Dead in Time

Chapter Seven

June 3rd 1976 

Rotterdam: the last stop on the map. This time tomorrow, they’d be back on English soil and, for Cris McIlroy, it couldn’t come quickly enough. 

Front of house, eight thousand fans were on the rail. The Dutch roadies had dropped at least one amp, which the sound engineer had patched up with duct tape, chewing gum, and prayer. The lighting guy kept complaining about the depth of the grid, and the band’s rider had no M&Ms. Worse, Cris had left his spare pack of cigarettes back at the hotel, and someone had just told him how much of the band’s money the promoters had spent on inflatable armchairs.

They had, for some reason, decided to make it the theme of the night.

Every gig had a theme, as every promo moron tried to outdo the others along the tour route. In Eindhoven, it had been ‘precious jewels’, after Hope Diamond, that crappy B-side they’d released that had been so popular out here last month. You couldn’t move for chunks of coloured glass hanging off everything. It had been like being stuck inside a Lalique lamp, and Cris hated the damn song anyway.

You shine like a star
You’re burnin’ me too steep
But you’re cursed, you are
I know, ’cos I can’t sleep

What the hell was that all about anyway? Damon could do better. And in Nijmegen… well, Cris didn’t understand the logic behind it, but there had been tiki lights and a topless bartender. She’d been jiggly enough, sure, but unfortunately she couldn’t make a Cosmopolitan to save her life.

Tonight, the whole backstage area had been kitted out with shiny, round plastic furniture in candy colours. Inflatable bubbles, kinda like transparent beach balls, hung from the ceiling. The general buzz of pre-show activity was disrupted by the occasional bang and sorrowful, drawn-out squeak of somebody accidentally—or otherwise—puncturing something.

A group of roadies huddled in a corner, smoking dogends and chattering in Dutch. Cris waved his arms at them and swore in a vague, half-hearted kind of way, like a man trying ineffectually to frighten geese. One of them muttered something as he passed by, and the other three laughed. People milled aimlessly about up here… had there been so many people in Eindhoven? It seemed like the number of hangers-on increased with every town. Who knew where they came from, or what they were for. He almost collided with a girl in a silver dress and red lipstick, her eyes wide in her skull.

“Who the hell are you?”

She said something in English so heavily accented he couldn’t understand it, and darted off. Cris cracked on his gum and exhaled tightly. It would be so much easier if they brought their own crew. Just one set of bozos for the entire tour, instead of this ramshackle fragmentation. This time tomorrow, he promised himself, and pushed open the dressing room door.

“Boys? Five minutes, all right? I don’t want to hear— Hey. Is it me, or are we two short? Where are they?”

The facilities weren’t bad, considering they were basically playing a university campus. Sure, so the Erasmus Universiteit was shiny and new, all white concrete and practical spaces, but it still felt bare and flat. Back here, pale fluorescent light washed the low, square room. The assorted chairs and a couple of overstuffed couches had been pushed up to the walls. Tables, floor, and shelves were littered with things that crackled and clinked, a general detritus of wrappers, bottles and—Cris cracked on his gum again—yes, more transparent beach balls.

Charlie was sitting at one of the tables, pawing at his nose like a dog with toothache. A very empty space had been cleared in front of him, and Cris chose not to look too closely at it.