You lot crack me up I'm gonna go back to Stainesy mode. Went to a Cable Street anniversary gig at the Electric Ballroom in 1988. The Men were headlining and the support included Atilla the Stockbroker. Some bloke hadn't come to terms with what wrecking, moshing, slamdancing or whatever the word for your particular generation's "energetic" dancing was and started lamping people for pushing him out of his "I'm going to stand here and stop any of you having fun stance". As the bouncers hauled him away in between songs all you could hear was him yelling "I'm a ****ing pacifist you fascist bastards"
LOL........I’ve seen that a few times at gigs, always seems to be one bloke who stands in or near the mosh pit and refuses to join in and just stands there and watches, while getting pissed off that people bump into him. Do you remember who else played at that gig ? Blaggers ?
Sorry but honestly don't remember. Just googled and turns out it was Cable Street Beat the first event by Red Action in response to Blood and Honour who were a rather unsavoury organisation at the time. Quite proud of that!
Saw an interview from a few years ago with Johnny Marr anc he was asked if the Smith's consciously took sides in the 80s. His response "no - we didn't need to". Bang on and I was the same and sure most of us were.
I’m sure some were foolish enough to take the wrong side mate........but most would of seen the error of their ways.
One of my favourite gigs was seeing Gary Moore in 1985 at Hammersmith. It was at the time Out in the fields was in the charts. For this particular song, and the next 4 or 5, Phil Lynott came on stage and joined in. Sadly, 3 months later Lynott passed away. I loved seeing the Cure for their Disintegration Tour and was at the back of Wembley Arena. The lighting effects for Prayers for rain were absolutely Seeing James at Brixton Academy after Sit Down hit number 1. They played the song 3 times!!! Seeing The Damned on two farewills gigs.....
Just sorting through some of my sons t-shirts and came across a Slaves one which had all the dates on......and a venue on there stood out - The Limelight in Belfast. I moved to Belfast in Sep.1991 after spending six months living on the edge of the jungle in Central America. When I arrived in Belfast, golden tanned skin and sun-bleached hair I stood out a mile from the local population! We were given some presentations on the do's and don'ts of what to do if you were out of an evening, which areas were deemed safe, and which were definately NOT safe - this was at a time that bombs went off on regular occasions during every week. Anyway, not having seen any live music for months, I found out that The Mock Turtles were playing in The Limelight - only problem.....at that time it was run by the IRA, had IRA goons on the door, IRA sympathisers working the bar, IRA memorabilia all over the inside and outside walls.. what to do? **** it, I said to my pal, how bad can it be? And off we went. Parked the car about a mile from the venue in a "safe" area, and walked into the heavily Nationalist area where The Limelight was. Mumbling at the door, we got our tickets and headed in, again mumbled for a couple of pints of Guiness and stood waiting for the band. From memory, it's quite an intimate venue with a low stage and a small dancefloor, so we were quite conspicuous, especially me with my aforementioned carribean glow! Eventually, on came the band who were magic (you can't beat seeing any band in a small venue). Me and my pal spent the whole set right up the front of the dance-floor, dancing and jumping about like loons.....and we seemed to be the only ones! The singer gave us a big thumbs up and shook our hands after the encore, and then the band set up in a booth to sell merchandise. By this time, we'd accrued the attention of quite a few of the locals, and some girls came up to us wanting to know who we were and what we were doing in the place. As we knew every word to all the songs, and spent the whole night dancing we told them we were superfans and were following the band on every date of their UK tour - which seemed to do the trick. We sat with the band for about 20 minutes chatting and getting merch signed, then quickly made our exit back to the safety of our car! Phew....dodgy night!!
I have seen the Alarm many many times over the years, and one of my friends is a massive fan - anytime they are in London he goes, and if he can plan his work around a venue or two where they are playing he goes to as well. We have not encountered anything as interesting as your Mock Turtles gig above.
Back in 1971, I was a regular at the Roundhouse when they used to host Sunday get-togethers called Implosion, starting at 3.30pm and finishing at 11.30 and featuring several bands. This was a good one...….
Bands I would love to have: The Clash and the Jam - maybe somewhere like Brixton. Siouxsie and Banshees, Bob Marley are also on my list of I wish I had gone to see . I will hopefully get to see the Levellers at some stage - a band that always seems to have energyn
I'm off to a festival next weekend, and The Wailers are headlining. Also playing, The Damned, The Skids, Hawkwind, Lee "Scratch" Perry, John Cooper Clarke and a pile of others.....Levellers headlined last year
Levellers were and still are amazing...and just missed their small club spring tour, including the Roadmender in Northampton...They are now into festival mode If you like the Levs try and get to see Ferocious Dog...same message, same fiddle but even more emergy. I am seeing them in London Half Moon Putney on Oct 10th and Oxford O2 a week later. They are doing quite a few O2 gigs across the country
No pal, but heard they are brilliant so will be making the effort to see them Ferocious Dog are on too, so I'll go andsee them on your recommendation Beth
I saw Hawkwind once on the way home from a Rangers game. It would have been about 1972, and as I was living in Harlesden I used to walk home quite often down Scrubs Lane. As I got to the Scrubs this day, there was music going on and a crowd of people - probably no more than a few hundred - so I went to check it out. Turned out to be Hawkwind, which was nice.
