Music/gigs

[K-Hod]

1 minute ago, BiggusMickus said:

Metallica's new album is fooking awesome. Saw them at the MEN last year, got tickets for them at the Etihad too. They're far from past their best in my opinion, in fact I'd say they're better than ever.

£200 for the Eagles can fuck right off though.

 

£100 though? It’s not a farewell tour!

[Reedy You're A Star]

Bit steep yeah, but totally worth it!

[Husky]

What's happened to King George's Hall all of a sudden? I see the gig listing for the next few months includes The Vaccines, Kaiser Chiefs, Suede and The Specials.

Not exactly Ariana Grande, but considering that the last time I checked the gig listings (admittedly some time ago) the main event was a Bon Jovi tribute band the venue seems to have gone up a notch - it's practically like the former glory days.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Husky

[K-Hod]

A number of good gigs coming up and also on sale on Friday.

Foals, DMA's at King George's Hall, Gods of Rap (De La Soul, Wu Tang Clan & Public Enemy), Bloc Party doing Silent Alarm in full and also Drake. I accept the latter isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I'm a fan! Rumours going around that it will be £170 for tickets to see our Drizzy, so I might well end up swerving it anyhow!

I'm going to watch Chvrches at Victoria Warehouse in Mid-February as well!

[speeeeeeedie]

4 hours ago, K-Hod said:

A number of good gigs coming up and also on sale on Friday.

Foals, DMA's at King George's Hall, Gods of Rap (De La Soul, Wu Tang Clan & Public Enemy), Bloc Party doing Silent Alarm in full and also Drake. I accept the latter isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I'm a fan! Rumours going around that it will be £170 for tickets to see our Drizzy, so I might well end up swerving it anyhow!

I'm going to watch Chvrches at Victoria Warehouse in Mid-February as well!

I read that as Drake and the Wu Tang Clan are coming to KGH. Some coup that!

Grandmaster Flash once performed in Accrington so you never know.

[MarkBRFC71]

Well this year so far I've got some oldies booked in (before god forbid any of them peg it) - The Rolling Stones in Glendale Arizona early May, followed by Paul McCartney in June in Arlington (actually the second last gig at the home of the Texas Rangers - which despite only being a 24 year old, $200m, purpose built baseball park is being torn down for a new one!)

Am gutted I'll be stuck over here when the Bluedot festival is one - Kraftwerk, New Order and Hot Chip is one hell of a line up!

[Husky]

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/17391886.vaccines-blackburn-gig-cancelled-after-king-georges-safety-barrier-kept-collapsing/

Typical.

I Predict a Riot if this happens on Thursday.

[MarkBRFC71]

On 23/01/2019 at 23:23, MarkBRFC71 said:

Well this year so far I've got some oldies booked in (before god forbid any of them peg it) - The Rolling Stones in Glendale Arizona early May, followed by Paul McCartney in June in Arlington (actually the second last gig at the home of the Texas Rangers - which despite only being a 24 year old, $200m, purpose built baseball park is being torn down for a new one!)

Am gutted I'll be stuck over here when the Bluedot festival is one - Kraftwerk, New Order and Hot Chip is one hell of a line up!

So my gig record isn't going well - I had the Prodigy and Stones booked within two days of each other, but both sadly cancelled.  Looks like I'm down to Macca in June and Noel G's HFB later in the year as it stands .....

[yeti-dog]

Muse at the 02 Arena with Mrs Yeti in September. Two tickets and a premier inn £270..  ?

[K-Hod]

*Shameless plug*.

Biz, of this parish, is curating an event at Tap Select in Oswaldtwistle next Sunday between 2 and 6pm, there’s live music and I’m djing (hip hop, reggae, ska, soul, funk, rock and roll and many others), if you’re in the area, pop in and have a drink!

[Doug]

Watched China Crisis at Darwen Library Theatre last night and they were pretty good (never really liked them back in the day).

