Tripping Spires

The Honey Smugglers show at Oxford University's Xmas Ball sticks in the memory for several reasons. Surrounded by dreaming spires, a sense of history and great learning it made a nice change from more familiar indie venues like the back room of the Dog and Sausage. It was also the only time I've ever been under the influence of LSD.

It was the end of 1990, and my diary reveals a busy schedule of gigs, rehearsals and band meetings, I honestly don't know how I managed to hold down the day job when I look back at this endless round of drinking opportunities and late nights.

We find ourselves in the inner sanctum of Oxford University, through endless corridors and staircases being shown to a remote dressing room with ancient stone walls on the top floor of an old and beautiful building. A generous drinks rider arrives and we quench our thirst before shuffling down to the sound check. This is over by about seven o'clock, so singer Chris and I end up going for a wander to a nearby pub, as we aren't due on stage until midnight. I don't know what the rest of the guys were doing, probably something sensible like eating some food.

A few pints later, on our way back through the campus, there is magic in the cold December air. Manicured lawns and Olde England's finest architecture, it's like another world. Everyone making their way to the ball is dressed in tuxedos and the most stunning ball gowns, and there's us in our battered jeans and baggy long sleeved T-shirts feeling like rock'n'roll peasants but really cool too, because we stand out a mile and are noticed everywhere we go. We're the only ones not dressed up to the nines, so we must be the band.

As we survey the scene, Chris unexpectedly produces a tab of acid from his pocket and suggests it might be a really fun time to take it, and at that moment I totally agree. It's the perfect unusual situation. I've never taken it before, but kind of know broadly what to expect, the timing is right, so we have a half tab each.

The night grows and grows into a truly great time, the dance floor of the old debating hall is heaving with wealthy and beautiful girls who look good enough to eat. We proceed to get pissed in time-honoured fashion, finding time to visit support band International Resque in their dressing room, where they are quietly reading a selection of literary classics and sipping tea. Only joking. They are actually having a contest to see how hard they can punch each other in the stomach, and doing unspeakable things involving cigarettes and their penises. Back on the dance floor, Ged is by now so hammered that he just has this beatific glazed smile on his face, some people get violent and nasty on booze, Ged just smiles at everybody. We dance with a few ball gowned beauties before getting down to the serious matter of the gig itself.

When it finally comes to stage time I'm hovering slightly above it all, the acid having fully kicked in, and feeling good. It has quite a `speedy' effect, sharpening the senses and cancelling out the alcohol. As the disco stops and we start playing, the beautiful people just keep on dancing in front of us, and as we hit our stride I began to notice two things through a kind of telescopic blur. Firstly that the colours seem very bright onstage, and more interestingly, there is a `slow motion me' battling for head space with the 'on the case' me. It's certainly quite entertaining watching my own arms powering away at the cymbals, my sticks bending one way and another like rubber and leaving motion traces. My mind is seemingly detached from the whole thing, but everything is under control. It's a wild gig; a loud, chaotic and fantastic explosion of sound and colour.

Towards the end of the set Chris is having a fine old time singing his heart out and grooving in that jerky and captivating manner of his. On a steady course to the next level of consciousness, he's swooping and diving across the stage with his guitar. For most onlookers, this is entertainment enough, but Chris has other plans.

I watch with some amazement as he suddenly leaps upwards, mid-song, guitar still round his neck, to try and grab hold of a huge chandelier which has been hanging just out of his reach throughout the gig, tempting him and beckoning him with it's curved brassy arms. He latches onto it perfectly and it holds his weight for long enough for him to be able to swing back and forth on it a few times, as everyone in the hall gazes on in disbelief. This is after all, the old debating hall of Oxford University, a sacred place where great minds have argued the philosophies and politics of western civilisation for centuries. Now there's a mad man swinging from one of the bloody chandeliers! It's quite a spectacle for a precious few seconds until the inevitable happens.

Luckily as it breaks he doesn't manage to wrench the entire unit from the ceiling and kill himself in the process; the chains which hold it are strong, but the bit he's been clinging onto soon comes away. Chris is a human pendulum between the stage and the audience, and fortunately he falls as he's swinging over the stage rather than break his ankles landing awkwardly in the audience, which as gambling buffs will remind us, he has an equal chance of doing.

Somewhere in the assembled mass of groovy people the promoter looks at Andy our manager and gestures the dreaded `cut throat' sign. We are docked £100 of the £150 we were due to be paid for the gig, but money can't buy memories like that !

Later into the early hours, I leave the still bouncing dance floor to see what everyone else is up to. Hiking up the staircases and corridors to our loftily situated dressing room , I arrive to find Chris alone, with a big smile on his face, following the emergency fire escape procedure. This means basically that he is just about to abseil 100 ft down the side of the old building to the lawns below. There's an old rope and pulley system mounted on the stone wall in case of emergency, and he's decided it needs testing out.

I immediately recall everything I've read about people's propensity for throwing themselves from great heights while under the influence of the `evil mind altering drug' (Daily Mail) coursing through his brain, and initially try to talk him out of it. But he is on a mission, and has such assurance that I soon understand that the best thing to do is to go with the flow and encourage him.

Not that he needs much encouragement. As I look up, he launches himself out of the window and down the side of the building with all the aplomb of somebody from the SAS. I make it to the window in time to see him covering the last 50 feet to a safe almost textbook landing. (here is the only pictorial evidence, fire escape harness and window can be seen at the right of the photo).

It was a charmed evening, distinguished also by keyboard man Stevie C's first romantic encounter with the future mother of his children. After a perfect night like that I've never felt the need to take acid again.