One of my favorite things in life is snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
I got stranded overnight in London out by Heathrow airport. I saw there was an amazing show happening tonight in Putney: a benefit for Bob Andrews featuring Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, and Jona Lewie, at a tiny little place called the Half Moon Pub. This sounded great, and I really wanted to go! The show was sold out, so I started texting those who I knew in Nick’s orbit. I tried all my showbiz tricks. One by one, I got a resounding “Nope, can’t help you,” “Sorry, it’s absolutely mobbed,” “Not gonna happen.” I resigned myself to the fact it wasn’t to be.
I got a message from a guitarist named Julian Marshall, who offered to pick me up from my hotel out by the airport and take me out to dinner. Julian plays in a great band called the The Rigmarollers that you should check out: guitar, washboard, and sousaphone. Great stuff! Julian and I went to a pub in Chiswick and had some Thai food, talked about guitars and gigs and Western swing, as you do. We had a walkabout after dinner and then decided to go back to the hotel. “I’ll take the long way home,” Julian said. He offered to drive by the Half Moon in Putney, so we could at least see where the gig was happening.
When we got there, we found a parking spot right in front of the place and decided we’d go have a look inside. The Half Moon is one of those places with a pub in the front and a showroom in the back. We could see when the showroom door opened that the room was absolutely packed to the gills, and Nick Lowe was on stage. But there was no way were getting in, goshdarnit…
At that exact moment, my old friend Liam Grundy popped out of the showroom to order a beer at the bar. “DEKE?” he said. (Liam and I had worked together with Scotty Moore, some years ago. He’s an excellent guitarist and singer with a long career over here.) When Liam asked what I was doing there, I told him about my canceled flight and the attempts to get into the sold-out show. “Come on,” he said. He waved his hands at another man, who waved his hands at the door man guarding the entrance to the showroom. And just like that, we were IN!
One minute you’re a loser, the next you’re a winner. Julian and I squeezed into the packed room, only to be greeted by more calls of “DEKE?” Suddenly some fans of mine were buying me drinks and taking pictures with me. It was great, like the first five minutes of the movie Kingpin.
Nick Lowe was on stage with the surviving members of his early band from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Brinsley Schwarz. I love the Brinsley Schwarz records! They are excellent pub-rock records, with whom Nick recorded many of his most famous songs originally, before recutting them himself later in his solo career. This was such a cool scene to be thrust into—the band was positively rocking on stage, Nick center of attention, commanding the audience, who were 100% behind him, yelling and waving their fists in the air. It was such a positive feeling in the room (the show was a benefit for the recently deceased Bob Andrews, who was the keyboard player in Brinsley Schwarz, and later was the keyboardist in Graham Parker and the Rumor). Nick did “Cruel to be Kind” and the place went nuts.
Graham Parker came up and did a short set of tunes and sounded excellent. These dudes were rocking! Then the highlight of the evening was the grand finale, with both Nick Lowe and Graham Parker (and the whole audience) singing “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding” at the top of their lungs. It was magical. A really special moment.
After the gig was over, I ran into my old drummer Brian Nevill and his wife Lindy, who had been working the event as a handler for Jona Lewie, who opened the show. It was great to see them! Jona was another hit phenomenon in the 1970s, who had a couple of big hits in England, including the Christmas classic “Stop the Cavalry” and “You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties.” I caught a picture with Jona at the gas station convenience store as we were leaving!
In the end, I got stranded an extra day, but I made a new friend in Julian Marshall, and somehow magically got spirited into a sold-out show (thanks again, Liam), and got treated to a really memorable evening with the surviving all-stars of the 1970s British pub-rock scene. I’m not going to lie, seeing Nick Lowe and Graham Parker and a room full of gray-haired British rock ’n’ roll fans singing “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding” made me get misty-eyed. It was a real moment. I was glad that I got stuck in London an extra day. It all worked out, in the end.
See many more photos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
