Mosh pits, the British Grand Prix and THAT mullet

Watching the British Grand Prix (stay with me on this …) I was struck by how many rules and regulations there are just to get what is deemed a good race.  Exhaust gases blown out here, DRS activation zones there, certain types of tyre God knows where.  How different, I thought, from making music where no rules exist to make a magnificent noise in the race to get there.  You can mix and match any damn verse, chorus, middle eight or coda you like and nobody says you need a particular type of instrument, sound or rhythm.  Ain’t music brilliant?  4/4 or 7/8, theremin with shredding, it just doesn’t matter and even if the public doesn’t buy in to your odd mix of classic French poetry and gabba you can take your time in Sectors One to Four with, if you wish, only yourself against your own pit wall.

Digressing slightly,  I’ve long wanted to see national sporting events without restriction, a Grand Prix where McLaren could bolt a Merlin engine on the back as long as it didn’t rocket through the grandstand roof at the first corner.  Or even a Drug Olympics – I’d pay good money to see a man jump twenty feet in the air or run a hundred metres in four seconds …

Apologies … I’m completely off the point.

And so to a man who wrote a rule book of his own and stuck to it through thick and thin, abuse (mostly) and devotion, and who in recent years has been the subject of many an enquiry thus, “Where’s that bloke on the door with the mullet? You know, the cockney bloke with silver hair who invented ‘you’re not on the list’ and would even ID your Grandad”

Ah, you mean Steve aka The Silver Fox aka Mullet Man.  Doorman at Fibbers from 1994 to 2008 and the greatest and longest-serving venue guard since Paddy Delaney although, unlike Steve, I bet the legendary Cavern doorman wasn’t a qualified chemist as well.  I’m happy to report that our much-maligned cockney scientist is still alive, still married to the lovely Jane, and every time we meet still tells me he was a DJ at The Cartoon in Croydon and roadied for Queen.  One of those may not be accurate. 

Steve stood guard at Stonebow House for a staggering fourteen years.  Always coming to work with a ‘Morning Tim!” (it was night) and a smile, even if it didn’t continue when doors opened. Always on his feet (after a day job as well) and always on his own to greet two hundred customers or more of all shapes, sizes, good humour or cussedness, sobriety or sod-the-world, with only a bumbag and a clipboard with ticket and guest lists, a gold Zippo and leather waistcoat for protection.  And he’d also be called upon to ‘deal’ with situations as well as doing all that.  Quite some feat and an astonishing display of concentration, dexterity, awareness and, yes, bravery. Nowadays, at least three people, not just one, would be covering those tasks.  A cashier (obviously) and two doormen.  One to look down girls’ tops, the other to text.

So many times, customers of all ages ask me what’s happened to Steve, and then tell an eerily familiar tale of having their pint swiped and being unceremoniously marched out of those double-doors and in to the bus shelters.  Adding sheepishly that it was “ ... a fair cop though, I was only fifteen and he did warn me when I came in”.

On a general note, door staff come in for some real grief but have you ever tried it yourself?   It’s hours and hours of tedium punctuated by moments of hilarity (No, you can’t bring your motorbike in. No, and not the chain either!); fear (try standing your ground against six belligerent drunks on your own) and kindergarten tantrums (Yeah, but why can’t I come in? I won’t kick the door again, I promise! Yeah but why why why why why why why why – and on it goes).

Nowadays, security levels are regulated by the council in conjunction with police but I do wish that venues and promoters were able to set their own levels for gigs.   There are so few shows that need physical supervision.  The occasional Manchester tribute act, maybe, or a metal show with an enthusiastic mosh pit.

Not surprisingly, it’s one of the most contentious subjects when I deliver my talks so here are some handy tips when you’ve fallen foul, rightly or wrongly, with door staff:

1. Don’t argue. You won’t win. The longer you spend arguing the more your face is going to be remembered when you come back next week. Walk away.
2. Doormen have radios, back-up and some even have steroids. You’re pissed, you can’t see your phone and your mates are already half way up the street laughing their heads off. Go with them.
3. When doormen are called to an incident they usually go in blind. Everybody is innocent. Everybody is lying. Nobody saw everything that happened and nobody will ever know the truth.  Accept these basic facts, keep your trap shut and live to drink and dance and pull another day.

Coming up: It’s all about the 10,000 hours; why were Towers Of London wrecking their transport home when they should have been on stage and, let me get this right Mr Famous Guitarist, you’re leaving now and you want a taxi? Yes, OK, but actually to the taxi rank???