That was then
I am looking through the mists of time on a dank, damp evening somewhere in Bristol. It’s half a lifetime ago and I am footloose and fancy free by choice. It was so much more fun in those days. The traffic swishes by on Victoria Street as we turn the corner to the Fleece and Firkin pub. There’s a deep thump, thump, thump as we go through the door. Even though it’s early in the evening, the Fleece is packed. There is an old ambulance outside. We don’t need telling who’s playing.
My trainers are sticking to the tacky floor as we manoeuvre to a good vantage point, somewhere equidistant between the stage and the bar. The lights flicker on the amplifiers, the microphones are set up, the guitars are on their stands. And it’s hot, very hot, even though it’s late autumn. There’s a loud buzz of conversation and I swear you can actually touch the anticipation and excitement.
I recognise so many people. I know them from the other gigs we go to. I’m a late twenties male and I am, undoubtedly, a groupie. All of us are. We have all seen something, someone great. Unlike most local bands, this one plays mostly original material. They play the odd U2 and Springsteen cover, but their own songs lose nothing by comparison. That’s how good they are. After so many gigs, I look forward to the originals and wouldn’t care if they dumped the covers altogether. Then, just as I am running out of beer, the lights go down. The hubbub becomes a long, sustained cheer. Misdemeanor are coming on stage.
All eyes are on the front man, a good looking young man with spiky hair and a twinkling smile and, from time to time, a strong Northern Irish lilt to his voice. They launch head on into the set and it’s fantastic. It’s loud, it’s aggressive but these are great tunes. I look around and everyone in the packed Fleece knows all the words. Not just some, all of them. The lead singer is Kevin McFadden and he is the heart and soul of the band. He writes the songs that make the whole Fleece sing. He has a huge, booming voice, the band is as tight as a duck’s posterior. In my world, Misdemeanor are the greatest band in the world. And I am really not joking.
The rattle through the set leaving nothing behind. We know the songs from their introductions, like Stereo Heartbreak, Shadows of Love, Indian Times and so many more. “This is a Russian song,” grins McFadden as the band plays Asswipeska, which is of course a semi-witty play on words. We laugh as we always do because we have heard the joke before and we know that someone at the gig will think he’s being serious.
I have serious man love for these boys. Kevin McFadden is the nearest thing to Springsteen and Stewart Adamson I know, Bob Watson, the shy, retiring second guitar player, turns into superman when he straps on his guitar. I want both of them to have my babies. I never want this gig to end and I want, I need, to know when and where the next gigs are. Above all, I want an album of their music. But there isn’t one.
We meet McFadden and Watson after the gig and I turn into a ten year old girl, blabbing incoherently. It must be love. “You’re great, you are,” I probably say and I mean it. Soon, they will be on the cover of Rolling Stone, their epic Radio Radio tune will be on Top of the Pops. Everyone around us agrees. This is a truly great band. It won’t be long, will it? They will need more than that old ambulance to carry their gear to gigs when they are playing arenas.
This is now
We are enjoying, some say enduring, the hottest and driest summer for over 40 years. No summer in the 1980s came close to this one and not one since. Misdemeanor broke up at the end of the 1980s and Kevin McFadden moved to the USA. I found this out some years later when I got an email from Mike Darby of Sugar Shack records. Not only was he alive and kicking, Mike was putting together an album of Misdemeanor songs which would be released on iTunes. I can’t remember when I heard this – it was probably around 2011 but I can’t be sure – I was overjoyed. The amazing thing was that even though I had not actually heard the songs for well over 20 years, I still knew them and could still sing many of the lyrics. Of course, I downloaded the album the moment it became available. I was not disappointed.
I had corresponded occasionally with Kevin McFadden via email. He would tell me about his life in California and better still he was still making new music. He was then in his mid fifties, so he was hardly old too old to rock. He wouldn’t have lost it. He was still fiery, too. If I wrote something on this blog and he didn’t like it, he would write and tell me so, especially if it was about Northern Irish politics. I thanked him for the music. I told him I could not wait for new music. New music, new life.
14 July 2018
I have an email from a name I don’t recognise. It’s Paul Cary who runs Kevin McFadden’s website. The news is very sad. Kevin had moved back to the UK earlier this year but sadly had died on 1st July. I read it again. And then I read it again. The man who wrote the soundtrack to my twenties and early thirties was no longer with us. My sadness would have been dwarfed by that felt by his family but I was very aware that he was gone far too soon. He was 59. These days, that’s nothing.
24 July 2018
It’s hot and sunny, in this the hottest, sunniest summer ever, possibly. I drive to Canford Lane cemetery and park near the crematorium. There are some people sitting on a bench across the way. One I know from his self-description is Paul Cary, a truly lovely man with a pony tail and a short beard. With him, I soon realise, is Bob Watson who I swear has just arrived direct from 1986. I am so pleased to see them. I meet some other people too, including former band member Steve Capaldi and drummer Keiron Wright. The coffin arrives. We follow it into the main building. I sit behind the family.
There is music playing and instantly I recognise the song as Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen. the ceremony that follows is not overlong but it’s powerful, evocative and emotional. Two McFadden tunes, Tornado Stories and Wounded Heart are played. I have never heard them before and they’re brilliant. His voice, distinctive and unmistakable is, for one last time before committal, alive and kicking. I rather switch off during the religious stuff and think about his grieving family, consoling each other the best they can. The coffin lowers and Kevin McFadden leaves us to Big Country’s epic In a Big Country. I find myself tapping my foot, which may or may not have been appropriate. I rather think the man himself would have laughed his head off. In terms of the music, Kevin McFadden had all the talent of the late, great Stewart Adamson. Everyone who saw Misdemeanor would vouch for that.
I leave Canford Lane with Misdemeanor belting from the car stereo. I slow down as I pass Paul Cary and Bob Watson who can hear his own guitar work as a I drive away. Apologies to mourners from other ceremonies who found the very loudly played Down in the Park a little disrespectful. It certainly wasn’t from my point of view.
I arrive at the Globe in Frampton Cotterell, a late change of venue after the original venue the White Horse in Westbury sprung a leak. I meet Kevin’s dad, a lovely gentle gentleman with an occasionally impenetrable Belfast accent. At no time do I feel I shouldn’t really be there. They make me very welcome, they have read my website articles, they tell me – and this brings a tear to my eye – that Kevin McFadden himself loved my stuff, really lifted him. His six children, the girls beautiful, the boys incredibly handsome; all covered in that McFadden stardust. They ask me to write something about their dad on a piece of card. I am deeply honoured to do so. A funeral I almost missed, first being unable to get time off work, then a cancelled dentist appointment, then a stinking cold and a barking cough and then cancelled mental health therapy appointment. For once, I have made the right decision. Kevin McFadden made a lot of people happy with his music. Today, I felt I was there representing everyone who went to the Fleece, the Crown, The Bristol Bridge Inn, Yesterdays, the Pioneer in Keynsham.
And finally
One lime and soda with ice and it’s time to go. I am incredibly alert and confident as I glad hand my way around the lovely function room at the Globe. It was Paul Cary who convinced me I should be there, despite my concerns that I would be somehow a fraud. I was most concerned that some people might think I would make it all about me. How silly I was to think that. There was only one star today and he was Kevin Gerard McFadden 22nd March 1959 – 1st July 2018.
