Miami Showband survivor Stephen Travers’ book The Bass Player – Surviving The Miami Showband Massacre was launched this week. Below is an extract from the book...
Wednesday 30 July was bright by the time we got back to Dublin. The annual Galway Races brought thousands of sun-seekers to the nearby popular seaside resort of Salthill and we had just played two consecutive nights to huge crowds at the Seapoint Leisure Complex. I was glad to catch a few hours’ sleep before setting off again to Banbridge in County Down, which, at that time, was about half an hour’s drive north of the Dundalk/Newry border.
One by one, we arrived and parked our cars at the Crofton Airport Hotel to rendezvous with our blue and white personnel minibus. Our trumpet player Brian McCoy, who kept the bus at his home in Raheny, was already there and chatting with a group of musicians who also used the hotel as their ‘band call’ when travelling north. Tony was the last to arrive – he’d just seen his brother Carl off at the airport on his journey to South Africa where he and his group, the Bubble Band, intended to start new lives. Tony had considered joining them, but, having discussed it with his fiancée, Linda, decided to buy a house in Dublin instead. Dave Monks, who I’d replaced in the Miami, was in the new band winging its way to the southern hemisphere.
It wasn’t long before we were on our way too and heading north towards the border. The mood in the bus was somewhat subdued because of the untimely death of our friend, Tom Dunphy, who had been killed in a car crash just three days before. At thirty-nine, Tom was a legend in the showband world; bass guitarist with the Royal Showband and then with the Big 8, which had continued the Royal’s six-month winter residency at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, he famously made the British charts with his first record. But we were young and we didn’t dwell on life-and-death matters for long, and soon a cassette of Edgar Winter’s album Roadwork was blasting through our VW speakers and all was well with the world again.
As usual, we finished the gig with the audience-participation number ‘Clap Your Hands, Stamp Your Feet’, a recent hit for the band and, after the customary autograph signings, we changed our clothes and chatted with the catering staff over a cup of tea. Oddly enough, we were offered Irish stew, which some of us accepted, before Brian, Fran, Tony, Des and I climbed into our minibus for the relatively short journey back to Dublin. Since we were due to have the following day off, our drummer, Ray, who had driven directly to Banbridge in his own car, continued on to Antrim to stay with his parents and spend some time with his girlfriend, Anne.
It was unusual, too, that Brian Maguire, our road manager, had the equipment packed and loaded into his gear van and had left the venue a few minutes before us, but we were enjoying the rare opportunity to take our time after a midweek gig. A security system in operation in Banbridge town centre required us to wait about five minutes until the police arrived to raise a metal barrier and allow us access onto the main road heading south towards Newry and the border, but we were soon on our way back to Dublin. At first, I sat up front beside Brian, but when I realised that the others had no intention of sleeping, I climbed back through the bus to chat with Tony while Fran and Des played cards. The banter between all five of us, and especially between Fran and Brian, who were just as quick-witted as each other, was hilarious.
As we approached the junction of the main Belfast–Newry road and Buskhill Road – about six miles north of Newry – Brian alerted us to a uniformed figure waving a red light in the middle of the road. He knew the drill; turning off the headlights but keeping the sidelights and the interior lights on, he drove slowly towards the soldier. As usual, he opened his window expecting to show his driving licence and be waved on our way (quite often, the soldiers, especially the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) – the largest regiment in the British army, but who were mainly local part-timers – would recognise us and ask for autographs or even a free record) but this time we were told to ‘stand out of the bus’. Brian, almost apologetically, relayed the surprise order to us, saying, ‘Lads, we’ve got to get out while these gentlemen do a check on the bus.’ First, however, he asked the soldier if he could move the bus off the road onto the hard shoulder because there was a car fast approaching from behind. The soldier beckoned us in and we duly began to exit the minibus. I was the last to step out but I had no inkling that I was stepping into a terrible new world where I would never again be just ‘the bass player’.
