Dave Grohl once again adorns the cover of Q this month. He does so minus the now traditional epiphet ‘Nicest Man In Rock’, but with much anticipation for his band the Foo Fighters’ UK stadia shows next month. For this is the near-annual Summer Preview issue of Q, when thoughts turn to a surfeit of shows in vast, open spaces.

There is, as ever, much to look forward to, and often as not the coming months will live up to such expectations. But here’s a cautionary word of warning derived from bitter personal experience… on occasion they don’t. Indeed, at least three of the worst gig-going endurances of my life have occurred during the aforesaid summer season. And, in no particular order of dreadfulness, here they are:

1/ ZZ Top at Milton Keynes Bowl
A long time ago in what may as well have been a galaxy far, far away, the beardy Texans were something of a pop phenomenon, thanks to their combination of southern boogie, comedic personas and cheeky/sexist videos, all which chimed perfectly with the rise of MTV. This particular show was to be the largest they had played in their own right in the UK.

The terrible memories of it remain etched in my mind. For a start, the support bill was singularly wretched: Little Angels, a largely hopeless hard rock band from Scarborough of all places; Paul Rogers at his leather-trousered worst; and – yea Gods – Bryan Adams, then riding the wave generated by that foul Robin Hood single that spent what seemed an eternity atop the pop charts. A curse on them all.

Having to endure each of these low rent turns was bad enough. Doing so as an oafish young man devoid of all common sense on one of those infrequent boiling hot British summer days was a recipe for disaster. And so it proved to be. By the time ZZ Top came on stage – amusingly, aboard a fleet of of minature cars… oh, how we laughed – I had spent several hours standing, hat less, beneath a scorching sun, endeavouring to ward off encroaching dehydration with a bottle of cheap cider.

I recall vomitting all over my own feet, and others, mere seconds into Sharp Dressed Man. And little else. Besides, that is, managing to lose the coach I had travelled on in the Bowl’s vast car park, and wandering aimlessly around in rising panic for what seemed like hours, but was in fact less than half an hour, before someone older and wiser finally saved my (fried) bacon.

2/ Bon Jovi at Milton Keynes Bowl
The casual observer might wonder why one would return the scene of the previous horror show, and to see Bon Jovi of that. There were mitigating circumstances: this time I was being paid to be there (not that much admittedly, but then no amount could really compensate for losing a day of one’s life to the strains of Wanted Dead Or Alive).

The bill was similarly bad, I recall. The Manic Street Preachers, for reasons they probably never fully understood, opened the show. They were afforded the sort of reception usually afforded ousted dictators and movies starring Vinne Jones. Whilst trudging around the site later in the day I bumped into Richey James, who looked like a man who’d seen a vision of hell he would not soon forget. If memory serves, Little Angels were there again, leading to suspicions that they actually lived on site and thus were asked to appear at every show by default.

It rained, too, but neither the weather nor the rubbish music is what made this such a grim endurance test. The reason for that lies solely in an incident that occurred what seemed like a week into Bon Jovi’s hideaously elongated set. There I was, stood on a bank, in the midst of thousands upon thousands of folk having what seemed to be a very good time of it.

What none of them needed was a miserable curmudgeon to be moaning – audibly and often – throughout the Jovis’ every witless move. Such a person clearly needed to be silenced, and silence I was as – in what could have passed for a scene from Lord Of The Flies – several Jovi fans sporting bubble perms, a little too much make-up and skin-tight stonewashed jeans surrounded me. There were women among them, too. After much poking, prodding and jostling, I was sent on my way with several entreaties to, “Fuck off and die.” On that particlar day, death would have been the better option.

3/ R.E.M. at Milton Keynes Bowl
Oh yes, the Bowl again. And once more, I had paid to be there. I had no intention of doing so, since I had originally held front row tickets to see the men from Athens at Wembley Arena (hardly an intimate venue, true, but at least it had a roof and wasn’t in Milton Keynes), only for their drummer Bill Berry’s brain to burst and the show to be cancelled. When Berry was fully recovered, R.E.M. decided to do the Bowl instead, and may they still suffer unimaginable tortures for doing so.

Radiohead – then the band of The Bends – were Special Guests, which was clearly a good thing. Sleeper and The Cranberries were also on the bill, which was very much not. To add to the already escalating misery, I had missed my train from London, and had thus become separated from everyone I knew. This was in the days before mobile phones and, as David Quantick will tell you in the new issue, the contingency plan to “meet at the beer tent” is a wholly stupid one, since the beer tent does not exist in singular form at events of this daft scale.

So there I was, alone, hot and bothered, and compelled to listen to Dolores from The Cranberries trilling like a budgie in great paid. At least, surely, R.E.M. would be worth it? Except they weren’t. Instead R.E.M. had decided that if they were going to sully their ideals, if not their pension plans, by becoming a stadium rock band, then they weren’t going to make any concessions to the form to do so. At all.

Hence, they had a PA the size of one more normally employed in a venue the size of The Dog And Bucket public house – it was possible to hear playing the radio at home in Milton Keynes over R.E.M. that day. And why ever would 80,000 people sretched over an area the size of several football pitches possibly need something that stank so of corporate rock as a video screen? So R.E.M. were all but invisible, too. And, on that day at least, they were rubbish.

There’s your warning, then. Summer shows may not be all their cracked up to be. Especially if you’re bound for Milton Keynes. And Little Angels are featured in any way, shape or form.

Enjoy.

Paul Rees – Editor, Q