The mechanics of time

It was one of those rare Friday afternoons in Belfast in the latter half of the 80s – the sun was actually shining. But, I still have very warm memories of that day for very different reasons.

It was 28 August 1987 and I was sitting in the bar of the Europa Hotel (surprise, surprise I hear from those who know me well). I was a 21-year old rising (well, so I thought) rock hack and I was sitting round a table with five tanned Californians.
They were a band by the name of Tesla. They were different from all the big hair ponces cluttering up the rock charts and airwaves at the time. Very different. For a start, their hair was real: not a whiff of Elnett or extensions in sight. And they could play. Boy, could they play!

Their debut album, ‘Mechanical Resonance’, had been released six months earlier to huge critical and fan acclaim. I myself had described it as “straightforwardly brilliant”, “a masterpiece” and “sheer delight”. It was all the more remarkable because, in that over-produced, producer-manipulated era, it was recorded virtually live.

This particular lunchtime was their first foray across the Atlantic, as support to Def Leppard (did I mention producer manipulation yet?), who were embarking on their first full-scale UK tour since drummer Rick Allen had lost his arm in a car crash. We’ll not go into all that, because it is a road well-travelled (if you’ll forgive the pun).

For Tesla, it was a daunting task – but one they were really looking forward to. They were remarkably relaxed as we chatted, had a few drinks and a bite of lunch (while da Lepps’ female fans tried to break in the Europa’s windows, as Joe Elliott was sitting at the same table! Talk about making my ego feel good when I walked outside later.).

Then it all nearly went so wrong. The band were due to do a signing a session at what was once Golden Discs in Castle Place – except nobody knew where they were supposed to be going. Nobody except your friendly neighbourhood rock hack and his faithful photographer sidekick, that was. So, we bundled the band into a couple of convenient taxis and roared off in the general direction of the city centre.

I knew the band were popular, because the vibe leading up to the gig had been phenomenal. But nothing prepared even me for what we met – a seething sea of humanity, as literally hundreds of rockers tried to squeeze into the store. With no security, it took us ten minutes to fight our way through the crowd to the front door of the store!

Later that night, and the following one, Tesla were ‘Cumin’ Atcha Live’ – and came as close as they were going to be allowed to get to blowing Def Leppard off the stage. The fans were chanting their names and singing their songs: there were Tesla flags hanging from the balcony, and their T-shirts were flying out the doors. As I wrote in my column a few weeks later, when the boys left Belfast “their smiles would have stretched from here to their home town of Sacramento and back … twice!”

It was one of my favourite days in more than 20 years working in and around the music business. One of those days that makes the whole dirty business worthwhile.

The band went on to produce what to me, and many other rock fans of my ilk, is one of THE seminal albums of the period, ‘Five Man Acoustical Jam’ – a live album that did exactly what it said on the cover, and captured the essence of MTV’s new ‘Unplugged’ generation.

In the early 1990s, Tesla proved they did indeed have something in common with their California contemporaries: they imploded, and not prettily.

However, the band have now exploded back on the scene, marking their return with 2007’s ‘Real To Reel’, a double set of covers of hard rock classics. Their most recent album, ‘Forever More’, was released in last year - and has just been reissued in classic vinyl, a harkening back to the halcyon days of the music and a band now back at the top of their game.

The same hysteria is unlikely to greet Brian Wheat and his band of rock ’n’ roll travellers when they return to Belfast in June, but I for one am at the head of the queue for tickets. It has been a long road from the Belfast of 1987 to that of 2009, but it has been one worth travelling.

Tesla headline the Spring and Airbrake on Thursday 11 June. They then play Dublin 02, with Journey, Whitesnake and Def Leppard, on Saturday 13 June, and the Download Festival at Donington on Sunday 14 June.