Hello

Rip Rig and Panic
Sandii and the Sunsetz
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
Skids
The Everly Brothers

How could I forget the Everly Brothers?

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I have a biscuit tin in which I store a few "magical and wonderful" things. I showed the contents to me mother, John and Gel last week. One of the things in the tin are a few concert tickets. Many of which are nothing more than a torn off cloakroom ticket.

One of the tickets is from an Elvis Costello gig at Lancaster Uni. A friend of mine was going up and offered a lift, an offer which I was happy to take up.

I took my camera - an Olympus OM10 - with a couple of lenses and a couple of rolls of Ilford ISO400 film. In our party we had someone with a walkman that could record in stereo and, more surprising, another had a video recorder. Bearing in mind this was 1982 so the recorder was enormous. There was a large camera attached to a briefcase sized unit containing the tape recording element, and a battery.

It being 1984 we all had long "Echo and the Bunnymen" coats, and as we approached the venue the security was there, alert as ever. "Got any cameras there lads?" "No" "Ok in you go"

My pics turned out not bad. No great, but ok. I'm not sure I ever heard the tape recording, but I saw the pitiful video. The person taping it had to hold it above his head among the standing punters and vaguely point it towards the stage. The device had no LCD screen like you do now. The primitive autofocus and the fact that the cameraman was moving in the crowd and by the very fact of having to hold the camera aloft, made for a pretty ropey quality. The battery only lasted for about 45 minutes.

There was some grand plan to edit the (stereo) sound and vision together, but I'm pretty that never happened.

After the gig we wandered aimlessly around, not wanting to simply shoot off back down the motorway. We were watching the roadies load up the kit into the tour lorries when someone shouted, "Oy, over here". I thought were in trouble for something, but was we approached the person shouting it was clear we weren't. He'd just mistaken us for someone else, "Down the corridor, second right".

So we followed the instructions and found ourselves in a room with a mirror along one wall below which was some food and drink, and in the room was Elvis, Pete, Bruce and Steve. We hung around and chatted for a while, and that's where I got one of my greatest single things in my box of "magical and wonderful" things:

L-R: Elvis Costello, Bruce Thomas (bass), Pete Thomas (drums), Steve Nieve (keyboards)