Concerts I've been to, part 2

Late 80s/early 90s I attended mainly rock gigs as that’s what I was used to hearing from my big brothers’ record collections. Though there was a shift in my tastes to more maverick and risky bands than they would have entertained as I moved up to Belfast as a student. But around the time of my 18th birthday I persuaded my brother to take me to see Heart, along with his girlfriend. This was the Brigade tour and I’d seen the Wilson Sisters in the videos for their hits from the previous album. I remember being slightly taken aback when Ann appeared resplendent in military style jacket. The concert was in the by now very familiar King’s Hall and at the peak of their powers the band played to a packed house, Ann Wilson still has an incredible voice to this day.

The next concert I’d attend was a very special one. I’d been a fan of Prince since I was 12, when Purple Rain became a massive success. By 1990, he’d released the classic run of albums (Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Parade, Sign O The Times, Lovesexy, and I’m going to include Batman) and was touring the bag of shite that was Graffiti Bridge. As anyone who has ever bore witness to a Prince show, he ALWAYS gave one hell of a performance no matter if the album at that time didn’t cut it. Right up to his death. The gig was in Pairc Ui Chaoimh in Cork, and I was heading down on a bus with my band buddy Al, who was also a massive fan. I will never forget the bus driver, a barrel of a man with an angry bake who was raging at the parade of eejits piling onto his beloved vehicle with bags of booze. Al and I weren’t partaking as we wanted to remember every detail. He swore viciously rounding on everyone and telling us he didn’t care if we saw the wee man or not when asked to pull into every pub on the way to Cork. Well, it felt like that anyway! NINE HOURS it took to get there. It took less than half that for the return journey as they were all fast asleep.

The support for the show was Irish trad band Stockton’s Wing, and Mavis Staples. But we were only there for one reason and Prince did not fail to deliver. Even the shitty songs from Graffiti Bridge were given a superb workout. It was also Prince’s birthday and we all sang happy birthday to him. Tickets for this show were £17.50, compare that with ticket prices nowadays. Seeing Prince was a priceless experience.

Now that I’d found my feet living up in the city, going to gigs became so much easier. I lived across the road from the Mandela Hall and one of the first shows I saw there was by The Black Crowes. They had just released their debut album and catching them for this show was amazing as they never came back. They were supported by Thee Hypnotics, a band with a similar propensity for good time rock n roll. I also saw shoegaze legends Curve, presenting myself at the very front row for this one. This was my first experience of crowd surfing, and I got a nice boot to the back of the head for my trouble. This night was also famous for me purchasing a brilliant dayglo Curve t-shirt and venturing to my first Snack Bar disco, where I bumped into Debbie from the band. She saw my t-shirt and kindly said hello and asked if I’d been at the gig. This was my first taste of an indie band, it would not be the last. Next time out to the same venue we went to see Jesus Jones, who put on a very energetic performance.

The American band Extreme had had a massive hit with sickly ballad ‘More Than Words’ so I also went to see them in the Ulster Hall. That song was of course a red herring and Nuno Bettencourt was one of that era’s finest guitar players, so it was good to see them.

The King’s Hall would be frequented several more times in 1991. Once again, big bro was enlisted to bring me to see David Lee Roth. Unfamiliar with his solo work my brother was pure scundered when faced with the volume that was presented to him at one of the loudest shows I’ve ever been to. To be fair, I even struggled to identify songs as each one became a blur of drums and a wall of throbbing noise as guitars bounced off the concrete walls. Never mind this though as Lee Roth is one hell of a performer and when he disappeared only to reappear bouncing round a boxing ring in the middle of the crowd it was truly astonishing. Performing a few songs from the ring he then clambered out onto a giant inflatable microphone and rode it through the crowd back to the main stage. Incredible.

Next up I’d see American rockers Skid Row, who had the frankly amazing looking Sebastian Bach as front man. Possessed of one staggering set of pipes the locals took umbrage at his beautiful long blonde hair and decided to roll back to the punk years by gobbing all over him when he ventured to the front of the stage. Incensed Seb hollered “STOP THE SHOW!”. Oh heck, now there’s trouble thinks I. He stretched out his arms and beckoned the front row gobshites to give him all they had. They duly obliged. Seb then proceeded to hock up the biggest pile of snatters he could muster and gave as good back. With a swing of his hair he fired up the band again and that was the end of the spitfest. Thankfully it wasn’t the end of the show. Supporting that night was the brilliantly underrated Love/Hate, singer Jizzy Pearl was on tiptop form, another singer with a stunning rock n roll voice, he’s returned subsequently to these shores, playing Ahoghill, no less. My next gig in the King’s Hall would be one of legend…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And So I Watch You From Afar

  This blog is going to be slightly different from my regular ones. What happens next in my musical journey is very much shaped by my dalliance with one particular band. I want to devote a blog to covering the good times I spent with And So I Watch You From Afar. To this day, ASIWYFA remain one of my favourite bands. The band have continued to be a presence on the live circuit and despite line-up changes still release intriguing and ever evolving music to tantalise. Through my association with Echoes And Dust website, I’ve reviewed several of their albums. I first noticed ASIWYFA when they played as support to We Are Knives, another Belfast band with incredible musicians. I didn’t know what to expect from them as their band name initially felt kind of pretentious, albeit the lyric from a Deftones song. It became apparent though, that the instrumental post rock the band were creating was right up my street. I’d been listening to the likes of Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky and ea...
Read more

And Now The End Is Near...I Did It My Way!

The second Team Horse release was a 5 track e.p. entitled 'Here Come The Hurricane', which was a line from a Simple Minds song, fact fans. I think Jim Kerr actually sings "Here Comes The Hurricane" but I liked the sound of 'Here Come' better. Feeling much more confident that there was an actual audience for this sound I really went for it again in terms of creating something downright nasty sounding. It was at this point in time I found out about a website called Echoes And Dust. They'd reviewed And So I Watch You From Afar and 'Gangs' had actually been selected as their album of the year. I figured I should send my CD to them for a review and lo and behold, the site's chief Dan Salter wrote some lovely words about the e.p. I didn't know it at this point, but this link would be massive in the reshaping of my musical 'career'. A fair amount of the songs I recorded over the years all pointed to one thing. Sometimes it would be blatant...
Read more
  Famous Acquaintances At the outset of this blog, I should issue an apology for the amount of name dropping that will take place. Ah sod it, these tales are the my claims to “fame” and I’m going for it! After the departure of Young Simon, myself and Al Brown continued as a two-piece. This was back in the days before you had The White Stripes, or Royal Blood and the plethora of minimalist acts that followed. Sure, there’s always been two-piece acts but we stuck out as an entity in Belfast as nobody else was doing it. We changed our name from Funksmith to Foam. This band name was Al’s idea and I don’t know how he came up with it, I just recall I liked it. It suited us. It was snappy. It just seemed to summarise so much about us. With the disposable income I was generating plundering night shift in a local factory I bought an Akai Sampler and we shared financial outlay on a new Fostex 8-track Multitracker. Or “Fosty” as it was known. Fosty has resided in my attic for 10 years and I...
Read more