Thunder Road: The Almost Legend

There exists, in a cardboard box in Michael’s loft in Gateshead, a collection of artefacts that constitute the entire physical legacy of a band called Thunder Road. The box contains: fourteen set lists written on the backs of beer mats; a photograph of four young men standing in front of a Transit van that appears to be on fire (it was, though the circumstances remain disputed); a single released on a label called Mongoose Records that sold, by conservative estimates, between forty and forty-three copies; a collection of press clippings, the most positive of which describes the band as “spirited”; a marriage certificate belonging to Dave that has nothing to do with music but somehow ended up in the box; and a cassette tape labelled “DEMO — DO NOT LISTEN” in red marker, upon which someone has subsequently written “seriously, DO NOT” in a different pen, and then, in a third hand, “I listened. They were right.” This is the story of that band.