Janine and the Beer-Soaked Carpets

...or why some bands just don't ever get back together.

It's impossible to avoid the news that Oasis are back. Tickets for the UK and Ireland leg of their 2025 world tour sold out immediately when they went on sale earlier today. 14 million people applied for 1.4 million tickets. Good luck to the band, and to the thousands who will enjoy the performances.

But why are they back together? The Gallagher brothers have said - 'The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over.' Some might say it's to top up the bank balance in the wake of an expensive divorce settlement. Either way, it's none of my business. However, it has impacted on me, albeit in a very small way.

The big news has prompted some All About Eve fans - I dislike the word 'fans' but it's convenient shorthand - to comment that they'd like to see us re-form. I'll admit that I may have succumbed to an involuntary eye-roll but then I caught myself on, because it’s churlish and unkind to be irritated by calls for my old band to get back together. I can't expect everyone to keep abreast of who can't stand who, or who might have kissed and made up. I can't expect everyone to have read posts or articles where I've clarified that the band getting back together is never, ever going to happen.

For years the Gallaghers have teased their audience about a possible reunion. Am I teasing? On the contrary. Rather than attempting to rev anybody up so they get 'mad fer it', I am genuinely trying to communicate that, for many reasons - some of them private - the band will not re-form.

There have been offers of serious cash over the years, in fact some of the amounts have been eye-watering and have coincided with times when I certainly could have done with the income. Of course, there were never millions on the table as there surely have been in the case of the Gallaghers, but it's all relative.

Over the years, I've had to find ways other than music by which to earn a living. Office jobs, audio typing, cleaning, working in healthcare, etc. When I've answered phones, made appointments, filed stuff away, typed up documents, bleached toilets, or noted down blood pressure and temperature readings, I've simply done my job. I have always tried to do it well and have been paid for my diligence, my attention to detail and my reliability. I've not been paid for being me.  

Playing live requires that you give of yourself, as that is what people want, deserve, and it’s what they pay for. As I mentioned in my piece about pension plans, sure, it's possible for some bands/artists to go through the motions - and I'm not being disparaging about those folk - but it's not something I can do or would want to do.

Forgive me for not sharing my personal reasons for not wishing to re-form All About Eve, but here are the first seven shareable reasons that came to mind.

1.        We used to be able to afford a light show sympathetic to our music, but now we wouldn't be able to. What's the problem? Our music is large - admittedly not as large as that of U2, or indeed of Oasis - and so it doesn't work well in pubs or clubs boasting a handful of red, green and blue lights. Actually, perhaps rather then it being large, the music has at times been anthemic, and importantly, it is often atmospheric. It’s frustrating trying to convey that aesthetic in a pub or club.

Tour dates in 1988. Big rooms for big music.

2.        We used to be able to afford a full road crew, but now we wouldn't be able to. What's the problem? We'd need a drum tech, a guitar tech, a front of house sound person, a monitor person, a driver, and ideally a tour manager. All this costs. Peanuts and monkeys enter the equation, so you absolutely have to pay for the best you can afford.

Helping out in Glasgow, 1987

You could certainly do some of this yourself, but it can be exhausting when you want to save your energy for singing and playing. I'm not averse to carrying guitars, smaller amps or cymbals etc., but I am getting on a bit, remember.

Helping out, in a ladylike fashion, 2002

3.     We used to be able to travel in comparative luxury, but then we had to downgrade to far more basic transport. What's the problem? Well, I used to be able to bear it, but now I couldn't. Being squashed into a splitter van with a bunch of other people means foregoing privacy and quiet time. Yes, I'm unsociable on occasion. There are those endless 'piss breaks' - or 'comfort breaks' as I prefer to call them - the frequent service station stops, the crunching of crisps, the sucking of sweets, and the annoyance of listening to someone relentlessly complain that there's no sushi or avocado panini in the M&S on the M6 Northbound to Stafford.

4.        Girlfriends/partners/wives. We've all seen Spinal Tap, and we all know a 'Janine', I'm sure. I've said many times that you don't bring your partner to work, so why are they in the van, back stage, and everywhere? Some partners 'get it'. They go with the flow and are aware that it's just not polite to lurch into the dressing room the moment your beloved has exited the stage. You should give your darling time, and you should certainly give the other band members time. You need to realise that they're dripping in sweat, have adrenalin coursing through their veins, and that they need to chill. Just chill. Give them ten minutes, for pity's sake. Have some self-awareness.

Janine, checking the ‘Dobly’ is working

5.        We used to be able to afford security. Now we wouldn't be able to. What's the problem? Unfortunately, there's a certain type of entitled person who feels they have the right to a piece of you way above and beyond what every other paying audience member has. They want to have a drink with you. They want a photo taken with you. If you're in the mood, that’s completely fine, it can be a pleasure, but if you're not in the mood, then suddenly you're a diva, you're 'up yourself', and you have a 'bad attitude'. To not want to, or to not be able to give more of yourself than you've already given for the past 90 minutes or so, does not make you a prima donna; it shows you to be a human being, a chaos of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, and phosphorus, a collection of flesh, blood, muscle, bone and electricity, and sometimes a very tired collection at that. Some people come off stage and they're ready to party. I'm not. I'm a husk. I need space.

