Naked by Kevin Brooks

Author:Kevin Brooks [Brooks, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141969374
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

22

It’d been rumoured for a while that Malcolm McLaren was trying to arrange a big event in August to showcase the Sex Pistols, and when he finally announced that they’d be playing at the Screen on the Green cinema in Islington on 29 August, supported by the Buzzcocks, the Clash, and Naked, Curtis and Jake were absolutely convinced that this was the chance we’d been waiting for.

‘It’s going to be massive,’ Jake said excitedly. ‘Everyone’s going to be there – journalists, photographers, all the record companies … it’s just going to be huge.’

‘Yeah,’ Curtis agreed. ‘I still think Malcolm should have put us higher up the bill though. I mean, we shouldn’t have to play first, for Christ’s sake. It should be the Buzzcocks first, then the Clash, then us, and then the Pistols.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Jake said. ‘But you know what Malcolm’s like … he’s always doing deals behind the scenes, all kinds of sneaky shit. By the time he agreed to include us in the line-up it was either bottom of the bill or nothing.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Curtis muttered. ‘We’ll just have to blow the rest of them off the stage, won’t we?’

‘Exactly.’

A couple of days later, the significance of the Screen on the Green gig became even greater when Jake told us that he’d just come back from another meeting with Polydor records – who’d been showing a lot of interest in us for a while – and that they were now very close to offering us a contract.

‘How close is “very close”?’ Curtis asked him.

‘Well, they’re still being a bit cautious, so it’s hard to say for definite, but I kind of got the impression that they’re going to make a final decision after the gig in Islington. Most of them are going to be there, and I think they just want to see us one more time before they make up their minds.’

‘No pressure then,’ Curtis said.

Jake grinned. ‘Like you said, all you’ve got to do is blow everyone else off the stage … do that, and we’re made.’

The concert was advertised as a ‘Midnight Special’, with films being shown in the cinema until midnight, and then live music from midnight until dawn. So, even as the first group to play, we still weren’t due on stage until just gone twelve. Curtis, though, was adamant that we should get there a lot earlier.

‘Everything’s got to be dead right,’ he explained. ‘The soundcheck, lights, equipment … we can’t afford to get anything wrong. There’s too much at stake. So I think we should aim to get there for seven o’clock at the latest.’

‘That’s five hours before we’re due to start,’ I pointed out.

‘So?’

‘Well, it’s a long time to hang around.’

‘It’s better than being late and fucking things up.’

I was fairly sure that the real reason he wanted to get there so early was to make sure that nothing happened without him. All the big names were going to be there – the Pistols, the Clash, the Buzzcocks

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