Amy Winehouse_ The Biography - Chas Newkey-Burden [73]
Meanwhile Janis spoke out, too, saying, ‘My heart goes out to her. She’s under immense stress over Blake’s imprisonment. I wouldn’t hesitate to tell her to pull out if I feared she was in danger. I don’t want Amy destroying herself. But I think she will get by and come through what is a terribly lonely time for her right now.’ She also blamed Blake for Amy’s woes, saying, ‘Everyone else can see it, but Amy chooses not to. I think he introduced her to them [drugs] and now she thinks, “Oh, this is good, this is OK.” I think she’s still a child. Personally, I think it’s overtaken her a bit.
‘I step back, look at life and think, “Well, they’ve put him away.” I can see life taking care of the situation. I was more worried when they were together. I think, while they’re apart, she’ll wake up and think, “What have I done?” Again, it’s a sense of fate. Thank God he’s gone inside, because it’s also a case of now he’s going to learn.’
And so to Scotland, for the second date of her UK tour. As a spokesman for the Glasgow Barrowlands venue was expressing concern over whether Amy would show up for the concert – ‘There is a worry that she will not front with everything that’s going on,’ he said; ‘it would be a tremendous shame if she didn’t play’ – Amy was boarding a flight to Glasgow. She reportedly nipped into the toilets for a crafty smoke, prompting a bitchy announcement over the intercom from one of the flight crew. ‘Our famous little friend is smoking in the toilet,’ said the air hostess. ‘It’s just that the smoke alarm hasn’t gone off yet.’ A fellow passenger said Amy seemed to be under the influence of something. ‘She was lolling in her seat and looked totally out of it. She kept locking herself in the toilet. Other passengers were having to troop to the other end of the plane and were getting annoyed.’ After disembarking at Glasgow Airport, Amy became annoyed with her security guard. ‘What the fuck is this airport all about?’ she screamed at him.
There were screams, too, as she took to the stage at Glasgow Barrowlands later that night. The audience gave her a deafeningly warm welcome and the relief on not just her face but those of her band was clear. Wearing a stunning silk dress, she told the crowd, ‘This is the second night of the tour but it feels like the first. I love you, Glasgow.’ Once more, she dedicated ‘Wake Up Alone’ to Blake and said, ‘This song is for those people who are lucky enough to wake up every morning with the person they are in love with. This one’s for my husband. I love you. I love you, too, Glasgow.’
As she introduced the closing number, ‘Valerie’, she said, ‘I might not be able to be with my Blake in a minute. But let me tell you something: my husband is the best man in the world.’ As she took her much-deserved bows, she paid tribute to the crowd, saying, ‘Thank you so much for having us. I mean it, and I’m sorry I was late.’
The following night’s performance at the Barrowlands was also well received, with one fan describing it as ‘flawless and fantastic’.
Could this performance herald a calming in the media coverage of her? No chance, especially as a video was uploaded to YouTube which, it was claimed, showed her snorting drugs during a concert performance. The footage shows her retrieving something from her beehive and holding it near her nose. It was taken during her performance at Zurich in October. The conclusion that she must have been taking drugs onstage was reached too quickly. She could just as easily have been wiping her nose with a tissue; the footage is inconclusive. At least the Sun managed to get a clever pun out the episode, asking: IS AMY MIS-BEEHIVING? The same newspaper also claimed that, as the tour bus left Glasgow, some clingfilm wrapped in burnt foil was thrown out of the window.
Then news broke that a sixth man, Michael Brown, had been