Do you remember those Saturday Gigs (part 1)

Something in the last few days made me think about gigs I’ve been too.  Once I had a list – but that was many, many, years ago.  But some were memorable and it was fun to revisit them by writing about them . The idea of adding video links was an afterthought - I'll add more as time allows. I've tried to find original footage wherever possible.

 

The first gig I ever went was to see Screaming Lord Sutch.  I must have been about fourteen. My father (who I always think did nothing for me!!) got me a ticket  - one of his work colleagues was a sound or lighting engineer and gave me a lift to a slightly scabby nightclub (a Rockefellers or something like that) in Sutton where -  if memory serves me right - I was backstage. I don’t know how I got in at that age. I think there were strippers - and I’m pretty sure I was restricted to sodas.  But I do remember him singing Jack the Ripper. I guess seeing Lord Sutch was my introduction to minority politics.

When I was fifteen I started going to gigs by myself.  There were two absolutely memorable concerts that summer. One was The Who playing at the Valley (Charlton Athletic’s football ground at the time).  Keith Moon (probably the best drummer ever) was still alive and part of the band. Their set was supposedly the loudest ever played (pardon, I didn’t hear you).  They played all (or most of) of Quadrophenia and of course this one.  And the back up bands weren’t bad either: Lou Reed, Bad Company, Lindisfarne, Maggie Bell and some others.  There was also a free concert in Hyde Park that summer.  It featured Toots and the Maytals, Gong (a band full of guys with very long hair and funny conical hats with propellers on the top) and an eclectic headline band called ACNE. They were made up of (catch your breath) Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Nico and Eno.  I think they had Phil Manzanera and Mike Oldfield among their back up musicians.  I thought both Gong and ACNE were great but didn’t really appreciate the significance of seeing ACNE – a never to be repeated experience 

 

The following year was my ‘O level’ year.  After my exams I was allowed to go out again. And immediately after the exams there was probably the best one-day line up I’ve been privileged to see: Jackson Browne (who was a bit too sophisticated for a sixteen year old to get), the Eagles, the Beachboys and Elton John.   Jackson Browne came on and played with the Eagles. And, if I remember rightly, they all came on and harmonised with the Beachboys (that was when the Beachboys could still do harmonies). It was real bit of California in north London. I think half the audience went home over that. Maybe Elton (from Watford or wherever) was past his peak at that point or maybe he didn’t fit with California vibe of the rest of the day.  I also remember a very wet and muddy weekend somewhere near Buxton with my pen friend from Nottingham where we occasionally struggled out of the tent to try to catch a glimpse of Rod Stewart and the Faces and Mott the Hoople, the two headlining bands.

 

 After then I was going to gigs every weekend, as I looked - just old enough to get into student union bars- those were golden days the ones when one looks young enough to still buy a half price ticket on the bus and then order a pint of beer in the student union.  Locally, we had bands like Doctor Feelgood, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Sham 69 and the Guildford Stranglers (later the Stranglers) playing regularly.  I also got to see Shanana (backed up by Ian Dury’s first group, Kilburn and the High Roads) and Lou Reed at the Hammersmith Odeon.  But by then I was a committed ‘space cadet’ and the bands I was really committed to were Gong and Hawkwind.  When Gong were on tour I tried to go and see them every weekend.  I  remember trips to Guilford, Southend and Bath, but best of all to the Hammersmith Palais, an ornate 1920s dance palace (immortalised by the Clash),  which occasionally got invaded  by hordes of patchouli and conical hat wearing hippies, watching Gong’s reverse videos of surfers and Blomdido bad de Grasse miming playing flute on a French baguette. Hawkwind played a lesser role: I did get to see them at Camden’s Roundhouse (once with Micheal Moorcock) and also ended up backstage at their Watchfields’ gig.  For a brief while I ended up being their ‘lighting engineer’, flipping the switches on the lighting circuits, aware that there were very many Hell’s Angels bopping behind me and about what I read about Altamont. I survived. Nik Turner gave me his autograph – but I lost it L