BOTH Management and I like country music, although we don’t tell many people as it’s not big in the UK.
For most fans here, it’s a guilty secret.
In fact, apart from a radio slot on Thursdays where a guy called Bob Harris brings the latest from Nashville, you barely hear it.
However, a couple of weeks ago Bob mentioned that a traditional country singer called Cale Tyson was on tour and tickets were going for about £12. Bob then played one of Cale’s songs, and Management was hooked.
We searched the Internet to see if he was performing nearby, and Bingo, he was appearing in High Wycombe on Friday, only 40km away.
But then everything got a bit suspicious. The website said he was playing at a ‘secret venue’ and you had to buy tickets to find out where.
Oh well, for £12 I thought we had little to lose and half expecting to get a call from someone in Nigeria wanting to share an oil well with me, I was given an address.
I thought nothing of it until Management later searched Google Earth and we got a visual of the ‘secret venue’; a row of chimney homes next to a sports field.
I decided we had been ripped off big time – and I actually soon would be the proud owner of an oil well with my new Nigerian best friend.
When we arrived the place looked even less like a music venue than it did on Google Earth. In fact, the only reason we knew something was on was thanks to some cardboard stuck on the door with ‘Cale Tyson’ scrawled across.
Stetson guy
Outside was a tall guy with long hair and a Stetson drinking beer. That seemed normal to me; when we sent to see Willie Nelson 10 years ago, every male in the audience apart from me had a Stetson.
We walked in and there were about 10 people in a tiny lounge. One guy said we should grab a beer and then put out a plastic cup for donations – if we felt like it – for the booze.
He had no shoes on but seemed a really nice guy and we got chatting. He said he had once been to South Africa to run some long race.
The Comrades Marathon? I asked. That’s it! he replied – then proudly showed me his medal.
Now I’ve done the Comrades twice and the absurdity of it all suddenly struck me; here I was chatting about distance running in Africa while waiting to hear an alleged star from Nashville sing in an ancient terrace house in England that you couldn’t swing a dead cat in.
I went outside and the guy in the Stetson was still there. We nodded, and I wandered around until it was time to start.
You guessed it; the ‘Stetson’ was Cale Tyson, and as he picked up his guitar, we knew we were in the presence of extraordinary talent. (Google ‘Travelling Man’ on Youtube and you’ll see what I mean).
Cale started off saying that this was ‘waaaaayyy’ the most intimate place he ever played at. I could see he was totally bemused by it all. This wasn’t quite the rock ‘n roll way.
What followed next was mind-blowing; there were only 20 of us huddled together with Cale singing within spitting distance. It was basically having a private audience with a soon-to-be superstar.
Management and I were still speechless on the way home. It was unbelievable – at some ‘secret venue’ on the far side of the tracks, I had listened to the best live music of my life.
But I seriously regret that I stupidly didn’t grasp the bleeding obvious that the guy in the Stetson when we walked in was the actual star.
If so, I could have gained some street cred by telling him I have a sister in Nashville and her son’s wife was once Johnny Cash’s neighbour (it’s true).
I can imagine him back in Tennessee telling his mates that in some strange Limey venue he had bumped into someone with a weird accent claiming to be Johnny Cash’s neighbour …
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