Every gig I ever went to

The Flamin’ Groovies/Radio Birdman Oxford College of Further Education 10 June 1978 For a couple of years I’d been a big fan of the Flamin’ Groovies, notably their early 70s punk-anticipating garage rock albums Flamingo and Teenage Head. More recently they had undergone something of a makeover, re-emerging in 1976 with new anglophile singer Chris Wilson, the outstanding single Shake Some Action and an album of the same title, which referenced more classic sources such the Beatles, the Stones, the Byrds, the Pretty Things, and hummed with a deliciously warm, valve-y jangle. It’s hard to imagine now but, the recent past being so much more old-fashioned than the distant past, the Beatles and Stones were largely considered hopelessly démodé at the time, disdained by punks and prog-heads, ignored by almost everyone else. Glen Matlock was allegedly thrown out of the Sex Pistols for liking the Beatles; clearly the likes of Paul Weller, Squeeze and Generation X were huge Beatles fans, but the...

The Pirates Oxford College of Further Education 2 May 1978 The Lurkers Oxford Cape of Good Hope 11 May 1978 The Pirates were a right bunch of old lags, having originally been Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and scoring hits in the pre-Beatles era, notably British rock’n’roll classic Shakin’ All Over. In the wake of Dr Feelgood a number of rocking r’n’b groups had appeared and maybe the Pirates felt they had a point to prove to the upstarts, anyway they’d been playing the London pub circuit for a couple of years to wildly enthusiastic responses and reviews. This was another gig I was dead keen to see. The house lights go down to the sound of thunderclaps and a storm at sea, three figures take their places on the darkened stage, a piercing guitar intro and the stage lights illuminate three 30-something blokes dressed as, well, pirates, ripping into a ludicrously pumped-up reading of old chestnut Please Don’t Touch. They play for an hour and never let up, and it’s preposterous in the way that...