Stuart Adamson's 50th Birthday (Part III)

During the early days, Stuart had a very thick Scottish brogue, which made it difficult for journalists outside of the UK to understand him. On at least one occasion, an American television show had to use subtitles to decipher Stuart's responses in an interview.

Foreign audiences also had trouble comprehending Stuart when he was on stage, and he would often ask them "Does anyone understand me here?" And when the crowd responded with a cheer, he would often reply "That's good, because my mother never did."

Before playing one of the band's quieter songs, he would often introduce it by saying something like "I want to get intimate with you all now. Especially you, sir." Then there's a song like The Storm which features the line "There is no beauty here friends/Just death and dark decay", which, in a live setting, would often be changed to "... just death and Danny Kaye."

Or there was the time when the band came out on stage, Stuart donned his guitar, then started fidgeting because his guitar strap became tangled behind his back. As the audience screamed for the show to begin, Stuart said "Hang on, there's nothing worse than having a twisted strap. It's like when your knickers go up your arse." Then after a roadie came out to remedy the situation, Stuart thanked him, laughed to himself, and said "Can you pull my knickers outta my arse, too?"

He had a remarkable ability to crack a few jokes onstage, then immediately launch into a devastatingly sad song like Come Back To Me and sing it with a passion that was far more genuine to me than all the vocal gymnastics of American Idol wannabes. That dichotomy is one of the things that continually amazes me about him.

He loved to perform, and that enthusiasm was infectious. He seemed to have a genuine love for his bandmates and his fans, which made the atmosphere at Big Country gigs something special to behold.



When I got my first internet connection in the mid 90s, the first words I typed into a search engine were "Big Country".

That was when I discovered that I wasn't alone in the universe. In fact, there was a vibrant online community of Big Country fans who were equally passionate and, in many cases, far more fortunate than I, because they had grown up in the UK and seen Big Country live on dozens of occasions, whereas I never had, and never would have the opportunity. Actually, I would discover later that the opportunity had been there, only I had missed it.

This was shortly after I'd moved to Vancouver, and I was excited to finally be in a major city with a thriving music scene, local radio I could stomach listening to, and stores which actually had Big Country and other music I liked on the shelves.

After introducing myself to the online community, one of the first questions someone asked me was "How was the concert?"

Huh?

It turns out that Big Country had, just weeks before, made a rare appearance in Canada, playing at a small club in Vancouver called the Town Pump.

There had been no mention of it on my new radio station of choice, no posters that I had seen, and if there had been promotion for it in the local papers, I had somehow missed it.

I was incredibly frustrated, but at the time I was unaware of Big Country's sporadic touring history in North America and I assumed that I would get another chance to see them live. Unfortunately, that chance never came.



I can't pretend that I actually knew Stuart Adamson, but like many of his fans, it certainly felt like I knew him, and sometimes it felt like he knew me. Maybe that's because his lyrics helped define my own personality, or at least put parts of myself into words and gave me new perspective. At the very least, he gave me someone to identify with, and wrote songs that I wish I'd written myself.

I only ever "met" Stuart Adamson once, and that was during a week when he made regular appearances in an online chat room on a Big Country fansite. During those encounters, I found him to be quick-witted and very generous with his fans, patiently answering questions which must have been dreadfully dull for him. I remember trading Monty Python references with him, which made me like him more than ever, and when I talked about a recent accident I'd had and my worries that the nasty scar on my chin might never heal properly, Stuart told me to "wear my scars with pride". Somehow that made me feel better.

Stuart Adamson had a way of acknowledging that we all have scars, both external and internal, while reminding us that our wounds needn't make life unbearable. To write lyrics the way Stuart did, one has to truly understand pain, and I have no doubt that Stuart Adamson had his demons, one of which was alcoholism.

In the end, alcohol was instrumental in Stuart Adamson's death, and I wept for him as though I'd lost a brother. Now, I take solace in the fact that he managed to fight his demons for so long, and, in doing so, brought so much joy into the world.




Happy Birthday, Stuart.

You're gone, but never forgotten.

Part I
Part II