One Train Later: A Memoir (41 page)

We whip through Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, and Edmonton, playing to about eight thousand a night; then go down the West Coast, missing Los Angeles this time for tactical reasons; and in a blur fall into Mexico City.

We are one of the first New Wave bands to arrive in the country, and the ticket price is high: a rather shocking (for 1980) forty dollars. We are pissed off about the entry fee because we think this ticket price would be out of the reach of our fans, but the show seems to be set up for the Mexico City elite and their girlfriends.

We are greeted by Mario Olmos, a hard-drinking, cheery Mexican promoter who comes up to me with "Andy, Mario," and embraces me-"don't you remember? The Animals ... Eric ... I put on your concert.... You don't remember?" "Oh, si, M-A-R-I-O. Recuerdo.t Como estd usted, amigo?" A vague memory like a blue haze of marijuana smoke drifts back and suddenly it's "yeah, Mexico, I love this country," and I do. In a "let's get a drink and pick up right where we left off" mood, we head toward the hotel bar.

The site of our gig is a half-constructed high-rise with two floors, the ground floor and the fortieth, but an elevator has kindly been installed to get you up to the death trap that lurks in the sky above. On the fortieth floor there is a hastily constructed stage that seems like a metaphor for the gallows as we thunder away for the Mexico City glitterati, anxiously wondering if all of us, hand and audience, will go crashing down through thirty-nine floors. But this is Mexico: they celebrate the Day of the Dead here, they have magazines dedicated to pictures of victims of car accidents, and death is part of the fabric. So ... would one be dead before hitting the concrete? Would you splatter bits of limb and crushed skull across half-used bags of cement powder? Would- Can't stand losing youoooo...

Those who cannot afford the price of the concert surround our hotel for the next three days and scream a lot. I make a photograph of a toilet roll unfurled from a bedroom door with the word help scrawled on it in black ink and then, under armed guard and behind heavy black sunglasses, leave by the hotel kitchen to look at the pyramids of the moon, the jaguar murals, and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in the ancient city of Teotihuacan.

Mexico is a country where surrealism is normal. Andre Breton arrived in Mexico City in 1939 to escape the rigors of Paris. He set up house in the city and decided to have some furniture made for his house. He wanted a table for his dining room, so he hired a carpenter and drew up the design in perspective, with the front end of the table naturally appearing wider in the drawing than the far end. Two weeks later the table arrived as per the drawing, with one end wide and the other end narrowing down to a few inches. "I have nothing to teach these people," sighed Breton hopelessly, and immediately returned to Paris.

After the rain god Tlaloc, coyotes with feathered headdresses, and the thrill of playing in Mexican semiconstruction, we reenter the touring mindset and head north to play Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Detroit; up to Canada; back to the Midwest; and then down to the southern states. Now we fly by commercial airlines, which most of the time means that we slump around, half asleep, and play callous tricks on one another whenever possible. Flying is about half a degree better than traveling by road.

We emerge from the Sunset Theatre in Fort Lauderdale one night to hear the gut-wrenching news that John Lennon has been murdered. It is sickening and beyond belief. Lennon gone? It feels like a deep wound and yet another nail in the coffin of the fading sixties dream. John: the Beatle we all loved the most, with his acid humor and rebel persona-an anarchist from the inside. We get interviewed many times over the next few days about this, and it is difficult to talk about our new album or say anything about our group in the shadow of this tragedy.

We arrive in Argentina; it is the time of the dirty war, the time of the generals. People are disappearing, abducted in green falcon cars on the side streets of Buenos Aires, los Desaparecidos: the disappeared. Mothers are marching in the Avenida de Mayo and holding up pictures of their missing children. There is fear in the city and silent outrage about what is happening in Argentina; people are afraid to speak out, because to do so means that you too will "disappear."

Military gangs called la patota operate at night, arriving at their victims' homes to abduct, torture, and finally execute them. Victims are buried in unmarked graves; thrown into the sea, weighed down with concrete blocks; or burned in collective graves. Some human rights organizations estimate that thirty thousand people disappeared between 1976 and 1978. Not only have all the country's political institutions disappeared, but in authoritarian fashion so has all the free exchange of ideas or their expression. Like the final echo of fascist Germany, Argentina is under the rule of the last of the believers.

With only a very vague notion of what is really going on, we are incarcerated-for reasons that later appear obvious-in a Hilton on the outskirts of the city. This gives us no ability to walk out of the hotel and into Buenos Aires itself, the reason being that there is too much tension on the streets and the promoters don't want trouble. So, rather than taking in the culture, we lie around by the stupid pool, trapped in a "little piece of the U.S.A. in Argentina." By the end of the day as showtime approaches, we are all feeling somewhat pent up and need to let off steam.

Around seven-thirty, we start drifting into the lobby to go over to the venue. Somehow the locals have found out that we are in this hotel, which results in a large group of fans also being in the lobby. We sign autographs as we assemble there to leave. I notice one young girl who is very emotional and has tears running down her face while we sign her photographs; it's hard not to empathize with her and the others who crowd around. Something is coming from these kids that is different from England or the U.S., a reaching out, a desire for flight; with our guitars like weapons in our hands, we are men who run wild, and it cuts the air like an electric current.

