CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WEMBLEY
They think it’s all over..
– Kenneth Wostenholme, Saturday 30 July 1966, commentating on the FIFA World Cup Final between England and West Germany held at Wembley Stadium
Only forty-five thousand people had seen the event.
But not before they had spent an average of two hours waiting in queues to be told their lives were passing them by. They had paid between twenty and two hundred pounds to be told not to let people tell them what to do and think. It is not known how many of them were aware of this irony. Besides a certain amount of queuing was inevitable. It is impossible to fill an arena as large as Wembley stadium quickly.
And, for someone who until two months before had been a complete unknown, it ought to have been impossible to fill it at all. But all the original thirty thousand tickets to John Smith’s one-off show had sold out in less than two hours. A new licence was applied for and another fifteen thousand tickets were sold the next day. But that, it was emphasised would be that. This was a one-off show, never to be repeated. The chance of a lifetime.
Not all those attending were so keen to see John but by some Machiavellian manoeuvre worthy of Colonel Tom Parker, Eric had managed to book DeathStar as support.
DeathStar were a noise-metal band with two lead guitarists, two drummers and a reputation for spectacular pyrotechnic live shows. At that moment, they were the biggest, loudest band in America and as luck would have it none of the band were currently in jail or rehab. They had never played in Europe before. They were due to tour next year, if they could acquire the necessary safety permits and if their lead guitarist lived that long. By fair means or foul, Eric had managed to short-circuit the usually tortuous negotiations and got permission for them to perform. By even more amazing magic, Eric persuaded them to appear second on the bill behind some limey they had never heard of and who was just going to stand there talking.
Before the show, John had been quite nervous but standing back stage watching while DeathStar screamed through their blasphemous and pornographic set had taken his mind off it. It was too hard to think through that level of noise and you needed to keep your wits about you, in case a discarded guitar flew in your direction.
DeathStar went mad. The crowd went mad. DeathStar screamed. The crowd screamed. DeathStar’s lead drummer set the rhythm drummer’s drum kit on fire and the crowd cheered. DeathStar’s rhythm drummer pissed on his drum kit to put the fire out and then threw a tom-tom at the bassist. Half the crowd watched more hesitantly. Half the crowd cheered more wildly.
The next song began with the fight still carrying on. Somehow the musicians were able to play and hurt each other simultaneously. It was one of the things that made DeathStar famous and widely unwelcome. By now, the two guitarists were getting involved and the singer was encouraging the audience to throw things at them. Fortunately for Wembley’s insurance there was nothing heavier than plastic bottles within easy reach, although a few enterprising idiots threw their shoes. This seemed to disappoint the singer, who went off to join the fight, singing all the while.
Some of the audience wanted to get involved too and tried to climb on stage in order to dive off it again. But the scowling security staff seemed to be winning that battle.
The violence reached screaming pitch and the music did likewise. The two drummers had abandoned their posts entirely and were wrestling to what seemed like the death. The two guitarists circled each other like cage-fighters, screaming at each other. The bassist was screaming at someone or something that no one else could see, swatting about his head with his guitar. The singer’s voice, never melodic at the best of times, now cracked even further, as he collapsed to the ground in spasms. It was impossible to tell if he was laughing or crying.
Then it was over. The speakers went silent and the stage was plunged into darkness. Those at the front could see that the band members barely noticed. The audience applauded. They stamped and screamed to fill the void in the noise. Hoping that the show would go on. But the lights stayed off and dark burly shapes came onto the stage to drag away the band.
The audience weren’t sure what had happened but they wanted more. Their loud demands went unanswered and eventually died out in embarrassment and disappointment.
DeathStar didn’t do encores. Not when they weren’t top of the bill.
The house lights came up and something more recognisably musical came over the PA.
They were a hard act to follow. The interval dragged on. John waited for as long as he could before stepping out on the stage.
He started simply enough with a recap of his story so far.
What it was that had got him here. The audience all knew that already. That’s why they were here too wasn’t it? They wanted something new. They listened with one ear, waiting to be entertained. John tried to turn up the pace.
“Today we have learnt that it is best to treat this life as if it’s the only one you get, because, you never know, it just might be! Fired up with this precious knowledge, we should never squander another moment. Boredom is a crime against existence!”
Though in the minds of 30,000 people it was a crime he was committing right now, John was anything but bored. He was terrified.
“Let us not bother with small talk, never again sit through some dull film, board-meeting or medical procedure. Let’s be reckless, remembering that we may be hit by a bus at any moment and that would be it, but take more care crossing roads for the same reason. We should live as Godless heathens because God couldn’t really expect us to do otherwise.
Besides, I have plenty of time left to be one of those who repents too late and is merely destined for purgatory.
“Wait.”
Half a minute passed.
“That was half a minute. How many thoughts did you have in that interval? It would take you a long time to reconstruct all of them and even longer to even attempt to explain them to someone-else. Your own thoughts are an efficient shorthand, you use to negotiate through the sum total of your history.
“And yet, that was only half a minute. There are nearly three thousand of these in every day and each one is just as long.
Where have they all gone? What were you thinking?
