Gordon Smart on the most savage rock star insults

11 May 2020, 19:55 | Updated: 11 May 2020, 19:56

By Gordon Smart

@gordonsmart

Thinking of having a pop at someone on social media? Gordon says: at least try and make it witty, like rock stars do.

It’s week nine in isolation for your Evening Show host - and this one has started with a bit of needle.

No, I’ve not turned to the golden brown just yet, I mean things are getting a bit narky.

I made my first mistake this morning by opening Twitter before I’d even emerged from my scratcher.

I immediately broke rule number two, diving into an argument about politics.

My pish - as we say in Scotland - was already simmering because I had read a Tweet from a troll with no followers or no posts. He was having a dig about my former employment (I left four years ago) and my sycophantic love of a certain musician.

If you can’t say something nice, at least be funny.

I don’t mind a bit of stick when it’s delivered with some humour, or just over-the-top-of-the-ball brutality.

The first time I met Liam Gallagher properly was at the opening of a John Squire exhibition around 2005. He said to me: “You're mates with r’kid aren’t ya? As far as I’m concerned, yer a c*nt in a nice coat.”

I was more than happy with that. It was funny, and it was true. It was a great coat.

Liam’s delivered a few beauties over the years, like the time he called Chris Martin “a geography teacher” or heckled him at the Q Awards calling him “a plant pot”. I had to laugh when he offered a critique of Wayne Rooney’s hair transplant; “A balloon with crushed Weetabix on it.”

Jack White delivered a precise dig at The Black Keys in Rolling Stone in 2014. He said: “I’ll hear TV commercials where I think it’s me. Half the time, it’s the Black Keys.”

One of my biggest frustrations in my job is speaking to musicians, actors or comedians who are afraid to say something too controversial. Beige is no use to anyone.

It’s so refreshing when someone like Ricky Gervais turns up, dressed like he’s been in lockdown for 18months without access to running water, and piles in.

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Jack White might have pissed on their bonfire, but Pat Carney from The Black Keys caught me off guard on the Evening Show last year when he took aim at a true rock’n’roll icon - Lou Reed.

I asked for a Slash Gordon, a famous bathroom encounter, but I got a foul-mouthed rant about the Velvet Underground legend’s velour tracksuit wearing frontman instead.

Pat said: “Dan and I had played with one of Lou’s relatives. So we went up to him at a charity gig we were all playing and asked him to sign a lanyard. We would never normally ask. He completely dismissed us. He’s a c***! He was wearing a velour tracksuit, anyone else in that outfit, we would have ripped the piss out of.”

So if you can’t be nice, please try to be funny. And don’t read Twitter when you first wake up.