Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [37]
impatiently. Nick sucked smoke deep into his lungs, his heart pummelling. His forebodings were momentarily gone: this was the most exciting band in the world, bar none. He’d seen the Pistols, and they had been scorching; he’d seen the Damned and their cartoon chaos; he’d seen the strutting Clash; he’d seen The Ruts before Malcom Owen bought the farm. Nothing was as powerful as this bunch.Nothing.
They were beyond being a mere band, that much was obvious.
They were hate incarnate. They were fury, revulsion, wildness, fear: everything that made your blood bump.
And here they were now.
The restlessness of the crowd ceased. Silence.
‘This is desecration... ‘ hissed Jo, standing up to get a better view over the crowd.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Jimmy. ‘Great, innit.’
Jo was suddenly pulling at Sin’s hand. ‘Come on, let’s get up the front,’ she burbled with youthful glee. Sin clasped her hand and followed willingly. Nick watched as the two girls pushed their way through the unconventional throng. For a moment - and it was just a brief moment - his doubts returned. Come back, you bitch. Can’t you see what they’re doing to you?
What they’re doing... to me?
Then he was on his feet too, Jimmy with him, as the four musicians made their way through the gravestones to collect their weapons.
At first the crowd remained silent, then it was as if there was one collective inhalation of breath, held for a fistful of electric seconds, which was released with a titanic roar as the singer took his place behind the microphone stand, gripped it tight in one fist.
Dying sunlight flared from his wraparound shades, sparked on the cymbals behind him. All four musicians were wearing tattered black overcoats like Western-style dusters over their mummer tassels. They looked more bizarre, and more threatening, than ever. The singer had a dark stetson rammed on his green punk 92
hair. Leather gloves with metal spikes adorned his hands. He coughed hoarsely into the mike and the crowd ceased their baying.
The guitarist leant against a headstone to the singer’s left, top hat askew on his head, its crown flapping in the breeze. His minstrel trousers were smeared with dark stains. The skinhead drummer lowered himself on to his stool, tombs flanking him. The bassist, taller than anyone Nick had ever seen, struck a few notes from his instrument, grinned evilly at the audience and began a threatening riff.
This was it.
This was why they followed the band.
Adrenaline terror and joyous aggression caught him up like a doll in a cyclone as the band blasted into their first number. Nick was jettisoned into hell, screaming orgasmically, his brain a pounding thing that would burst like a squeezed orange any second, his heart drilling through his chest. He was on fire, he was the coldest he’d ever felt, he had the biggest hard-on imaginable. He was in love.
He was in hate.
And the world would fall apart, and nothing mattered hut this inferno of incredible ragesound.
Nothing mattered.
Yes, this was it. This was what made it all worthwhile.
In the prosperous heart of Bristol’s financial district, the decorous wine bar the Money Tree was the place to parade your pinstripe.
Stockbrokers, insurance brokers, commodity brokers and bankers - the cream of the young Turks - honoured the extravagant drinking hole with their presence. The bar was a converted bank, its vaulted walls echoing now with cultured tones and braying laughter instead of the subdued bustle of weekday transactions. The best designer suits, the best haircuts - not too long, not too short, conservatively caught between the battling late Seventies fashions; market dealers not yet in their thirties taking time off
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from hustling the fiscal streets to pose at marbled tables and pontificate with ruthless peers.
There were also the poor imitations of course: the ambitious shadows, emulating their heroes with sycophantic precision.
Junior execs who would most likely not progress much beyond that level; bank clerks and sales reps rubbing shoulders with