Charlie was my number 1 mate in New Zealand. I had been living in the surf town of Raglan and we met at a musicians’ club and although we did not become immediate friends our common love of playing rock music pulled us together.
I was not very talented and I played the drums and then relaxed into playing bass guitar whilst Charlie shone on lead guitar and vocals. We were quite a tight unit and had a lot of fun playing locally. Our friendship spanned over 10 or so years. He was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and his days were numbered. Charlie was going to die.
Charlie had another hobby which was kite buggying. In this sport Charlie and his mates would meet from time to time and go speeding down various beaches in their little karts pulled along by a kite. Had a lot of similarities with my sports of paragliding and kite surfing.
The day of the gig was super fine, light winds and sun. Charlie had planned to meet up with his buggy mates and go shred some sand. They went to a local beach Ruapuke which is 10 or 15 Km as the crow flies from Raglan, or in my case as the paramotor flies. I had planned to meet the buggy boys in my paramotor – and I did.
It was such a good day for paramotors as the wind was light which meant I could fly where I wanted. A paramotor has a top speed of about 50 kph and if you are trying to gain ground into a strong head wind means your ground speed is low so it takes more time to get to where you want. So, I took off and flew 30 minutes to meet those crazies on the beach. Absolutely gorgeous flight. Passing over the local sacred mountain Karioi and landing on the beach whilst showing off as best I could. The wind was really light on the beach, not much good for Kite Buggying, but they got up and going but no mean shredding which was probably good as Charlie was weak from the chemo. I bid my farewells to the boys and flew back home to prepare the jamming room for the gig.
The gig was fantastic. We did all our old numbers from Pink Floyd’s The Wall to ZZ Top. Heaps of people dancing hard out interspliced with a little farewell speech from Charlie. We stopped for an intermission and I had to try and relieve Charlie’s cramping forearm.
He was infused with chemicals from his Chemotherapy which weakened him as well causing him wicked cramps in his left forearm. This housed the muscles that worked his fingers of his left hand, which of course are the fingers that work the fret board of his fine electric guitar. It became too difficult for him to try tricky lead breaks. He grimaced as I dug my strong osteopathic fingers into the knots of his arm. It was a little sadomaso with me inflicting pain and him receiving it.
A minute or 2 later we went back to the music. It got to the point where Charlie was too buggered to play any more and our man Tom (Irish !) stepped in and played the last few songs.
Charlie is gone but to paraphrase a line from a song by Bad Company: “If you listen to the wind blow you can still hear him play.”