Tony Mills (Shy, TNT) reveals tour stories
8 min read
Tony Mills, best known for his work with Shy and TNT, revealed interesting tour stories on Facebook. These are some of the recent stories:
Funny Stories…..(but TRUE !!!!!) 16/100
GLASGOW BARROWLANDS
This sounds like a take off, of Spinal Tap, but it is completely true, with witnesses.
There was a venue called ‘Barrowlands’, in Glasgow. An enormous venue, very wide, like a cowshed, it reminded me of Stafford Bingley Hall.
On a terrible rainy night, back in 1985, we were touring with UFO.
Having eventually found our dressing room somewhere underground, we donned the glitter , spandex pants, hairspray and wireless guitar packs and headed out of the dressing room to the stage…..
We took a right, and tried to get a move on, because they had already given us a stage call five minutes ago, so we had become a little late.
We took a left and another left and another left and we were back at the dressing room.
So we headed out again and came across a janitor, who directed us forwards and left and right.
Ten minutes later, we came across the same janitor.
He then offered to show us, actually lead us, in the right direction, which we were very grateful for.
He opened a door and let us through and shut it behind us. We were outside on the car park. In the pouring rain. In fairness, his Glaswegian accent was so strong it was impossible to understand anything he said anyway. So now we had a major problem.
We all ran around to the front of the venue, and into the ticket office in reception.
I exclaimed, to the ticket office lady, ‘we’re on stage, now!!!!!’, to which she replied, ‘have you got a ticket?’
I think I snorted, ‘we’re the bloody band, we got lost!!’
‘Och, aye, you’d best go in then’….
So we then endeavoured to climb through the audience and onto the front of the stage and start playing the show, with soaking wet strides and running make up.’
Ultimate embarrassment. But a great gig
Frightening stories !! (but TRUE!!!!) 15/100.
HANNOVER – The party that never happened.
1987 – The Gary Moore Tour with SHY.
After probably the greatest show the band had ever played in Hannover, people were talking about a party after the show. It was out of town but everybody was going. Apparently.
With a lot of people so enthusiastic about the show, laughter and enjoyment, and all the backstage merriment that happens after a great rock show, it’s easy to miss the point somewhere along the line and get the wrong end of the stick. That’s what happened to me, on this particular night. So, ‘everybody’ was going to this party at some place and it was just a case of which car you jumped into or who gave you a lift and everyone would just hook up at the same place.
Two ladies announced they had a car and they were going to the party for whoever wanted a lift. So me and and another guy (I dont recall who that was, but I think he was an American soldier, stationed in Germany) jumped in while everyone else decided who was taking whom. And off we shot south. At some stage, the other guy got out of the car and we drove off without him. I don’t know why or whether they just wanted to get rid of the guy, but we drove one hundred miles south from the tour bus and the venue.
I was starting to get somewhat nervous about where this party was and who was going after two hours in a car with two women I didn’t know.
Eventually, we pulled up at a private house and went in. There was no-one else there. The house obviously belonged to the parents of one of the women, the one that hadn’t as yet, taken off her sunglasses.
It became quickly evident that the sunglasses woman had singled me out as an object of desire and had forged this plan to get me back to her house with the help of her friend. It dawned on me that I had put myself in a pretty terrible situation and the sooner I got back to the tour bus, the better. Quite how I was going to do that, I had no idea.
After some hours and having made it pretty clear that I had no interest in this woman’s affections, her friend suggested they take me back to the bus.
The woman in the sunglasses announced she had no money or gas left in the car.
After some quiet conversation between the two of them, it was clear we were getting back in the car and leaving.
She drove like an angry demon up the highway with the indicator on permanently, flashing her headlights at every car in front until they got out of the way. After about thirty miles, we pulled off the freeway and parked outside an army base.
I had no idea why, but she disappeared inside the army base and was gone for an hour.
Wondering what was going on, I turned to her friend and asked why we had stopped here. Her reply was, ‘Why do you think?’
This left me pretty clueless, then the woman came out and got in the car.
She said the going rate for two fucks, was a hundred bucks and we drove off.
