After The False Dots gig on Thursday night, I had a very deep conversation with Rambo, our drummer. The gig was wonderful, possibly the best we've ever done in 45 years from a performance point of view. When he dropped me off, we had a chat about life. I said that when I exhale my final breath and the showreel of my life scrolls before my eyes, it may well be one of the moments that is on there. There was a moment when both our trumpet player Tom Hammond and our bassplayer were giving it large at the front of the stage as I sang a number. I could have not been happier with our performance and it is one of those moments seared into my psyche.
Yesterday, I was thinking about what we discussed. I had made the comment glibly. But if what they say is true and your life really does scroll before your eyes, what will it be that you really see? Will it be a showreel of all the good things, meeting the missus, great gigs, the best holidays? Or will it be the worst things, getting the ruler in infants for speling train wrong? Seeing my mum on a drip recovering from cancer and my Dad breaking down in tears when he told me that if mum died, I'd not be put in the orphanage, as a kindly relative had suggested?
Or will it be odd, mundane at the time things, that I've not thought about? Going to see Rex Godwin to get my shoe reheeled in 1969, getting marmite on toast and a cuppa in Sidoli's in Leman St in 1998? For some reason, all of this started to trouble me. The truth is that when I find out, I won't be able to tell you. Or will I? Back in 1988, when I was run over at the lights on the Watling, when I saw the car coming towards me, I realised I was going to die (clearly I was wrong). What happend was actually quite strange. As I saw the car zzooming towards me, I had a moment of extreme calm. In actual fact, my life didn't flash before me. I actually just felt really happy that I'd be seeing my Dad, who'd died the previous year very soon. I felt warm and loved. Then something in my mind snapped into action and I jumped as high as I could. Instead of going under the car, the bonnet hit my thigh, my feet went through the windscreen, I rolled over the roof and fell off, landing on my head. To my surprise, I was alive, albiet in severe pain, broken finger, broken fibia, stress fracture to L2 vertebrae, amongst other things. Many things changed that day, not least my ability to kick a football and run without pain. But the biggest thing is that I no longer feared death. I fear the process, the pain, but not what happens when you pass through that barrier.
I genuinely don't know whether I am a good or bad person, whether I'll be going upstairs or downstairs, it's not for me to jduge, but the feeling of love I felt in that split second changed my whole perspective of life. But getting back to that showreel. I've done a few good things in my time and I hope that a few of them show up. One thing my conversation with Rambo made me realise is that all of those best moments will be with people I love. I need to remind myself of that sometimes.
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Our next gig, is here. Please come along if you can.
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The band put out an EP this week, featuring some of our old recordings featuring guests such as Lee Thompson of Madness Connie Abbe, US singer Charles Honderick and much loved former members of the band. All of these, apart from Saturday are no longer in the set. Have a quick listen and give the band a like
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