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Next morning we found Jerry outside the Mayfair pub on the promenade. Suggs, Madness' singer was with him. They were polishing off the day's first round of drinks.
Suggs had come over to see the Specials and Clive Langer. Madness were due in the studio this week to begin work on a new album with Langer.
"We've written the songs for it," Suggs explained. "We're just working on the reviews. We're going to review it on Saturday, record it Sunday and have it in the shops on Monday..."
"You're going to spend a whole day on the new one. are you?" Dammers asked him. "It's not a rock opera, is it?"
Dammers had been fiddling with his new Yashika camera. He started shooting everything in sight.
"You should save it for the Alps and mountain goats." Adrian Boot told him.
"Mounting goats?" Suggs exclaimed. "What kind of behaviour is that?"
Meanwhile, back at the Casino, Jake Riviera was leading the F-Beat crew from the bus that had brought them from Orange where they'd played a festival with the Feelgoods the previous night.
Clearly, there had been a considerable amount of chasping out the night before. (Note: to chasp — to be one of the cha(s)ps; to enjoy a damned good evening with the chasps; this will include copious amounts of drink and a lot of blimming — ie, bantering.) Billy Bremner described the coach as a kind of mobile Jonestown, with bodies sprawled everywhere all the way from Orange.
Downstairs in the casino's main auditorium, they were locking the doors and evacuating the press. Elvis Costello was preparing for his soundcheck and no one was invited. The Attractions started up, Elvis strummed a few bars. A French photographer who'd previously gone unnoticed rather foolishly whipped out a camera; he was whipped out of the auditorium before he'd removed his lens cap.
Elvis' attention was then diverted by the hapless individual in the lighting gallery who was fiddling with the spotlights.
"Tell that mother—— to stop, or we do," he ranted.
One of the Attractions' road crew approached the gallery, shouting. He was ignored. Elvis' temper was on the blink; a definite wobbler was waiting in the wings.
"Look, mate," the roadie shouted to the gallery. "We're not asking you to stop fiddling with those lights. We're telling you."
A tap on the shoulder told me that my renegade presence at the back of the press gallery had been detected. I missed the eventual outcome of the altercation.
Boo.
The F-Beat night at the Montreux Festival opened with a set from Clive Langer and the Boxes, whose first album, Splash, has just been shunted onto the racks.
Their performance rather lacked the consistent edge of surprise and the unexpected twists of focus that characterise the best moments on the album, but it was lively enough. Langer plays with music as if he's mixing an exceptionally potent cocktail, when the ingredients are blended successfully, his songs can knock you out. When the recipe's not specific enough, they just make you a little giddy. "Burning Money" and "Hope And Glory" were lethal, a lot of the rest of his set was a little diluted. Still: once you get the taste, you can't easily put him down.
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