there's the added danger of inadvertently talking to the roadies-this sort of interaction can leave one with permanent brain damage.
I use two methods to keep my grey matter regenerating at an exponential rate.
Firstly, I ponder the questions that have plagued humankind since the dawn of time. Questions the great philosophers have wrestled with over the aeons. Names like Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche, Confucius and Jean Paul Gaultier have all tackled the eternal dilemmas. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Did I turn the oven off? And the biggest conundrum of all-why did Geordie only pack two pairs of underpants for an eight-week tour? These questions can keep my mind occupied for at least a two minutes each day.
Secondly, I tackle a cryptic crossword on a daily basis... once my hangover has subsided. You really need to think outside of the square, in front of the box, inside the circle and at forty-five degrees to the hypotenuse to complete a cryptic. Unfortunately, today there was one clue I could not complete no matter how long I spent on it. The clue was thus; "take the last shuttle, lose room while dancing, and turn the water off". I know, I know! You'll all be laughing at my stupidity-it's so blindingly obvious now!However, it led to a most embarrassing incident during tonight's gig. We'd finished our third song, and the applause and cheering were slowly fading away when the answer came to me in a blinding flash. I unwittingly yelled into the microphone, "BALLCOCK!" Now, bear in mind, there were over forty thousand people in the audience tonight, plus a film crew, plus "A" and "B" list celebrities, lesser-known royals (of which there are many), my mother, my girlfriend and record company executives. For a few ghastly seconds, the whole arena fell completely silent. They must have wondered whether I had developed the rapid onset of Tourettes. Even my fellow band members, who are more than used to my stranger moments, eyed me with cryptic suspicion. But at least I completed the damn crossword!
