In that early part of my secondary career, the music was glam, Sweet, Mud, Showaddywaddy, Gary Glitter, but as I grew older it felt that my musical tastes ought to ripen. In that mid 70's period many of my friends at school had moved from that glam 'kids' music, and were listening to Deep Purple, Led Zep, Genesis, Black Sabbath etc. If I wanted to fit into their tribe, and I did, that's what I'd be listening to. The problem was, I didn't really like it. I tried, but I didn't like it.
I didn't tell anyone, but I had actually bought the first Abba album. I borrowed "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath, but try as I might it didn't work. Around 1976 there were stirrings of a new musical movement called 'Punk' but for some reason I didn't try and explore it. It was not until 1977 that I heard that grungy opening bassline.
DUM-DUM-DUM
DUMDUM DUMDUM DUM
DUM-DUM-DUM
DUMDUM DUMDUM DUM
from the Fender Precision Bass of Jean-Jaques Burnel of the Stranglers "Peaches".
I realised I had found my tribe. I wasn't A punk, but I liked punk music and spent the next few years buying records and, as you will have seen from the blog a few days ago, going to gigs.
Kids these days, as I have found with my own daughter, are a little less dogmatic about music, and allow themselves to listen to a broad church. Pheebs the other day asked me if I'd ever listened to Cat Stevens. Her play list includes Francoise Hardy, David Bowie, Culture Club, Booker T and the MGs, as well as Tame Impala, Django Django, and the Arctic Monkeys.
For a while, I would not countenance anything other than punk, or new wave. Nothing made before 1976 had any relevance. It was a great time, but I made myself blind to the possibility that other good music existed, and that was rather silly.
This blog has come out of a question from one of my regular correspondents, a Mr Barry C from RoI who asked which of the gigs listed was my favourite. What a question. Answerable? I'm not sure, but I can tell you about some of them which may help me come to a decision. Start with some which weren't great.
You know what it's like when you wake up sometimes, you can be quite disorientated? A sound, however innocuous can confuse the hell out of you. Well how does that work when you have a pounding hangover?
In July of 1982, I woke up in a tent in a field somewhere in North Yorkshire. I had been woken by the need to pee and also the rumbling, mechanical, sound of a train passing by. I lay there for a while hoping that when the train passed, I could subsume the desire for a pee and get a few more minutes sleep. The trouble was it seemed to be the longest train in the world. I was lying there thinking it must be one of those Australian or US trains with eleventy thirty wagons.
It carried on, and I realised sleep was no longer an option so put on a t-shirt, and, in my 'pub signs' underpants went to see what was occurring. I headed towards the source of the 'train' noise at the side of the field and looked over the dry stone wall to find a quarry, with a conveyor belt carrying stones.
It wasn't a train after all, and no matter how long I waited it wasn't going to pass. The fact we'd pitched a tent next to a quarry had been missed the night before, perhaps because we were all drunk as skunks.
What's this to do with gigs? Well the reason we were in Yorkshire was to go and see the Rolling Stones at Roundhay Park, Leeds. Someone in our group at my local pub thought it would be fun to make a weekend of it, so we camped Friday and Saturday night (Saturday night was when I returned to my tent to find it occupied buy the entire midge population of N Yorks), before seeing the Stones on the Sunday. The weekend in Yorks certainly was fun, what small bits I remember, but I didn't really like the Stones. I was still a little in thrall of my "nothing existed before 1976" mantra. Actually, I'm nowhere near as dogmatic about this now, but I still can't find it in my heart to like the Stones.
The other acts on that day were J Geils Band (ugh), Joe Jackson (yay), and George Thorogood and the Destroyers (ugh). So a mixed bag of a gig, in that the weekend was fun, but I wasn't that mithered about most of the acts we saw. Does the fun of the weekend as a whole balance against what wasn't a 'bad' gig per se, but I just didn't like who was on.....and I did know that before I went
One band I didn't add to the gig list was The Beautiful South. We actually went to the gig because of the support band, The Barenaked Ladies, who rocked the place. They were funny, they engaged with the punters, the music was ace. The the BS came on and seemed rather bored to be there. Like they were doing us a favour, so after about half a dozen songs we split. Another slightly odd one to highlight as bad. Perhaps a 'curates egg' is the best way to describe it....."Good, in parts"
The Manchester Poly Students Union was house in a large Victorian hall with cast iron balustrades and a huge mural of Dennis the Menace and Gnasher. I saw a few bands there (ooh, Teardrop Explodes weren't on my original list, I knew I'd forgotten a few) and usually it was pretty full. This evening, and I have no recollection what prompted us to go, there were more people in the band and behind the bar than there was in the audience. The support band were an all-female heavy metal band from Blackpool with a big hairy bloke on drums.....the female drummer was unavailable. It was odd the turnout was so low as the band clearly had a lot of support from EMI, their record label. Photos, badges were handed out, but the band sank without trace. Heard of Little Bo Bitch? No, didn't think so.
I have absolutely no idea what there music was like, but I remember it being a bad gig simply due to the lack of punters. I'm sure there have been a few gigs which have been raised by the presence of a large, enthusiastic, audience.
Two more duffers before I sign out for today. In 2014 (?) the Sex Pistols reformed and did a stadium tour. I was offered a free ticket so it would have been churlish to refuse. My recollection of gigs in the late 70's is that the music played before the bands came on was typically reggae. Nice and slow. As a consequence when the band came on the music seemed frenetically fast. The Pistols show this time around was prefaced by fast tempo electronic dance music, so when they came on, they seemed dull and leaden. The snarl and anger of the young men shown in 1976/7 just seemed pantomimic when reproduced by the middle aged men who performed for us. The gig was in the cavernous MEN Arena, which also didn't suit this style of music. Way too big.
We went to see the Damned at Manchester Uni Student Union (now called The Academy) and they were just rubbish. That's it, just rubbish.
The Damned
I also had free tickets to see Bob Dylan at the Manchester Apollo (ooh, I've see Van Morrison, that's another one I forgot from the original list) and he is infamous for croaking and groaning through his set. When you have a venue which isn't blessed with great sound, having an act croaking and groaning through a selection of 30 years, it's a waste. I can claim to having seen him though, so it wasn't a complete waste.
I also rather inadvisably went to see Prince at Maine Road when I hadn't listened to a single Prince records. It all passed me by, I'm afraid.
next time I'll describe some of the better gigs. Will I be able to nominate one as "the best"? Watch this space....
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