[oldjamfan1]

Rick Buckler, legendary drummer with The Jam, is doing a Q & A session at Darwen Library Theatre on 16th October. He is promoting a couple of books on The Jam that he co-wrote. I'm biased as not only am I a fan but I also wrote a contribution to one of the books.  Rick is a great fella and if you are/were into that sort of music it is well worth buying a ticket for.

 

[old darwen blue]

Heard him interviewed on the radio recently Andy, Weller hasn't spoken to him since the band split apparently!

[oldjamfan1]

6 hours ago, old darwen blue said:

Heard him interviewed on the radio recently Andy, Weller hasn't spoken to him since the band split apparently!

Yeah I don’t think there’s much love lost between them mate. That said, there are people I worked with 30+ years ago that I wouldn’t go out of my way to socialise with either. 

I think Weller has mellowed a bit in recent years so it’s possible they will at least kiss and make up at some point. I met Rick in Glasgow a few years ago and he didn’t have a bad word to say about PW at all, which was cool. 

[DeeCee]

21 hours ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Rick Buckler, legendary drummer with The Jam, is doing a Q & A session at Darwen Library Theatre on 16th October. He is promoting a couple of books on The Jam that he co-wrote. I'm biased as not only am I a fan but I also wrote a contribution to one of the books.  Rick is a great fella and if you are/were into that sort of music it is well worth buying a ticket for.

 

Still got one of his sticks from a KGH concert. ( Well my ex Mrs. has)

[old darwen blue]

2 hours ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Yeah I don’t think there’s much love lost between them mate. That said, there are people I worked with 30+ years ago that I wouldn’t go out of my way to socialise with either. 

I think Weller has mellowed a bit in recent years so it’s possible they will at least kiss and make up at some point. I met Rick in Glasgow a few years ago and he didn’t have a bad word to say about PW at all, which was cool. 

I didn’t know Right Said Fred had reformed?

?

[oldjamfan1]

Just now, old darwen blue said:

I didn’t know Right Said Fred had reformed?

?

Its a Bros tribute band, Gloss :):)

[old darwen blue]

5 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Its a Bros tribute band, Gloss :):)

Love it!

[arbitro]

4 hours ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Yeah I don’t think there’s much love lost between them mate. That said, there are people I worked with 30+ years ago that I wouldn’t go out of my way to socialise with either. 

I think Weller has mellowed a bit in recent years so it’s possible they will at least kiss and make up at some point. I met Rick in Glasgow a few years ago and he didn’t have a bad word to say about PW at all, which was cool. 

Bloody hell Andy. It's like a Right Said Fred tribute band.

???

Actually t'other bloke has a look of Shearer.

[oldjamfan1]

Just now, arbitro said:

Bloody hell Andy. It's like a Right Said Fred tribute band.

???

Actually t'other bloke has a look of Shearer.

Ha ha someone beat you to it Tony

[MarkBRFC71]

Saw IDLES a couple of weeks ago in Minneapolis (actually at First Avenue - where Prince did a lot of his early gigs and where good chunks of Purple Rain were filmed).

Fantastic gig - not seen that much energy both on and off stage in a while.  If you get chance to see them, take it - got some great songs, and love the juxtaposition between the ferocity of their songs and the message of unity and acceptance they deliver.

[oldjamfan1]

In November, a gig from 1979 is being recreated at King Georges Hall to celebrate 40 years since The Jam's Setting Sons tour reached East Lancs. Although not featuring Paul Weller, 'From the Jam' even have the same support band, The Vapors.

So when I read this article in the telegraph I decided to dig out my review of the 1979 gig and send it to the author of the book that is mentioned in the article..

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/17906337.jam-played-blackburn-three-times--/

Here is an abridged version of it:

Wednesday 12th December 1979

 John Lennon still had about a year to live. Margaret Thatcher was just starting to get into her wicked stride as Prime Minister, and my football team, Blackburn Rovers, was a Third Division football club, in every respect.

