Durban, South Africa - Tour Diary

Vivian Campbell - 7th December KERRANG! Tour Diary Quotes

Durban

Same old, same old. Police escort, blah, blah, blah, all the way to the... Wait, what's this? The Holiday Inn? There must be some mistake; we're big, fat pop stars, after all.

The Holiday Inn, it seems, is one of Durban's better hotels. Durban, you see, is not quite as flash as Jo'burg. Plenty of indigenous people, however, which speaks volumes about the wealth distribution in this country, not to mention the so-called abolition of apartheid. Not one of the waiters, porters, taxi drivers, etc - the so-called 'service industries' - has turned out to be white.

So, I took a walk, met some of the locals. Lovely chaps to a man, but not one of them had heard of Def Leppard. Guess we won't sell many records in Durban.

The day of the gig is intensely humid. Just to prove we still can, we challenge the security guards to a soccer match after soundcheck. We won. Of course, they probably let us (big, fat pop stars!). The gig, on the other hand, is really, really hard work. You see, they have these ramps - runways, if you will - which extend from the stage on either side along the front of the PA. In the trade they're known as ego ramps - see, the bigger the ego, etc, etc.

Now, one can't simply stroll down the ramp, one must run. Run like f**k! And run we did... Up, down, sideways and with a myriad of big, fat pop star cliches, all the time feeding our big, fat egos. Ah, but wait. I'm f**king knackered! Can't we just pay someone else to do this for us? Because presently, my ego is on a par with an infant's penis as I gasp for enough oxygen to sing the first of many backing vocals.

By the end of the second song, we all look like the god of big, fat pop stars has just pissed on us. As I said, hard, hard work.

(For parts one and three see the Johannesburg and Cape Town pages.)

By Kerrang! 1996.

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