I’d like to say I saw Wishbone Ash on their New England tour. I’d like to. But I can’t because I was blind drunk. It was November 14th 1976 and I was 15 and 4 months and just at that vulnerable point where you are starting drinking and have no idea what happens if you drink too much.
We had to get a coach from my town, 45 miles northwards to Newcastle City Hall. Beggs Travel laid on a coach and sold a ticket to go with it. So the four of us set off in high spirits. I had just bought the new album and loved it. Trouble was somehow one of us had got hold of a bottle of Southern Comfort, which the four of us proceeded to drink. A quarter of a bottle of Southern Comfort does funny things to a teenager.
Naturally I thought I was OK, until I tried to walk and couldn’t. It took about an hour to get there and we drank it all. To this day, the smell of Southern Comfort makes my stomach turn over. This wasn’t just being tipsy, I was almost literally blind. I only have a few memories. I must have embarrassed myself. I stumbled in and somehow bought a badge. I remember feeling so terrible, I sat through the support band, Supercharge and Ash’s set with my head between my legs. I think I passed out at some point. My friends all threw up in the City Hall. Sorry about that. I reserved puking up to the coach on the way back. I have no idea how I found it again or what humiliations I went through. But I vomited a whole fried egg. How? I don’t know. It must have reformed in my stomach somehow. I distinctly remember the shocking sensation as I brought it up and it flopped on the vinyl floor and slid away on a river of stomach bile.
I was hung over for days and almost learned my lesson but it has happened again since, once at Johnny Winter in Chicago which saw me crawl to my room on my hands and knees in the House Of Blues hotel and once at Joe Bonamassa in Las Vegas. The trouble is I get excited and drink really fast. Dawn is more moderate, falling asleep before she’s had far too much. I just keep going until I can’t stand up.
The annoying thing is I still love that album and I bet the band were great. Wish I’d seen them. I’d like to say it taught me a lesson and I guess it largely did, except for the odd occasion but we all do stupid things as a teenager, admittedly mine was quite high on the stupid scale, as I was very vulnerable. I’d like to be able to laugh about it, but it was such a horrible experience, I can’t. So if you ever meet me, mine isn’t a Southern Comfort.
