D.A.A.S.: Their Part in My Downfall by Paul Livingston

Author:Paul Livingston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2016-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

While headline acts like Nirvana, Public Enemy and Smashing Pumpkins were hitting the main stage, Al Murray, Harry Hill, Frank Skinner and the Doug Anthony All-Stars prepared to hit the Comedy Tent stage. Cameron P. Mellor rallied his troops.

All I really needed to do for a gig like that was literally get them side of stage and get them on. There were thousands of people inside this tent and they went completely bonkers for D.A.A.S. McDermott was glancing to me at the side of the stage with this look of ‘Can you believe this? What the fuck is going on?’ I’ve got to say they were good. They could not have done anything wrong that night, they were so on the money. I was standing there thinking, ‘This is going to go down as one of the All-Stars’ greatest moments.’

I’m standing there, arms folded, loving it, until this very polite man walked up to me and he said, ‘Oh, are you with these guys?’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘Um, we’ve got a bit of a problem . . .’ he said.

‘Really?’ I said. ‘There’s a problem?’

Meanwhile there’s the background noise of the Dougs in full flight and the crowd going apeshit for them.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That guy in the middle? I don’t know how this has happened, but the wireless microphone that he’s using is on the same frequency as the main stage. And every time they try to do a line check for Public Enemy, his microphone comes up.’

So I looked at him and instead of panicking and going, ‘Oh fuck, we’ve got to fix this,’ I felt this weird sense of power knowing that the main stage holds sixty thousand people, so I looked back at him and I went, ‘Well, what do you suggest we do?’

‘We’ve got to get that mic off him, get it out of his hands and turn it off.’

I’m going, ‘Well, I dunno . . . I mean, they’re doing pretty well out there. I’m going to have to pick a moment of the set where I’m not going to throw him off his game.’

He had every right to turn McDermott’s mic off. This was rock ’n’ roll. But he just went, ‘Okay.’ And he stood there, in a cold sweat, and more and more people were coming up to him, eyes bugging out of their heads, and of course I was then very conscious of everything that was coming out of McDermott’s mouth, knowing full well there was a mixer out on the main stage pushing faders up for Flavor Flav’s microphone, and all he was getting was McDermott singing, ‘I fuck dogs in the park after dark.’

It got to the point where the guy couldn’t hold off any longer and he hands me a replacement microphone with a lead, and there was one part of the show where Richard took over, and I just bolted out onto the stage, pulled Paul’s mic off the stand, whacked the leaded mic onto the stand and muttered to Paul, ‘I’ll tell you later, it’s good.

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