Sat, 16 Oct 1999
It has been a few weeks now, and time enough to put some perspective on things. The two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall were, in a word, bloody great. (yes, I know, that’s two words, so there’s no need to start threading about it, I’m a bass player, and Welsh, so I don’t know any better!) None of us could really have anticipated the feeling that we experienced together on those nights.
As you rush around like headless chickens from one store to the next with lists of soon forgotten people for whom you have to find some trinket or bauble that can somehow be passed off as a thoughtful gift in this season of giving, take a moment and spare a thought for what is really happening. I’ll tell you what is happening.
It was only a few weeks ago that Leon and I had a few drinks in the bar of some hotel or other. It was the first time we had talked properly since the opening night of the tour when all of Lynyrd Skynyrd stood outside our dressing room door and shook our hands as we arrived – a genuine, warm welcome.
First of all thank you for all your birthday greetings in November. I couldn’t reply individually but I had a lovely time, thank you. This has been a tumultuous year on many fronts, backs and sides – but here we are, the survivors, like pawns dangling at the end of it with no choice but to get dragged inexorably towards the festivities, and on with mathematical certainty, and probably a hangover, to the new year, fighting and clawing all the way trying to grab a little piece of the old one before it forever and incontrovertibly becomes history – fodder for future TV documentaries, to be analyzed, dissected, and mythologized.
It’s over. The year that is. A passing. A bygone. let bygones be bygones, as Eddie Izzard said. He also asked what IS a bygone? I don’t know but here comes another one, except it hasn’t gone yet.
Before it becomes a bygone though, it is worth remembering that twelve months ago we were all perched on a similar diving platform above the murky deep end wondering what was in store.