New Order's 1984 European Tour was supported by Berlin act Shark Vegas. Lead singer & expat Mancunian Mark Reeder remembers....
The tour was very successful for us. After our Munich gig, we went back to the Intercontinental Hotel and discovered there was a private Nena/Udo Lindenburg party in full swing in the swimming pool area. By chance, Nena's keyboarder Uwe Fahrenkorg-Petersen met us in the lift and after a few brief introductions, kindly invited us to their pool-party. How nice. A huge, colourful buffet was on display and all the new wavey dressed music biz guests were obviously enjoying themselves, chatting and drinking. Stiff looking waiters served chilled beer, wine and sekt and as we drank, we sauntered aimlessly around looking for cute girls to chat-up.
After a while, the party was beginning to get a bit boring. Even though we are all in the collective music industry, the guests seemed to us like an alien life form, at least we all felt we were definitely from another musical universe. So as to liven things up a little, as per usual while on tour with these lads, it was (N/O's manager) Rob Gretton's custom to bet someone to undertake some form of "dare" for a substantial sum of cash. In this particular instance, Rob randomly selected a well dressed business-suited victim, then casually said to Andy (the lighting engineer) that he would give him 100 pounds if he pushed "that bloke" into the swimming pool. We were giggling. Hooky was egging Andy on. Andy thought for a brief moment, quizzed Rob with a curt "hundred quid?", winked, then strolled over and in an instant, shoved the poor man into the swimming pool!. Oh no! We had a sinister foreboding that this could end in disaster, or worse if Andy undertook his mission and dry comments were made about sleeping on the street if Andy was actually successful.
As the poor man crashed into the pool, a huge cheer went up, there was a brief scuffle, a few punches, more shouts and then someone else was propelled into the waters. However, in his attempt to halt his fall this other man snatched at the corner of a tablecloth and part of the buffet went in the pool with him. More cheers, more people and more of the buffet ended up in the pool. People were screaming and jumping in. Bits of the buffet were bobbing about the pool and utilising the total confusion as cover, Andy hurried over to Rob and sharply demanded "give me my fuckin' hundred quid, quick!". At this point, not wanting to face the consequences of collaboration, we all decided it might be better for us to leave. We scampered as fast as possible for our rooms.
Much later that night, we were woken by a rhythmic thudding on the wall. We heard Andy (who's room was next to ours) heavily shagging his hundred quids worth (as he himself put it) she was like "a hodd-carrier with tits" The next day at breakfast, Andy appeared with a broad smile and a 'mornin' (with his freshly showered hair tied back in disguise). We all sat around stunned when the waiter (an obvious N/O fan) engaging in polite conversation said to us "ahh you should have been at the Nena party last night - someone threw the hotel manager into the swimming pool!"
