Passions: My music memories of being on stage with industrial rockers and a chainsaw

As a teenage roadie, it seemed like a good idea at the time

When I was a teenager and looking for excitement, I fell into a job as a roadie, working for a friend of mine who was branching out from his daily job as a postman to promoting rock groups in the north west of England.

I had some great times and met quite a few stars: delivering “proper Lancashire pies” to New Order; sharing a bottle of whisky with The Jesus and Mary Chain, and... picking up and cleaning a wig for Gary Glitter who was on a short-lived comeback trail.

At that point I was sporting a mohican/quiff, kept up by enough bottles of hair spray to make me not only a fire hazard but a veritable climate vandal.

I still have a raw passion for live music but it has never quite been the same since the day I worked for a couple of bands from Germany. Ronnie said: “I couldn’t get Bauhaus but I’ve been offered Einstürzende Neubauten and some fellas called Hose (Die Toten Hosen). Great!”

These two were at the height of a German New Wave, which was influenced by the Cold War, and the former sought to describe the experience of young Germans by destroying things on stage with electrifying blinding noise, not only guitars but ordinary electrical items...radios and such like.

However, for this gig, I was asked by the promoter to go and “collect” two shopping trolleys from the nearest supermarket.

Duly done, I was then amazed that during the soundcheck, the lead singer of Einstürzende Neubauten (Collapsing New Buildings in English) asked me to hold a trolley he had mic-ed up while he attacked it with a hammer and then, dismissing me, with a chainsaw, “to see what it sounds like”. We decided it would be best practice to secure the trolley in case I lost an arm.

But I was so good that I was invited to join the band on stage for one night only: my mission – hold the trolleys while he attacked them.

I think the crowd enjoyed it, I couldn’t tell because I was rendered deaf and had my eyes shut. But it seemed to go well.

I still love live music but I have never again been able to look at a shopping trolley in the same way.