I’d recently arrived in California when I was asked if I’d be interested in joining the jauntily named Frontage Road Review Band on keyboards. They were playing numbers by Clapton, Santana, The Animals, Van Morrison, Elvis, Chuck Berry, etc., so of course I said yes. Most of the other band members worked for the same South Bay engineering company, and the company offices had a suitable place for practicing, and we met there once a week.
The first gig was for a July 4th party in Sonora in California, where a friend of the band had a ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Accommodation was limited so the band members made their various arrangements. For Lin, Adam and myself it was a case of taking our ‘pop-up’ caravan. It was a fun gig, not worrying about having to drive anywhere afterwards, playing in the sunshine, in front of appreciative guests, not to mention huge mountain vistas.
Other gigs were more prosaic, but the music and the camaraderie was always fun, and by this time, we’d changed our name to Borrowed Time. I don’t recall any paying gigs… we did some charity gigs, and some for friends’ birthdays and other events. One I remember was for someone’s wedding down towards Santa Cruz. The music sets had to fit in with the various ceremonial segments… the speeches, the garter ceremony (where the bride takes off her garter and throws it into the crowd), and of course the cutting of the cake.
I should mention here that American wedding cakes, Christmas cakes, etc. are different to British ones… in the British version, the cake itself has a rich and firm fruity base, usually covered with marzipan, and then royal icing, which sets hard. You don’t mess with the British wedding cake. The American variety though is a light sponge covered, in a rich but soft icing.
But I digress. The happy couple, still in their wedding regalia, were called for the cutting of the cake which was to take place on the dance floor just in front of the band. So both with a hand on the knife, they made the first cut, and everyone cheered. Then the groom stuck his hand in the cake, pulled out a handful and motioned as if he were about to throw it at the bride. She stood there and wagged a finger at him. Of course, the crowd loved this and were egging them on. He then perhaps unwisely, pushed the cake into her face; she wasn’t happy at this point, and quickly scooped some, and returned the gesture. Suddenly it was bedlam with pieces of cake flying all over the place, and I seem to recall that the groom got the entire top tier pushed into his face. There was now virtually no cake left, and the bride in her white wedding dress, now covered in multi-coloured icing fled in tears.
When I say that there was virtually no cake left, that’s not quite true because most of it was on the dance floor, and the crowd nearest the couple were splattered with it. As was most of the band sitting nearby, patiently waiting to play again. We decided to create a distraction and started into our next set.
Sadly, the ceremony quickly descended into chaos, the bride had disappeared, there was mess everywhere, no-one knew what was happening, but clearly the ceremony was over. As gigs go, this one was short and sweet (sorry)! I was picking bits of cake out of my amplifier days later.
We did hear later that couple reconciled, and eventually had their honeymoon.
The band had a few more gigs, including another July 4th at Sonora, but sadly Adam was coming to the end of his high school education, and we’d decided to return to the UK, so that was the end of my involvement with Borrowed Time. I heard that shortly afterwards, they changed their lineup considerably, and changed their name to Six-Way Signal.
I often reflect on a great three years in California, and it was nice to hear that even though we’ve been living on Borrowed Time, some twenty-odd years on most of us are still rocking.
