Tim Dowling: my band’s last gig – the story I forgot to tell

Over the course of a year, a significant portion of my life ends up committed to print. Obviously, for reasons of discretion, certain unsuitable incidents are not related, but at year’s end I almost never have occasion to say, “Here’s a story I forgot to tell.”

But you know what? Here’s a story I forgot to tell.

Back in March, I wrote about two full days of rehearsal for one last giant gig before the band I was in took a year off. I made the gig sound like a really big deal – which it was – and then never mentioned it again. Maybe, at the time, it was too big a deal.

When the idea of playing the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire first came up a year before that, I was sceptical. I’d driven past the place loads of times and seen the names of bands I’d actually heard of emblazoned across its marquee. I asked the guitar player how many people it could hold. He told me.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

A year later, I find myself on the pavement with the piano player, staring up at the name of our band emblazoned across the same marquee.

“Holy shit,” I say.

“I know,” he says, taking a picture with his phone.

Wheeling some equipment across the enormous bare stage, I meet a woman who describes herself as “artists’ liaison”.

“If you need anything, just come to my office,” she says.

“You have an office?” I say. I am used to playing in places where you can’t get from the dressing room to the stage without going outside.

Because of the two full days of rehearsal, the show is pretty slick. The guest bagpipe player comes on stage on cue, hits his mark, plays his solo and walks off in the right direction. Only once, when the lights first sweep across the house and I see 1,400 people ranged over three levels, does my jaw drop. This, I think, was never supposed to happen to me.

Afterwards, we have to pack up quickly – the venue requires everything to be removed immediately. This is easy when you have roadies and a giant tour bus double-parked outside, less so when your wife dropped you off that morning on her way to the supermarket. My youngest son comes to the foot of the stage while I’m coiling up cable.

“Mum lost the tickets to the afterparty,” he says.

“All of them?” I say. “I gave her, like, 12.”

“All of them,” he says.

I spend most of the afterparty trying to source enough spare tickets to get my wife and three sons back into the building. Security is uncompromising; my wristband impresses no one. I think: the Dixie Chicks played here. Did this happen to them?

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Eventually I source four tickets. When the afterparty ends, I detain the middle one to help me get my gear into the lift and out of the stage door. I feel weird about saying goodbye to the other band members, because we have nothing, not even a rehearsal, planned for the future. By the time we’ve ferried everything from the lift to the street, they’ve already gone anyway. I’m the last one out.

My son takes my phone and calls a cab. A few minutes later, a dark car approaches, slows, and then drives on.

“I think that might have been him,” I say. “Was that him?”

“The driver just cancelled our trip,” the middle one says.

“He saw all this stuff, and drove on!” I shout. “That’s outrageous!”

“I’ll call another one,” the middle one says. A few minutes later, a different car approaches, slows, and drives off.

“Is this legal?” I ask.

“I’ll order it from around the corner, and then make him pull over here,” he says.

The middle one walks to the end of the road, leaving me alone on the pavement with two banjos, two guitars, an amp, a harmonium, a harmonium stand, a pile of clothes and a bag full of wires. I sit down on the amp and stare at the backs of my hands.

Well, I think. That was that. When I next look up, I see that the name on the marquee above my head has already been changed to the next night’s band.