Rock Goddess publicity photo 1983. Tracey left the band in April of that year, the new bass player being Dee O’Malley.

 

At that level, there is no such thing as a tour that runs smoothly and the aforementioned Double Damage tour was no exception as the first show was cancelled due to either other commitments from Y&T or a failure in their travel arrangements (memory does not serve me well here and I apologise) and thus the tour started in Cardiff, Wales rather than Hanley, England. For this and the previous tour, the girls travelled in a tour bus whilst I went with the equipment in a van driven by a delightfully mad Irishman named Del Fitzpatrick*, accompanied by our other roadie, Gaz.† We arrived at St David’s Hall at around 2pm on show day and walked into a very empty venue. Y&T were nowhere to be seen, there were no stage crew, no P.A. or lighting guys and the Production Office was locked. Fearing the worst, I started to make calls from a backstage payphone to no avail but message eventually reached us that Y&T were running late and were expected around 5pm - the crew were all in the pub across the road from the hall. Showtime was scheduled for 7:30pm so the logical option was for us to set-up and soundcheck, leave the equipment onstage and then Y&T could set up their equipment behind Rock Goddess’s when they finally arrived. The girls arrived around 4pm, I explained the situation, we sound-checked and waited.

 

And waited.

 

It was close to 6:30pm when the roller-doors flew open and a dozen burley roadies started throwing a truck full of flight cases onstage as quickly as they could. Introductions were kept to a friendly ‘Hello’ as a flurry of cables were patched, guitars warmed and tuned, drums clattered around the stage and gung-ho Americans barked orders at no one in particular. I stood back and watched this whirlwind of chaos and briefly caught a glimpse of Joey Alves and Dave Meniketti looking rather tired whilst someone I assumed to be their tour manager tried to reassure them that they would be a show that night and all would be well. Dave rolled his eyes as if he’d heard the same reassurances several times over the last thirty-six hours or so; Joey appeared to fall asleep standing up at one point.

 

Checking my watch, I wandered back to the girl’s dressing room which for thirty minutes before showtime was always out of bounds while they changed into their stage gear. As I entered, I was hit with a barrage of questions about the band which I couldn’t answer but I did tell them rather meekly that Y&T’s equipment made theirs look rather small. There was a silence in the room that was unnerving and then someone asked ‘How small?’ ‘Well’ I said, ‘You have two Marshall cabs onstage, they have eighteen.’ This was not what they had expected. Advertised as a Double Headline tour, they were now in a position where they had been effectively by sheer size of Y&T’s backline, relegated to support slot. John Turner, their manager quickly disappeared out the dressing room to have a look followed close behind by me. Nothing we could do now except get the girls onstage, get the show over and done with and talk to the people responsible tomorrow. That and the fact that I didn’t want to be in a room with three angry women made me run like hell (having experienced the wrath of all three at once before, it was not something I wanted to see again).