Never was I so glad to see the rest of the band and crew the next morning, especially as the tour bus had moved further north by another hundred miles and I thought I should never make it.
Funny Stories….(But TRUE !!!) 14/100
The wrong apartment at The Oakwoods.
In Burbank, Los Angeles, the home of the movie companies, in the valley, there is a huge apartment complex called the Oakwood Apartments on Barham Boulevard.
Well, there was in the 80’s anyway, like anywhere else, it could well have gone by now.
I stayed there a few times. It was only three stories high, but it was long.
One of the times I stayed there, I stayed in apartment number W303- the particular block I was in, consisted of apartments X, V and W. Something like that. Anyway, they were all identical in their decor and it was pretty easy to think you were on the same floor, whether you were or not, this was the situation, I found myself in, one night.
I had been to the gym and picked up some things from the apartment shop and thinking about songs and writing I returned to the apartment, quite oblivious to the world.
I was living with our guitarist, Steve Harris and we were co writing with some amazing famous people, really feeling the LA vibe and feeling blessed and grateful that people had put so much faith in us. As it happened, the album was a great success, so our time was not wasted, even though we are still paying off the phone bill !!
These apartments were completely generic. When you rented one, you requested specific furniture, like a microwave or an extra bed or something like that. So when you walked in, they all looked the same, apart from a few things here and there.
Anyway, I wandered down ‘W’ floor, thinking of nothing at all, maybe ordering a pizza for the evening, and opened the door into W303, walked in, slumped down into the sofa and put the TV on.
It was then, that I noticed three young women in their dressing gowns sitting at the dining table.
I don’t know why I didn’t react very much at the time, I just carried on watching the news on CNN. Then my curiosity got the better of me and I just casually looked over and said, ‘Hi, are you with Steve, then?’
(This was absurd really, because Steve lived for his wife, but at the time, I couldn’t think of anything else to say) They looked at each other and then back at me and said, ‘Steve who?’ I was obviously missing the plot here, so I tried another approach.
‘Is there a party I don’t know about?’ The three valley girls looked at each other, ‘A party?’ I thought to myself, there is something really wrong here and where is Steve?
Then, with a surge of common sense, I ran to the front door, and looked at the number of the apartment, it was X303……I was on the wrong floor !!!!!!!!
I must have turned scarlet, as I apologised and left.
NOT SO FUNNY STORIES (But True!!!) 13/100
BARCELONA – THE COINS and the BOTTLES
I never figured out, whether they did, or did not, like our band in Spain.
In Barcelona, playing to an audience of about 2500, I felt something hit me in the face. I looked down and it was a coin. This was quickly followed by a rapid succession of hundreds of coins, raining on the stage, like someone had just started a new game. At the end of that show I stood on the side of the stage and watched a man with a big brush, sweep it all up into a bucket. One of the roadies nudged me and told me the guy did that every night and he was retiring soon with a good pension.
But I have to say, having coins hit you in the face is quite painful. I also recall going out to a phone box to make a call that day and there was a policeman in the callbox. Shortly after I was stood waiting another policeman came and stood behind me.
When the officer came out of the kiosk, the other officer touched his gun and told me to get out of the way. I thought that was pretty poor behaviour for a man of the law.
On leaving this venue after the show, no sooner had we all got in the bus, than a crowd of ‘fans’ hailed beer bottles on top of the bus and frankly I was surprised that the roof windows weren’t smashed.
This journey took us to a free festival in a bull ring in Madrid with Baron Rojo (who are still on tour) and Gary Moore.
There were about 30,000 people at the show and I would like to say that it was a minority that started throwing fruit at the stage, but I can’t remember how many there were. Regardless, the stage was a veritable ice rink of a fruit cocktail everywhere I tried to walk. Then the tide turned. People started throwing stones on the stage. The final straw was a man who threw half a house brick which hit Steve Harris’ guitar and smashed the neck in half, gashing his arm severely, causing us to stop the concert.
Steve was treated by ambulance staff and we left the tour and came home to the UK.
It was no comfort to see Gary Moore treated the same way either and I am sure he was glad it was the last concert in Spain.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/tony.mills.31