Also on this day in history, three young men from Woking, Surrey were in the latter stages of a nationwide tour to promote their fourth album, the sublime Setting Sons. King Georges Hall in Blackburn, east Lancashire, was their latest port of call.

I always imagined Blackburn to be the arse-end of England and not an obvious stopping-off point for major bands on UK tours. I was also very young - about to turn 15. Despite my tender years, this was not the first time I had seen The Jam in action. They had played King Georges Hall some 18 months previously, just before All Mod Cons was recorded. That night Weller had introduced Billy Hunt as “Our next single” and had also enjoyed a couple of pints in the adjacent Ribblesdale Hotel with Gill Price, his girlfriend. I would have been 13 at that time.

 Last time out, the 4000 capacity hall had been about two-thirds full, mainly consisting of punks.  Generally speaking, when it happened in London, it took about 2 years to reach Blackburn. At least it had always seemed that way. However, what happened on 12th December 1979 was part of a national phenomenon that captured a generation of British kids, from all four corners of the land.

This time around, The Jam had started to attract attention and some decent chart placings, and the gig was a sell-out, despite the fact that the tour also took in Lancaster, Manchester (x2), Deeside Leisure Centre and Leeds; all just about within the reach of the northwest youth.

We decided to get to the gig in plenty of time to watch the support band, The Vapors. We arrived soon after the doors opened, and quickly spent a small fortune on tour tee shirts and badges.  The two that seemed to shift the most were a Setting Sons Tour shirt emblazoned with a bulldog and rising sun graphic, and an Eton Rifles shirt with marching army cadets on the front. They were truly iconic and as cool as fuck. They still are. We had no money left for either a beer or our bus home, so made our way straight into the hall and got down the front.

The Vapors were excellent, and they played just about the whole of the then-unreleased New Clear Days album. I particularly remember their soon-to-be-monster hit Turning Japanese and also Spring Collection. The hall was beginning to fill up at this point and you could feel the atmosphere getting increasingly tense. It was a heady mixture of genuine fear at what could kick off at any moment, given some of the chants that were being sung, and real excitement at who was about to enter stage right. Who needed booze on a night like this? These were tough, violent times. While I don’t recall there being much of a gang culture as such, there were certainly parochial battles aplenty, with many small towns making up the east Lancashire conurbation, and a gig such as this was a tinderbox, to say the least.

 Speaking of which, you could still smoke everywhere in those days - most of us did - and once the house lights went down (always the signal that emptied the bars and caused a crush in the hall) all you could see were the red ends of hundreds of fags and the wispy smoke billowing out of them. No mobile phones in those days. Then the spotlight shone onto the right hand corner of the stage, and a stocky man with white hair sauntered on stage. In his unmistakeable gruff voice, he bellowed “Alright, put your ‘ands together for the best band in the fuckin’ world, The Jam!!”.

I actually thought the roof was going to come off the place! Apparently the ringing phone effect was played, but I doubt anybody heard it, as the band launched straight into Girl on the Phone. The bit where the word ‘cock’ is used in the song’s lyric signalled a mass punch in the air (later to be repeated during Pretty Green on the following tour!).

Bearing in mind I saw The Jam a few times and my memory isn't what it was, but my recollection is that Weller – whose hair was longer than when I’d seen them 18 months earlier, had a navy blue and grey polka dot shirt and either grey or slate blue sta-prests. I have no idea what he had on his feet, but I seem to recall they weren’t the black-and-white ‘Jam’ shoes that had previously been a trademark. Foxton was wearing a grey tonic suit - he did have Jam shoes on - and he lost the jacket after just a couple of numbers. Rick had a striped blue button down shirt on – could have been pale blue, but it soon became dark blue!

As for the crowd, the whole place was a sea of fishtails, Fred Perrys and boating blazers.