“At the corner of my road there is a twenty four hour funeral service. Yes, people die at all times of the day and night. But while I can see how you might like an ambulance to get to you quickly, once it is too late for an ambulance, it is too late for anything”
This was going wrong. John was delivering the speech but the audience weren’t really enraptured.
“No-one can be in that much of a hurry once they are dead. It is the living wanting to remove the evidence of their own impending demise. But that’s wrong. We need to face death every day if we want to get the most out of life.”
That’s went something really went wrong.
It must have looked great on the big screens on either side of the stage. From the moment the gunman had climbed on stage at its far left hand edge, the cameras had picked him out.
A sharp-witted producer had flicked the pictures onto the leftmost screen. The gunman cut a stylish figure in black and white, sporting an eye-catching golden crucifix round his neck and an eye-disguising caricature mask over his own features.
This grinning Prime Minister appeared to have climbed out of the audience carrying a silver and black assault rifle that he had inexplicably got past security.
The audience at the front left could see straight away that this man was on stage. It took a little longer for those further away to figure out that this was not some stock shock footage taken at another time. The people at the front left could also see the panic spreading through the crew. They panicked too.
John Smith had not noticed any of this. He was in the flow of his speech. Right in the middle of a really good bit about how people should stop and look around them.
“We are blind to the really interesting things going on in front of our noses and deaf to.. “ he was saying just as he heard the gun go off.
Anyone with the wherewithal to make it onto the stage at Wembley armed with a semi-automatic assault rifle would probably have made sure to learn how to use it first. Sure enough, the gunman was putting in a workmanlike performance. He did not shoot from the hip, but had taken the time to bring the gun up to shoulder height and take aim at his target before firing. He had sighted Smith along the barrel and let out three or four sharp bursts of fire in his direction.
He need not have bothered. The first burst was sure to have done the job. It had found its target. Smith’s chest exploded with red and he was thrown backwards by the force, his body twisting round and sprawling to the floor. The second and third bursts mostly hit the air where Smith had been before smashing into a bank of unfeasibly large stage monitor speakers that DeathStar’s lead guitarist Bloomberg Necessity claimed he needed to create that unmistakable DeathStar’s sound. These exploded spectacularly as if this was all in a day work*. For the benefit of those in the cheap seats, all three screens now showed this scene.
_______________
* And working for DeathStar this was not outside the bounds of possibility.
Perhaps pleased with these theatricals, the gunman turned towards the audience and let out a joyful burst of fire. He was still careful with his aim and no-one was in any danger as he fired out and over their heads at the roof. Nonetheless, it caused a panic. People were screaming and running for the exits. The gunman was not interested. Already, he had turned his back and could be seen walking to centre stage in his workmanlike fashion.
He was lost for a moment as he passed behind an equally large bank of speakers stage left, which DeathStar’s other lead-guitarist, Exploding Peter, insisted he have to be able to hear himself feedback over the din of Bloomberg Necessity’s competing axe-work. The gunman came up to where the body was lying. Again he raised his gun and at kicking distance he fired down at what was clearly an already very dead body.
Each shot sent up sent up shocks of red blood and caused it to jerk and twitch spasmodically. This was not a residual sign of life but Isaac Newton’s Laws of action and reaction coming into what was Smith’s life once again.
The reaction of the audience followed more closely the laws of Charles Mackay. The crowd went mad. Some screamed helplessly fixed to the spot, some screamed while trying desperately to get away. Some turned to run, some ran but not wanting to risk taking their eyes off the stage they ran backwards. They tripped over others who had curled up into balls. Many others further back, who felt there was relative safety in numbers, pushed forwards for a better look.
On stage the Prime Minister was waving his shiny assault weapon above his head, Hezbollah style. He made his way to the vacant microphone.
“See what happens if you don’t pay attention?” He shouted, clearly a bit over excited.
He fired his gun into the lighting rig causing a light shower of sparks and glass to spread from the South East. It quickly cleared as he finished the last of his ammunition.
“I told you!” He told them.
Gripping his gun by the barrel, he hurled it, Hendrix style, at the nearest available stack of amps. After the recent pyrotechnics, it made disappointingly little noise. It is doubtful whether DeathStar would have approved. Perhaps running out of things to throw or other ways to show his anger the still smiling PM removed his heavy crucifix and threw it after his gun.
“I don’t know why I bother!” He shouted, obviously bothered by something.
He cast about himself chaotically for a moment as if unsure what to smash next. Finding nothing he pulled his mask off.
All three screens caught the moment. And the audience became even more confused when they saw the face of the man who had just been gunned down. It was Smith standing up there in front of, smiling and very much alive. The quicker of the crowd realised that they had just been victims of an Extraordinary Unpopular Delusion.
It had been a con trick.
“That was all faked, but perhaps you are now awake! Thank you and goodnight!” he shouted to them before the stage lights all cut quickly to black.
The house lights came on and the security formed a visible and secure line in front of the stage in case the audience got angry at being tricked. They didn’t, they were too relieved, too confused. To help defuse any tension, “Always look on the bright side of life” started playing over the Wembley PA. It seemed to help and the audience shuffled out in a somewhat subdued fashion, some of them still sobbing to themselves.