Is This The Real Life? by Mark Blake Read Free Book Online Page B

he brought his drum kit. He seemed amenable, so he was in.’
    The band began regular rehearsals at Chase Bridge primary school in Twickenham, next door to the rugby stadium, reaping the benefits of a Richmond council scheme that allowed groups to use local schools and youth clubs for a small annual fee. ‘They formed this organisation called The Whitton Beat Club,’ recalls Dave Dilloway. ‘So we used to practise at the primary school. The hardcore of the band was now myself, Brian, Tim, Richard and John Garnham on rhythm guitar, but John Sanger was still on the periphery, playing the piano.’ Their set was made up of covers of pop songs of the day, including, as Brian May recalled, ‘a mixture of adapted soul stuff like Sam and Dave, and Otis Redding.’
    The group had also decided on a name, 1984, taken from the title of George Orwell’s post-war novel. Brian and Tim were both ardent science fiction fans, and the name stuck.
    By now, after months of his schoolfriends seeing Brian polishing the guitar’s neck in between lessons, the Red Special was complete. ‘I first saw it when it was still a drawing on a piece of paper and a mantelpiece,’ laughs Dave Dilloway. ‘There’s no bullshit. All those stories about his mum’s sewing box and the motorcycle springs are all true. They didn’t even have a lathe; they turned the motor-bridge pieces with a drill. That’s Brian, though – ever the perfectionist.’
    Before long, The Whitton Beat Club network had delivered a booking. ‘We were asked to play a youth-club gig,’ explains Dave Dilloway. ‘There was a friend of someone we knew, and he and his girlfriend or wife booked us this gig at St Mary’s Hall in Twickenham.’ On 28 October 1964, while Farrokh Bulsara was still settling into Isleworth Polytechnic, 1984’s debut concert took place, in a venue just opposite Eel Pie Island.
    John Sanger tagged along to play keyboards. ‘This was in the days before electronic keyboards,’ continues Dave. ‘At some gigs John would play the school hall’s upright piano, if they had one, with amicrophone stuck in the back. But at that first gig, they didn’t have a piano so we borrowed a reed organ. The trouble was, it was like a glorified mouth organ with keys stuck on, and it sounded like a Hoover motor starting when you switched it on. Once you miked it up, all you could hear was this noise like a wind tunnel.’
    Later, Brian would state that the ‘guitar gave me a shield to hide behind’ and that playing onstage as a teenager was infinitely preferable to being on the floor ‘wondering whether I should ask someone to dance’. ‘Brian never seemed as au fait with the world as, say, Tim and I were,’ offers Richard Thompson. Yet Brian now had a girfriend, Pat, a pupil at the neighbouring Richmond Girls’ School. Their relationship would survive until Brian’s first year at college. It was Pat and her friend, Tim Staffell’s girlfriend, that secured 1984’s next booking, on 4 November in the girls’ school hall.
    ‘Tim and Brian both had girlfriends at the school, and, yes, that’s how we got the gig,’ recalls Dave. ‘But we struggled with the repertoire. We had two hours’ worth, but we had to play for three hours, so there were probably a few repeats.’
    As John Garnham explains: ‘We did a mix of songs in 1984, but there was no real direction. Brian and Dave liked The Beatles, and I was more into Chuck Berry and rhythm and blues, and I also took note of the soul stuff. I was always saying, “We must do stuff that people can dance to”, because I liked dancing and I liked girls, and the girls liked dancing.’
    While playing in the group brought them attention, John insists, ‘None of us were that girl-minded. Out of all of 1984, Brian certainly never appeared to be. He did eventually have Pat, but I don’t remember her being brought along to gigs, done up in a short skirt, like my girlfriend or Richard’s.’ (Dave Dilloway: ‘John had