6.        I used to drink lots of wine in order to feel confident enough to stand in front of thousands of people and sing. Admittedly, towards the demise of the band, those thousands dwindled to hundreds - on a good night - but then, the smaller the audience, the more difficult, due to the seeing of the whites of the eyes. What's the problem? Can't I just carry on quaffing? Well, I'm at an age where, for the sake of my health, I don't want to use alcohol but want to enjoy it, and enjoy it in some kind of moderation, and not by the bucketload. I don't want to bother my GP for a  prescription for beta blockers, or indeed any other more asthmatic-friendly anti-anxiety meds, because I don't want to use prescription drugs - or any drugs -  as a means to shoehorn me into being a 'performer', or to shepherd's crook me onto a stage.

Confidence boosters

7.        Most of the playing live I've ever done occurred before social media and the ubiquity of iPhones. Other types of smartphone are available; I'm an Android person myself. I don't want to see photos of me sweating and gurning posted all over Facebook. I don't want unflattering footage of me uploaded to YouTube. I don't want to read comments where people say that I look a lot older than I was the last time they saw me (decades ago) or that I've put on a few pounds and I'm not as in shape as I was the last time they saw me (decades ago) or that I don't skip about with a tambourine anymore (as I did decades ago) and that I seem subdued compared to how I used to be (because I don't have the same brain chemistry as I had decades ago), and so on. In short, I don't want to endure complaints that I'm not in my 20s or 30s anymore. And this will happen. Some people will do this.

We're all aging. Some people might put on weight, their hair may thin or they may lose it altogether, and unless they can spend thousands on cosmetic dentistry, they'll end up with cream-coloured teeth. This should all be absolutely fine, but when you're on stage it seems it's not fine, and when you're a woman on stage, it seems it is absolutely not fine at all.

I sound irate. I’m not. I'm just at pains to explain, so am maybe over-egging this particular pudding.

What does make me irate is the insistence that 'life's too short' and that we should just get back together and get on with it. Yes, life is far too short, certainly too short to revisit something that no longer makes you happy.

Let's say you're divorced and that your divorce was somewhat acrimonious; how do you fancy going on holiday with your ex for a couple of weeks? In fact, not just going on holiday, but how about going caravanning? You'll be stuck with your ex in a caravan, for at least two weeks. You'll also have had to 'rehearse' that holiday, so you'll need to have rented a caravan and placed it on your drive and spent a week in it, immediately before you go off on your travels. Aw, but your kids want you to take them on holiday. They don't see why Mum and Dad, (or Mum and Mum, or Dad and Dad, etc.) aren't able to just get along with each other, for their sake. 'Can't you just forget everything? Can't we just have a nice time in the caravan? Come on. It'll be fun!'

It will not be fun.

You might recall the episode of Father Ted, where Father Noel Furlong, (played excruciatingly brilliantly by Graham Norton), drives his fellow caravanners mad. Now try to imagine that episode directed by David Lynch, and there you have it. That's what your holiday will be like. Do you still think life's too short?

I used to love playing live, certainly on nights that had something magical about them. It could feel almost transcendental, like vast, invisible, gossamer threads bound us together with our audience. On other nights, when the magic wasn't quite there, I was left with a mild sense of grief. It was nobody's fault; it just was what it was. You can't pin down why magic is present or why it's not. There's a myriad of factors at play, and perhaps one is youth. For most of the years when I was actively playing live, I would have been roughly between the age of 24 and 30. I was running on hope and dreams and boundless energy. I was often quite naïve, with the positive side of that being that I was largely uncynical. I was a different set of atoms to the one I am now.

And that is why I can't tour.

How can I be annoyed that people ask us to re-form, when it’s actually flattering? When I think about where their enthusiasm is coming from, I calm down about it. I suppose I’d just like them to understand why it can’t happen.

If All About Eve were to re-form, we might just ruin their memories and inadvertently trash some part of their youth that's precious to them. Isn't it better to have enjoyed us at our peak, when we were in fact all 'mad fer it'?

I'm not saying that I am 100 per cent sure that I’ll never play live again, but it's very doubtful that I will. What is certain is that you wouldn't find me anywhere near venues with beer-soaked carpets, where the dressing room is literally a toilet.

I'm not a snob. I don't think those venues are beneath me in any way, I just know what it takes for me to feel good about something. Therefore, I'd have my eye on venues with some kind of beauty about them, perhaps a run of old churches, for example, the Union Chapel in London, and the Cottier Theatre in Glasgow. Perhaps somewhere velvet and golden such as Leeds Varieties would be sufficiently atmospheric. Maybe I could overcome my vertigo and consider an outdoor evening at Cornwall's Minack Theatre.

If it were to happen, the set of atoms that I currently am would have to have a seismic shift. I will not sell myself, or an audience, short, ever.