At the concert there is a heavy police presence (no pun intended); the fans are not allowed to stand up or get out of their seats, and the hall is filled with fat, ugly cops who walk around prodding people with truncheons. The fans express their enthusiasm but with reservation because there is a tension that burns like a slow fuse. It seems as if the cops are just looking for the slightest excuse to get heavy. Our appearance here at this time is like the collision of two worlds: their thick wooden clubs versus our shining guitars and drums. As the concert heats up and we do our best to give the audience a good time, things begin to unravel. A few fans have the guts to leave their seats and come to the stage, including the young girl who was in the hotel lobby. She stands right in front of me, swaying to the music. This isn't to the cops' liking and within seconds there's a big fat 'n' ugly at her side, prodding her with his heavy stick and motioning her to sit down. I feel rage flood through me. Lost in the moment with a face full of rapture, my teenage Madonna doesn't move. The cop keeps prodding and it's me that's being prodded, and I feel anger rising like a bat into my throat. I come to the edge of the stage, put my foot on his shoulder, and give him a heavy shove. This gets a huge cheer from the audience, who clearly hate these oppressors. We continue on, but a few minutes later I think, Oh, Christ, because now, at the side of the hall, there is a huddle of cops looking at me, pointing at me. I nervously bang out the intro to Roxanne," gm, din, Eb, Sting bounces across the stage with a big grin on his face and says, "They're gonna arrest you...."

Roxanne, what the fuck are they going to do to me? Roxanne, victim 06732. Roxanne, what are prisons like in Argentina? Roxanne, how will I explain this to Kate? We hit the last chord and run to the side of the stage, where we usually wait a couple of minutes before returning for the encore. Miles is standing there, looking stricken. "Start thinking fast" he says. "They are going to arrest you; we've sent for a lawyer and an interpreter." Jesus! I think. We go back out onstage as I reset my Echoplex, grin at the audience, and begin the churning sixteenth-note rhythm of "Can't Stand Losing You." I have a deep sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I know that I've blown it-it will be Christmas in prison in fascist Argentina-and the sour metal taste of fear fills my mouth.

We come offstage and go into the dressing room. Sting and Stewart make ribald remarks about getting Henri Padovani back in the band, or maybe they will continue on as a duo. Would I send them a postcard? I am nervous; what the hell am I going to say to these brutes? Miles comes in with two Argentines, the lawyer and the interpreter. With a nice sense of occasion, Stewart climbs onto the top of a cupboard with his super 8 to film the whole event. After a few minutes there is a sharp rap on the door and in stride the cop and a couple of plainclothes guys. With the needle of the bullshit meter firmly in the red, I go straight over to macho man and shake his hand vigorously, smiling and asking him if he's okay. Phew! Did that fan hurt you? I gaze with a beseeching look into his bovine almond colored eyes. "Wow, it was crazy out there, but I guess we made it through-you and me, yep-we're alright now. What a beautiful country this is. Thank God you officers were there to protect us from those brutal fans-how is your mother?"

The interpreter keeps up with me in rapid-fire Argentinian Spanish, the yo becoming the hard-edged Argentinean jo. A look of confusion passes across his face as I hold on to his pudgy meat cleaver of a hand, but then a faint smile-as if he had just farted in his sleep-creeps onto his mug. He says something to the other two heavies, and they all grunt like the pigs in Animal Farm. It seems that honor had been satisfied: they remain strong and powerful, and I the mewing kitten ready to be crushed under the jackboot of fascism. The door closes and I am bathed in a gentle sea of piss-taking sarcasm, courtesy of my friends and colleagues.

But while we are on the subject of Argentina, let us take a digression to the side-which is where most of the action takes place anyway-away from the relentless push forward to the tail end of this story. The Falkland Islands debacle, Galtieri's little tactical diversion to take the country's mind off what is has just been through, unfortunately proves to be a further humbling experience for Argentina.

I will return to Argentina a few years later, this time to play some acoustic guitar concerts with my friend John Etheridge, another British guitarist. We arrive in Buenos Aires after playing some shows in Brazil, and on the first afternoon there is a press conference in the hotel. I am being interviewed by several newspapers and magazines. One thing I notice is that at the end of each interview all the writers ask me about the cop-kicking incident; I am amazed by this, as it is now quite a few years later, but it seems that this incident has been recorded as a great rock moment in the annals of Argentina's history. At that moment in time, when the country was so repressed, any gesture of rebellion was seen as a waving flag. So, after this has been brought up several times I tell them that I now want a statue on Avenida Julio to mark my greatness, which they all think is pretty funny.

As we tour around Argentina, I notice that for the type of gig and the kind of music we were playing, there is an unusual amount of fervor: in La Plata we are given the keys to the city by the mayor in a gentle and touching ceremony backstage, and in Buenos Aires there is a virtual mob scene after the show that, considering we were playing jazz on acoustic guitars, feels a bit unwarranted. During this fervid scene I have the remarkable experience of being asked to bless a baby, and I begin to see what music and free expression mean in this country. The rest of the tour is not without incident either. In La Rosa, a small town deep in the pampas, we are onstage playing in a beautiful old theater when a bat somehow gets in and dive-bombs the audience for several minutes before using its radar to escape out the window. The effect is electrifying; for a moment all attention is on the creature as it whips over the heads of the audience-the bat becomes the show, and John and I merely the accompanists.