A guitarist who I have been a fan of over the last 30 years or so is Richard Thompson, or RT as he is often called. I first heard his music when a friend lent me his copy of the compilation album (guitar, vocal). This featured a mix of rarities from his days in Fairport Convention, songs from when he was with Linda Thompson and some solo tracks. I then bought a copy of his 1991 album Rumor and Sigh and got tickets to see him in June the following year.
Normally at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh the seating is unreserved and when myself and friend George Drever arrived at the venue, all the best seats in the stalls were already taken. We watched from the side for a while and then decided to go upstairs. The only problem was that neither of us were too sure which door to use so we headed through the nearest one and found ourselves in a storeroom. We did an U-turn and found our way upstairs. When we looked down into the stalls we saw that there was now a member of staff standing by the door which we had mistakenly gone through.
Of the few times I've been on a guest list, a couple have been for RT concerts. I'd always assumed you had to be a friend of the band or work for a record company to get such freebies but in 2003 I was put on the guest list by my mum's cousin John Cumming whose company, Serious Music, was promoting the tour. John told me to just turn up at the box office and ask for my ticket. Unfortunately, due to a bereavement, John had forgotten to add me to the list. So when I got to the box office and asked for my ticket I was told they had no note of my name. It turned out that another chap was in the same position as me but he had been offered a free ticket by the record company.
When Thompson's rather flustered tour manager appeared, he told this chap that he was sorry but the gig was sold out and added that he should contact the record company and tell them what had happened as he didn't like having to turn people away. On hearing this, I feared the worst but fortunately one of John's colleagues was on hand and asked the tour manager if I could be given a house seat. I hadn't come across the concept of house seats before but apparently these are kept to one side for emergencies. The tour manager waved his hands and said something along the lines of, “whatever, do what you want” as he looked like he had more pressing matters to attend to.
The support act, Kim Richey, was on stage by this time so I wandered through to the bar where Kim's set was being relayed on a couple of speakers. This seemed like a very good idea. Often people aren't bothered about taking their seats for the support act and prefer to have a drink in the bar. This way you could listen to the support act if you wanted to or use it as background music if you were more interested in having a conversation with friends.
Having finally got my free ticket I decided it was only right that I should buy something from the merchandise table so purchased an Old Kit Bag tour t-shirt. During the interval I found my seat in the stalls and who should be sitting along from me but Runrig guitarist Malcolm Jones. I've seen Malcolm at a couple of RT's gigs and on one occasion saw him head backstage at the end of the show. What was unfortunate was that there were two other unoccupied house seats one of which could have been given to the chap who was sent off into the night by the tour manager. But such is life.
My other experience of being on the guest list was in 2009 when Thompson played in Salford at The Lowry. He was touring his 1000 Years of Popular Music album with Debra Dobkin on percussion and Judith Owen on keyboards. My wife Sam was aware of the mix up there had been at the Edinburgh gig so we made doubly sure that there would be tickets waiting for us at the box office. This time there was no problem except that our seats were on the very back row of the balcony and it was a bit of a climb up the stairs to get there. I should mention that Sam suffers from vertigo so she was feeling rather queasy when we made it to our seats. As she said to me afterwards, while it was very kind of cousin John to put us on the guest list, next time we'll buy our own tickets and make sure we're not stuck at the back of the gods.
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Read more of my concert experiences in my 2012 self-published book Drum Solos, Bottles and Bands available to buy from lulu and Smashwords.
