Venus, Mars and a Box of Spanners

Venus, Mars and a Box of Spanners: On the Road with Wings, North America 1976

A Memoir by Ray Caldwell

In the spring of 1976, a twenty-three-year-old kid from the shipyards of Sunderland got the job of a lifetime: lifting flight cases for Paul McCartney's record-breaking Wings Over America stadium tour. For forty-one nights, Ray Caldwell was a "backline humper," a very small cog in a massive, rock-and-roll machine. He was the man coiling cables in the dark, tuning temperamental synths, and running the backstage tea station that became an embassy for homesick British rockers and suspicious Texan sound crews.

Fifty years later, the shoebox under the wardrobe is finally open.

Venus, Mars and a Box of Spanners is a deeply moving, fiercely funny, and meticulously detailed insider's look at one of the greatest rock tours in history. From dodging literal explosions in Detroit to drying a Hammond organ as it rained condensation inside the Seattle Kingdome, Ray saw the legendary tour from the unique vantage point of the wings.

Woven with immense warmth and candid prose, this book is more than a celebrity tell-all—it is a heartfelt tribute to the family formed on the road, an education in acoustic craftsmanship, and a love letter to the unsung roadies who built the magic with their backs.