You could normally tell after a song or two whether Paul was ‘up for it’ – he generally was – and I have to say that I have rarely seen him strut quite so aggressively around a stage as he did that night. I wonder whether he’d lost at cards on the coach on the way in?!

“’Ow are ya, alright?”

 He looked at me when he said that! Okay, I’m sure every kid in the hall thought the same thing, but we were as one.

They rattled through the set at breakneck speed as usual. I can’t remember the exact order of songs but it would have followed a similar set list as the rest of that tour. I do remember they played Strange Town, When You’re Young and The Eton Rifles, one after another, in that order. I only remember that because they had been the last three singles, in that order, and I reflected afterwards that it showed how good they were that they didn’t feel a need to hold any of them back for the encore. They made such an incredible noise, especially given that there were only three of them! The feedback Paul got during Rifles was ear-splitting.

Another song that sticks in my mind from that show was Little Boy Soldiers. My late brother was in the army at the time and it sent shivers down my spine hearing that song played live. It still does!

“And if I get the chance I’ll FUCK UP YOUR LIFE, Mister Cleeeeean, Mister Cleeeeean”. I cannot properly put into words just how loudly the crowd sang the bit in capital letters. Weller didn’t even bother singing “Is that seen?” - we did that for him!

The last song of the main set was (Love is Like a) Heatwave. Many Jam fans, including this one, are of the view that this song had no place on Setting Sons. Paul now agrees, and reflects that they had no choice but to use it to close the album as he had no more songs written. Personally I think they would have been better served by including The Butterfly Collector.

However, (Love is Like a) Heatwave DEFINITELY had a place on the Setting Sons tour. It was the most rousing way to close the set, and the crowd went ballistic, to say the least. It was probably the closest I have come to imagining what Beatlemania must have sounded like. Again, I think it was a brave song to leave the stage on, given the hits they already had under their belt at the time.

Another thing gigs get measured on – well they certainly did in those days – was how many encores were performed. The Jam did two that night. The first one was David Watts, followed by The Modern World. Off they went again.

“Thank you, goodnight!”  A few people thought that was that and started streaming towards the exits, entirely satisfied that they had just seen the biggest band in Britain - and the best band in the fucking world - performing at the peak of their powers in a smallish venue.

I have no idea why I remembered this, but I realised they hadn’t yet played Tube Station. Also, the house lights hadn’t come back on. I said to my mate that they were probably going to do a second encore. Sure enough, a roar greeted Paul, Bruce and Rick as they jogged back on stage, the former and the latter puffing on rather suspicious looking cigarettes!

They ended proceedings with an incredibly intense version of A Bomb in Wardour Street - How many of us would actually be able to spell apocalypse if it hadn’t been for this song, be honest!?- followed by, of course, Tube Station, complete with sound effects (note the ‘e’).

This time “Thank you goodnight” echoed around the hall as the band left the stage, and this time the house lights did go up and it was time to step out into the cold December Lancashire air.

The last thing that struck me as I was leaving King Georges Hall that night was the steam and sweat literally rolling down the walls of the venue. It was quite literally like a sauna.

Normally, after a gig or a football match in that neck of the woods, there would be sporadic outbreaks of battling between different parochial factions, but I can honestly say that all I saw was a sea of smiling faces, made so by three lads not much older than us.

Edited November 18, 2019 by oldjamfan1

[DeeCee]

Awesome write up, thanks, I was there also!

[Jimbo]

The previous June (78) - Myself and a couple of mates roadied for the Jam at KGH, when I say roadied, I actually mean humped and dumped boxes of cables speakers and PA kit around. It was a fantastic experience, the only downside was it was the day before my English O level exam which I duly failed. I can't remember how it came about, but we got to meet all of the band including Paul Weller's dad who I think was managing them at the time, they were all very approachable.

Edited September 19, 2019 by Jimbo

[old darwen blue]

You missed a career in music journalism Andy. A good read.