B B King

We all heard that B B King died the other day. A great musician who I had the good fortune of seeing him play live twice. Once with U2 on the Lovetown tour and again that same year I think, 1989 with his band at festival hall. I was 18 years old. I was at the U2 concert with a big group of friends when we decided to go back to the hotel that they were staying at.When we got there it became apparent that we were definitely not the only ones with such a plan. Lots of fans were at the Como and not long after we had arrive a couple of limousines puled up and out stepped the band. 

They played us some impromptu songs and mingled with the crowd. We took selfies with them before selfies were even a thing. As we stood around laughing, having fun and talking about how cool they were to us, a guy walked our way and looked like he had pegged us for something. He was about 70 years old with gold teeth and he was wearing a safari suit, blue, baby blue in fact.

He introduced himself as B Bop Pattison, B B King's manager. We told him that was nice while wondering what the hell he thought he was doing trying to warm up to chatting us up. There were about 5 of us standing around together at the time.We were polite enough to him but gave him no reason to believe that we aching to check out what was under that safari suit. He got the message and cleared off.

We hung out outside the Como for a few hours watching as lots of celebrities arrived for what could only have been a U2 party. My friend Georgia and I looked at each other with our invisible scamming hats on and said "lets go". As we opened the front doors to the Como and strutted through, everyone else outside went quiet and stood staring at us. We politely asked the hotel receptionist to call B Bop Pattison and ask if he would like us to come up. Of course he said yes, disgusting. So we were given a key to the Lift and we waved goodbye our friends with faces that looked shattered as we stepped into the lift.

We got to B Bop's room and knocked. He answered the door in his robe. There wear drinks already poured and porn playing softly on the tv. Jaysus H Christ on a unicycle, this guy is trying to punch a little above his weight isn't he. I thought a million things and asked myself several questions like "why doesn't this dude get a prostitute or at least someone closer to his age if he doesn't wanna pay for it. Well we got ourselves into this mess we better get ourselves out. I asked him where were U2 staying, on this floor? On another floor? He looked genuinely disappointed at the realization that we weren't staying with him and he told us they were having a party in the penthouse suite.

We couldn't have said "bye" quickly enough as we got away from that horny old geriatric and his 1970s suit and equally as 1970s porn. We tried not to run as we'd seen the tv monitors at the front desk and noticed CCTV cameras all over the corridors and the lift. So we walked, fairly fuckin fast, swinging our hips like those speed walkers at the olympics do. We got in the lift and pressed the button for the top floor. 

When we got to the top we noticed a staircase all lit up with the typical sounds of a party coming from inside. Drinks clinking, people talking and laughing and music playing. We jostled our way up the stairs, me, laughing out loud when Georgia sensed a little reluctance from me and got all up in face and said "think of the 60s, think of the beatles!" Good one George. We got a few steps up and checked each others appearance, no windswept hair, no raccoon eyes, no wardrobe malfunctions. Nope, we were good to go.

We walked into the party and did a quick sweep of the room with our eyes. Local celebrities, musicians, Hell's Angels members and 3/4 of U2. Adam was missing. I suppose it was around the time that he was partying on alcohol and substances and was probably out getting wasted and laid, who knows. We were making a beeline for Bono when their boring old fart of a manager got in our line of vision and with his big ape like arms turned us around and walked us out of the room. Ha! As we were leaving The Edge looked at us and said "i'll make sure you get an invite to the next one girls". We said "yeah thanks Edge, much appreciated" as we laughed and ran down the stairs, through the corridors and to the lift.

We dropped off our key at reception and walked as cool and nonchalantly as we could to greet our friends and the couple of hundred other fans that were waiting for another glimpse of U2. We were hero's that night for showing a bit of initiative and following through with it. We were grilled by many people about what had happened. We tried to play it cool as not much had really happened! but we were satisfied. Satisfied with ourselves for crashing their party. Satisfied with the fact that a couple of hundred U2 fans thought we were the bee's friggin knees and were pea green with envy.We were satisfied enough to go home.

So my final words go out to B B King. Rest In Peace. If you believe in heaven i hope they let you take Lucille in with you. And watch that B Bop Pattison, he thinks he's in with a shot with anyone with boobs and a vagina.