Anyone who says that touring is some sort of big deal or in any way "hard" work want a lobster shoved up their arse. Life on the road is one big piss up. Especially when you have others doing all the hard graft for you. The road crew mostly get the rough end of the stick, but then again they are well paid, get free beer and shag the waiting women. Full on rampant, dirty dealings behind the bike sheds and they love it. PiL were essentially no different from any other player in the circus tent that is rock 'n roll, the differences are what made them great.

Three of the band were in long term relationships. Myself,  John (+Lora) and Keith (+Lori) weren't up to getting involved in any hanky panky backstage with dirty women for fear of severe retribution from our other halves. Atkins was really the only dirty dog in the pack who we thought one day would go "bang" with syphilis. (Aids wasn't on the menu back in '82).

The other main difference, and one that I loved , was the total lack of structure to playing live. There were no set lists or running orders, mostly the songs had a start and an end and what happened in between depended on a whole lot of things. I think it was only "Religion" and "Public Image" that had a predetermined length. We had the whole PiL repertoire of the time to play from, and whatever anyone felt like playing was what got played. Likewise, if anyone got bored the song just stopped. The songs nearly always ended that way with the exception of "Public Image" which we more or less played like the record.  Atkins and I would lay the groove for Levene and Lydon to wail over, and if this felt "right" the song would go on. All it would take would be a look from Atkins or I to bring the song to an end, that's why most of the songs just tailed off into an empty void. But like I say, that was THE greatness of early PiL and was how they had played even when Wobble wobbled. It meant that there was no pretentious acting to keep up with, no posing or posturing to the cameras, no set list to remember and no strain of having to remember how the f*****g tune went. The set ended when we got bored with the crowd, especially if they were busy hamming it up and gobbing at John, he hated the punk parody shit. I would play on auto-pilot mostly, the tunes weren't exactly taxing to play and  I could stand back and watch Lydon work the crowd. Outwardly I would  have a fixed, blank, couldn't give a f**k stare. Inside I was pissing myself. John used to think that I was giving him "funny" looks when we played live but in reality I thought he was a genius who could hold a crowd in the palm of his hand, not be intimidated by anyone, and was truly unique and would just be standing there watching the whole thing pumping out the backbeat, money for old rope. I believe it was Wobble who said of John "He was a genius on stage, a complete arse off it......"

Travelling was a real pisser though, most days driving and flying at various stages of come down. Relationships were strained to say the least, it wasn't the most fun time of my life. The band mostly travelled in silence. On one car journey to somewheresville, the whole band nearly got wiped out. We were all travelling in one car and I was riding up front with the driver and my girlfriend was sat between us. An old habit that we had when driving with my mates in the UK was for the front seat passenger to grab the steering wheel and make the car swerve, just enough to frighten the shit out of the occupants. Well on this occasion, when my girlfriend decided to do this and grabbed the wheel she forgot about the affect that power steering might have, the car took an almighty lurch and almost span us right off the road into a deep gulley. I nearly shat myself  there and then but quickly found it funny that at that moment PiL nearly split up for good, especially as Levene was screaming and swearing his head off. For the next few miles  I couldn't help wondering if they would have buried us all in a metal box.

Travelling with John was a health hazard in itself, he liked to play his little dirty games to annoy anyone and everyone. One of his favourites was to sit in the front seat of the car, pick big lumps of snot out of his nose and wipe it on the inside of the windscreen. There they would dry out and stay the rest of the trip like some grotesque snotty artwork. Nobody would say a word when really somebody should have spanked him for it.. I'm sure though that Lora loves him!!

The full gig list that I played as follows:

ROSELAND - New York 28th Sept '82
THE CHANNEL -Boston 9th Oct
MASONIC TEMPLE HALL - Toronto 16th/17th Oct
GRANADA THEATRE -Chicago 23rd Oct
SAMS- Minneapolis 25th Oct
CITY GARDENS- Trenton 29th Oct
MARYLAND COLLEGE AUDITORIUM -Washington 31st Oct
THE GALLERIA -San Francisco 5th Nov
PASSADENA CONVENTION CENTRE -L.A. 7th/8th Nov
THE ELITE CLUB- San Francisco 10th Nov.
THE SHOWBOX -Seattle 12th Nov
PARIS/NEW YORK -Long Island 1st Dec
DANCETERIA- New York 4th Dec
AGORA BALLROOM  -Atlanta10th/11th Dec
NETWORK- Long Island 31st Dec
BROOKLYN ZOO-  Brooklyn 29th Jan '83
STORYVILLE- Boston 2nd Feb
EAST SIDE CLUB-Philadelphia 4th March
PARAMOUNT THEATRE- Staten Island 26th March
9 LANSDOWN- Boston 27th March
LUPOS -Providence 29th March
THE CHANCE- Poughkeepsie 30th March
TOADS PLACE -New Haven 4th April