The Band's All Here
As Ian Gallagher got out of the limousine and entered Titan Studios, he realized it had been more than thirty years since he had last recorded there. Not once during those three decades had he seen Colin York, Miles Corbett, Simon Wolf or Mick Fletcher, the talented musicians who, along with Ian himself, had formed Excalibur, the legendary Sixties rock group that, after a career studded with five Grammy awards, thirteen chart-topping singles, eleven bestselling albums and seven platinum records, unexpectedly broke up in 1970.
With Excalibur about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, the five members of the band had been invited to Titan Recording Studios in New York City to be interviewed for a television special that was scheduled to air prior to the actual induction ceremonies.
So eager was Ian to see his old friends that he actually ran through the lobby and down the halls of the recording studio.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he said breathlessly as he entered the office of Esther Quinn, the producer of the television special.
"Don't worry. The others just got here a few minutes ago. My secretary sent them down to the sound stage."
Esther pulled a curtain aside and pointed down to the group of middle-aged men in the recording studio below. Ian stared open-mouthed through the thick glass, barely able to recognize his old bandmates. They had all aged considerably.
Funny, he thought, I always think of them as virile young men in their twenties.
He turned to Esther and commented, "They don't look like the same guys."
"What did you expect?" the producer laughed. "They're all over sixty, after all."
"My God! Would you look at Colin!" he said with amazement.
"Colin? Which one is he?" asked the pretty and perky Esther, who, the product of a much younger generation, obviously could not tell one band member from the other.
"See the balding man in the blue and white striped shirt, standing in the corner. That's Colin York. You wouldn't believe it to see him now, but he used to have a thick head of curly black hair and a long, bushy beard."
"Well, the Sixties are over, and as Dylan said, 'The times they are a-changing.'"
"I don't know about the times, but my friends certainly have changed. Look at the guy standing next to Colin, the overweight one with the nerdy glasses. His name is Mick Fletcher. He was the ladies' man of the group. The girls really went wild for Mick back in the good old days. He practically had to beat them off with a stick!"
"What about the tall, thin man in the Yankees baseball cap?" Esther asked.
"That's Simon Wolf. He's the one who wrote most of our songs. He was the only one of us who wasn't single back then. Simon and his wife had been high school sweethearts, and they got married right after graduation."
Memories flooded Ian's brain. Names, faces and places he hadn't thought about in years suddenly came to mind.
"Ah! Marlene Wolf—one of the most incredible women I've ever known! She deserves to be in the Hall of Fame right beside the rest of the group. What a godsend she was when Excalibur first started out. She busted her ass getting us gigs. She also handled all the publicity for the band, organized a fan club, made all our travel arrangements and kept us running on schedule. On top of that, she saw that we all ate right and stayed sober, and she listened to our constant complaining. Marlene was mother, sister, fan and best friend to every guy in the group. In fact, I'm surprised she's not here today; she always went everywhere Simon did."
"What about the guy in the ponytail?" Esther asked, looking more closely at the man below her. "Is that Miles Corbett? I didn't know he was a member of Excalibur."
"He sure was. Do you know him?"
"No, but I've seen his picture in the magazines with Lilith."
"Lilith?"
"His wife, Lilith Page, the fashion model. Haven't you ever heard of her?"
"No, but I'm not into fashion."
The telephone on her desk rang and Esther answered it.
Holding her hand over the mouthpiece, she whispered to Ian, "This call may take some time. Why don't you go down to the studio and say hello to your old friends? I'll join you there as soon as I'm done here."
Ian took the private staircase that led from Esther's office to the sound studio below. The four men turned and stared at him when he entered the room.
"Holy shit! Where in the hell did they find you?" asked Mick Fletcher, who had been Excalibur's lead guitarist.
"Okay, so I'm a little late," Ian said, hugging each of the four men in turn. "God, it's great seeing you all again."
The other men treated him with polite indifference, almost as though he were a complete stranger. Ian, who had anxiously awaited this reunion for several months, now found himself feeling keenly disappointed by the lukewarm reception he was getting.
"Hey, Simon, how is Marlene doing?" Ian finally asked.
"You mean my ex-wife?" the former keyboard artist replied.
"Ex-wife? You're divorced? I can't believe it! You two were the perfect couple!"
Miles, the drummer, laughed.
"Once old Simon finally came out of the closet, poor Marlene became obsolete." Miles then turned to Simon and asked, "By the way, who's that new guy you're with?"
"His name is Todd Owens," Simon answered. "He's a musician, too. He used to be a violinist with the New York Philharmonic."
"What does he do now?" Mick asked.
"He writes the music for some of my lyrics."
"Who are you writing for these days?" Colin inquired.
"Just about everybody in the pop music business: Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Justin Timberlake, Clay Aiken and quite a few others. Todd and I have also written a few country songs as well. Frankly, just between us, most of what I write nowadays is crap, but it pays well."
"Country?" Mick asked, feigning a shiver of revulsion. "Say it isn't so!"
Simon then asked, "What about you, Colin? What have you been up to lately? Are you still playing the bass guitar?"
"No, I've been out of the music business for several years now, ever since Excalibur broke up, in fact. Truth be told, I haven't worked at all for the past twenty-five years."
"No kidding?" asked Simon. "What's your secret?"
"I'm independently wealthy, a man of leisure, a billionaire."
"How did you manage that?" Mick asked.
"Wise investments. I own a good deal of stock in Microsoft, Apple, Walmart and Google as well as several other companies. I'll tell you a little secret. Back in the Sixties when we were singing songs protesting big business and materialism, I was banking every cent I made. Thanks to my savvy business sense, Diane and I have been able to sit back and take it easy. We travel whenever we feel like it, and when we're home, we spend a lot of time out on the golf course at the country club."
