Ah, the glory of music stardom
Pavarotti needs his potty
Bob Dylan
A number of years ago, Bob Dylan decided to drop in on Eurythmics mainman Dave Stewart. The voice of a generation knocked on what he thought was the right door and was greeted by a kindly old lady who confirmed that Dave Stewart lived there, but had popped out and would be back soon.
The great documentarian agreed to wait and was led into the sitting rom where he sat on the sofa chatting to the lady and sipping tea.
The cosy scene was shattered when Dave Stewart arrived back an hour or so later. Largely because this was not the home of Dave Stewart the rock star, but Dave Stewart the plumber.
No doubt this Dave Stewart got the surprise of his life when he found one of his musical heroes chatting to his mother.
Keith Richards
In 1994, the Rolling Stones' never-ending World Tour wound up in Toronto. But before the band took to the stage, all hell broke loose.
Guitar god Keith Richards was furious when he discovered that the shepherd's pie specially made for him had been eaten. An inquest was held to discover the culprit, but nobody came forward. Richards insisted he would not play as a result.
Finally a compromise was reached when a top chef was summoned to the venue with the express purpose to cooking Keef's favourite meal.
Half an hour after the band were supposed to have started the gig, the pie materialised. Richards ate one mouthful, then picked up his guitar and headed to the back stage area where the rest of the band were glaring at him waiting to go on.
"I think he just did it to annoy Mick," according to one crew member.
Richey Edwards
The Manic Street Preachers guitarist went missing in 1994 and was never found. The band have never been quite the same since.
But six years before his disappearance, and in an interview with a UK music mag, the socially conscious rocker decided to make a point about Aids at the height of the epidemic's scare. And he reckoned he knew how best to do it.
Taking a razor blade and carving the letters HIV into his chest, he reckoned it would be a bloody message of awareness for "the kids".
He disappeared into his dressing room and emerged 10 minutes later with the blood soaked letters VIH.
Yes, you guessed it. He had carved the letters while looking in the mirror.
Pavarotti
The Italian tenor is on the rotund side and, whenever he plays live, he has it in his contract that he most be no further than 50 metres from a toilet at any time. He also has a penchant for a special double-size disabled portaloo to be placed behind the percussion section.
Van Morrison
The grumpy Belfast singer used to share an accountant with Bob Dylan in the 1970s. Once, when the pair happened to be in London, their money man thought it would be a nice gesture to invite them out to dinner in his favourite restaurant.
But what the accountant didn't realise is that the men weren't on speaking terms. In fact, for the duration of the meal neither spoke a single word to the other or to their host.
Eventually, Bob Dylan looked at his watch and left. When he'd gone Van Morrison leaned across the table and spoke for the first time that night: "I thought Bob was on pretty good form tonight, didn't you?"
Jimmy Webb
The writer behind such tunes as Wichita Lineman and MacArthur Park was in studio working on a solo album with Beatles maestro George Martin in 1977.
Never the most conventional of songwriters, Webb had come up with a tune about gliding. It turned out he had a love for this aeronautical activity and felt his song was incomplete without actual glider noises being added to the song's recording.
Anxious to appease him, his record company hired a 2,000-yard-long airstrip for the day and rigged it with stereo microphones every six feet. This required several tons of outside-recording equipment, including three trucks, 8,000 metres of cable, wind mufflers, a mobile studio, and a state-of-the-art glider.
The ever versatile Webb decided the man the craft himself and proceeded to glide down the length of the runway exactly as planned.
Despite the money and time spent on this spectacular sound effect, the end result was exactly like someone going "ssssshhh".
The album bombed.
Mark Hollis
English new wave synth band Talk Talk were inexplicably popular in Eastern Europe in the 1980s. But that didn't stop them getting stopped by East German custom officials and being strip-searched.
Frontman Mark Hollis was taken by officials into a clinical room where he was gruffly informed that he would be given a full body search.
Hollis was told to assume the position, and bending over, he heard the snap of rubber glove being administered to a hand.
"So," said the cold German steely voice from behind him, "you're in a pop band? There is one question I wish to know the answer to."
Hollis tensed and said he would help any way he could. The probing finger was slid in. As it reached in as far as it would go, and quite possibly as uncomfortably as could be, the customs officers asked the question he had been building up to during the whole experience.
With his finger firmly ensconced in a pop star and with no trace of emotion whatsoever he simply asked: "Do you know Peter Gabriel?"
Status Quo
The bafflingly popular Status Quo were on tour in Australia in the mid-1980s. They had recently played Live Aid and were selling millions of albums.
They were 300 miles from the nearest town when their tour bus hit a kangaroo. Unsurprisingly, the marsupial came off second best and as the band members trooped off the bus they found the 'roo lying still on the ground.
It was then that they did what any self-respecting rock band would do: they dressed the kangaroo in a denim jacket, a pair of sunglasses and a bandana and lined up with it to have their photo taken.
Startled by the flash, the only-concussed kangaroo woke up, pushed the Quo aside with its fists and bounded off into the desert. It was soon lost over the horizon, still dressed like a Status Que roadie.
The band roared laughing as the climbed back on board the bus, but their guffaws came to an abrupt halt when they realised that the bus ignition keys were in the pocket of the jacket.
'Status Quo and the Kangaroo' by Jon Holmes
(Michael Joseph, €12.99)
