Heavy Duty by K.K. Downing

Author:K.K. Downing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2018-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

The World Vengeance tour ended in Honolulu, leaving a three-month gap before we were due to appear at the US Festival Heavy Metal Day on June 29, 1983.

Glenn and I had a plan.

With so little time before US Festival, it made no sense whatsoever to go back to the UK or to Spain.

“Let’s stay and play golf for a few weeks,” I said to Glenn.

“You’re on,” he replied.

And that’s exactly what we did.

We drove our rental car directly to the reception of the Royal Hawaiian Golf Club resort office.

“Do you have any houses to rent for a month?” I asked.

“How about that one?” the girl said, pointing to a smart-looking villa overlooking the first fairway.

“We’ll take it,” I said.

And that was that.

As much as Glenn and I did not always see eye-to-eye in the band, when we were alone together like we were in Hawaii, it was easier for both of us to remember the things—even if there weren’t many—that we liked about each other. In that sense we were more like an old married couple. We rubbed along pretty well when we were doing things we enjoyed doing, when the stresses of touring, live shows, and politics were off the table.

So, for an entire month we did very little else but drive and play golf somewhere, drive, eat dinner, drive, have a few beers, drive, play golf somewhere else. Looking back, those were some of the best times I ever spent with Glenn—even if he still mostly dictated the day-to-day schedule. Somehow, in Hawaii, that didn’t bother me.

But the feel-good time had to end.

The US Festival was an extraordinary spectacle, however. Never in my life have I seen so many people in one place. The official estimate (and I’ve no idea who came up with it) was 300,000 people. To me, it looked like there might have been a lot more.

“What time is the car picking us up?” I remember asking in the hotel that morning.

“It isn’t,” Rob said. “We’re going in and out in a helicopter!”

Finally, a helicopter rescue!

Later that day I remember being up in the helicopter in a bright blue California sky, gazing out of the window at a sea of people that just never seemed to end. For a second, the scale of the event was hard to fathom: All these people are here to see heavy metal bands. And we’re one of them.

More than any other single moment, being in that helicopter was the one that really brought it home to me that we really had made it to the top table—and that there was no going back. The album was flying, our single was all over the radio, and we all looked great.

In the context of heavy music, we had reached the Promised Land. And that meant no more sleeping in the van, no more beans on toast, and no more scratching around to find the Lodge Road rent.

Curiously—despite the vast audience—the gig itself was unremarkable. In some ways, the sheer scale of the crowd made things more impersonal and therefore easier to navigate.

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