"What about you, Mick? What have you been up to for the past thirty years?" Colin asked. "From the look of you, I doubt you're still being chased by the girls."
"Too true! My days of being a teen idol are long since over. I've been happily married for twenty-seven years now. My wife, Andrea, and I have been blessed with three daughters, two sons and seven grandchildren—so far."
"So, what do you do when you're not babysitting, Grandpa?"
"For a few years I continued playing the guitar, going from one fledgling rock group to another, but it was never the same as it was when we were together, so I eventually gave it up. Now Andrea and I own an antique store in Newburyport, Massachusetts."
"I'm not going to wait for you to ask me," Miles laughed. "No, I don't play the drums anymore. Yes, I'm happily married to Lilith Page. And no, she doesn't support me while I sit on my ass all day. You'll all no doubt be surprised to know that I went back to school. Not only did I get my high school diploma, but I also went on to college, and now I'm a history professor. Indeed, that's how I met Lilith. She was a student of mine."
Throughout the conversation, Ian remained silent while the other musicians reminisced. It was little wonder they treated him like a stranger. He now realized that he didn't know these four men at all. The friends that he had known and loved ceased to exist thirty years ago; he had absolutely nothing in common with them now.
Ian walked across the room, picked up a guitar and started to play. As he began singing "Love is a Mystery," one of the band's greatest hits, the other four musicians joined in. For a few precious minutes Excalibur lived again, but sadly, all too soon, the magic was gone.
"You know," Mick declared, "you not only look like Ian Gallagher, but you also sound like him. Who are you anyway?"
Something in Ian snapped. He was tired of being treated like an outsider, the thirteenth guest at a dinner party.
"That's really funny!" he cried. "Because I'm the one who should be asking who you guys are. You're not Mick Fletcher; you're an antique dealer. Mick was a great guitar player, second only to Hendrix in my opinion, and he was a crazy bohemian who loved poetry. He was always going around in his bare feet quoting Rimbaud."
He turned to Simon next.
"And you're certainly not Simon Wolf. He wouldn't be writing pop music for the highest bidder. He was a graduate of Julliard. He was dedicated to his music and considered songwriting an art form. I swear he used to think he was the Mozart or Beethoven of our generation."
Ian then addressed Colin.
"And what about you? You're certainly not the Colin York who burned his draft card in protest of the Vietnam War or the one who performed at Woodstock. That Colin York used to jam with Eric Clapton, Jerry Garcia, Keith Richards and John Lennon. That Colin York belonged on Haight-Ashbury, not Wall Street."
And finally, it was Miles' turn.
"Professor Corbett? Really? The only thing Miles ever read was the Sunday comics. To him life was nothing but one big party; he never took anything seriously, except music."
Ian shook his head in disgust.
"Just look at the four of you. Man, can't you guys remember what you were like back then? You had fire and passion. You had the world in the palm of your hands. Where did it all go? What the hell happened to you?"
"We got old," said Miles quietly.
"Look at me," Ian cried. "I never changed. I still feel the same idealism, fervor and dedication I did back in the Sixties. I didn't give up my dreams like you guys did."
"No, you didn't, Ian," Simon said mournfully when he realized the man was truly Ian Gallagher. "That's because you died in 1970."
Ian stared at him in confusion.
"You're crazy!" he cried in denial.
"Don't you remember what happened at our last concert? Before we went on stage, you were complaining about indigestion. You thought it was from the Mexican food we had for lunch that day, but before our final number, you suffered a massive heart attack. You were dead before the ambulance got there."
"It's not true," Ian argued weakly.
"Oh, no?" Mick asked. "Well, why don't you answer a few questions then? Did you ever hear of Madonna, U2, Nirvana or Green Day? What about MTV, VH1, CDs, iPhones or Sirius radio? You used to like movies. Have you ever seen Titanic, E.T. or Star Wars?"
Ian looked panic-stricken.
Finally, Mick asked more gently, "Who's the president of the United States?"
"Richard Nixon," Ian replied triumphantly.
"Nixon died back in '94," Colin said.
Now Ian could no longer hold back his tears.
"A heart attack? But I was only twenty-eight years old."
"We know," Miles said sympathetically. "It was so tragic. You died in the prime of your life, at the height of your career. You missed out on so much of life. Who knows what you might have become by the time you were our age."
Ian looked at the faces of his four friends. They had all gotten old while he remained young. Then he laughed.
"I suppose I should be thankful that I died at an early age, that I never had to lose my hair, that my face never became wrinkled or that I never outgrew my size thirty-two jeans. And I'll never have to sell antiques for a living or spend my spare time playing eighteen holes of golf."
The other musicians laughed while they battled to hold their sorrow in check.
Ian concluded, more seriously, "But at least I had the pleasure of knowing and working with you four guys."
As the five members of Excalibur continued to both laugh and cry at the bittersweet, otherworldly reunion, Ian Gallagher slowly faded away like an early morning mist, leaving behind four aging rock legends momentarily lost in the past.
* * *
The following week Colin York, Miles Corbett, Simon Wolf and Mick Fletcher appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. During their acceptance speech, the surviving members of the band paid tribute to their deceased friend and lead singer. Later that night, Excalibur performed live for the audience. Over the sound of Colin's base, Miles' drums, Simon's keyboard and Mick's guitar, the four musicians on stage heard for one final time the sweet, soulful voice of Ian Gallagher.
The picture in the upper left corner is of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
I'll bet you can't guess who likes this band. (Of course, his favorite band is still the Dropkick Murphys.)
