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couple of breaks, Tom started playing the wrong song entirely at one point, Gary dropped his sticks and Vinnie forgot the words and froze halfway through Sweet Little Sixteen — but it was live and it felt good, their classmates were almost all dancing and getting off on the vibe; even some of the teachers were joining in, and the applause at the end of each number was pure magic. They got an encore and a standing ovation at the end, and Tom Watson danced the rest of the night away with Sally Chalmers, walked her home and snogged her face off at the front door of her parents’ house.
    Johnny was happy just to have survived the night. Their first show. He’d never known anything like the sheer exhilaration he’d felt onstage once his nerves had settled, and he could hardly wait to do it again. Whatever else might happen to him, Johnny knew he’d found what it was he wanted to do with his life. He was a musician, pure and simple.
     
     
     

Chapter 8
    Johnny looked at Alex and grinned. ‘We were mediocre at best, but we’d played live in front of an audience and that was me and Tom hooked for life. We loved it. Girls who’d never previously looked twice at a couple of spotty Herberts like us suddenly knew our names and wanted to hang out with us. We thought that was fantastic.
    ‘That year the Beatles got MBEs, the Stones got done for insulting behaviour, and I got my first electric guitar. It was a Hofner, which I teamed with a Supro amp, all second-hand, of course. That beefed things up a bit and I got to spend another summer getting to grips with a guitar.’ Johnny shifted in his seat. ‘I wanted to play slide, like a lot of the musicians I admired, but I didn’t know what to use. I didn’t fancy breaking off bottlenecks and sticking my fingers in them, I was too much of a coward. Then I was at my gran’s house one day helping her to sort some stuff out. She was chucking away a little table with hollow chrome legs. I had a brainwave. I’d heard about people cutting up mic stands to make slides, so I took a junior hacksaw to one of the legs, sanded down the cut edges and made myself one. Christ, I loved it, the sound it made. I felt like a real musician. I was trying different tunings, copying the records I liked, trying to get the same sounds, just learning all the time.
    ‘We were getting to be pretty good, for a bunch of kids. That Christmas we were booked for the school dance, and in the New Year we started playing in the local club for three quid every other Friday night. Gary’s dad got us the gig. He was the secretary there, and he’d heard us practising in his garage and knew we were good enough.’
    Alex was fascinated with all this early stuff. None of this had been unearthed for the unofficial Heartbreaker biographies. She knew their book would have an immediate edge.
    ‘In those days, we were still learning, even when we played on stage. There were a few bum notes, it could be a bit rough.’ Johnny stopped then laughed. ‘Christ, who am I kidding? It could be a lot rough. Back then we had far more enthusiasm than talent. But we got better. We practised and practised, I got blisters and only stopped when they burst. Our bookings at the club got bumped up to every week and we improved as musicians, got more confidence performing.
    ‘Tom and I hoped that the band could make a go of it when we finished school, but Gary and Vinnie wanted to go to university. They went off to college and that was that.
    ‘We left school at sixteen with a handful of ‘O’ levels each, determined to make a living as musicians. Our parents actually had a meeting about it, they were so concerned. They didn’t mind us having music as a hobby, but didn’t think it was responsible for us to go professional. They tried all ways to get us to change our minds. My dad in particular always wanted me to get a proper job. Christ, he still thinks I should get a proper job. He’s never been the slightest bit impressed with