Gig 074
John Otway
Oxford College of Further Education
30 October 1978
Gig 075
The Pirates
Oxford College of Further Education
4 November 1978
Gig 076
The Adverts
Oxford College of Further Education
9 December 1978

 
I’d been playing bass for a couple of years, and in the Spring of 1978 I joined a group in Oxford, fronted by my friend Mark, which became The No. I don’t intend to say much about The No, or any of the other bands I’ve played with, because it’s impossible to be objective, and because being in the group I didn’t really see the gigs. These days I wouldn’t make any great claims for The No, except that we were young and snotty, good musicians, and played fast, melodic tunes which might be bracketed somewhere between punk and power pop. We had some good songs, and Mark was a great frontman. We used to squabble all the time, that’s just part of how it is. Our regular gig was the Oranges & Lemons pub where we developed something of a following. In the Autumn we acquired a manager, who happened to be Social Secretary at the College of Further Education, which meant we got to play support slots for name acts there. 
 
The first was with local legend and chart act John Otway, who I had seen many times as he was a regular at the Oranges & Lemons (see Gigs 047, 052, 058). I was excited about doing the ‘proper’ gig thing for the first time, and sat attentively through Otway’s soundcheck only to quickly realise how boring other acts’ soundchecks are (and your own are only slightly less boring). The gig was in aid of a charity, sponsored and promoted by local freesheet The Oxford Journal, and the man who seemed to be in charge was a jumped-ups wee squit with lifts in his shoes, who made it clear that he resented our presence at the event. In spite of this I seem to remember that we made a decent fist of our set. Otway did his thing, which was (and remains) always entertaining, but I preferred seeing him in the pub, as I suppose anyone would. The other thing about playing support is that you can’t really pay much attention to the headliners or any other acts, the mind is racing and anyway there’s always stuff to attend to. And in this case that little arse from the Oxford Journal to avoid.
 
Next up we opened for The Pirates – this was proper exciting, just six months previously I had been in the audience for their gig at the same venue (see Gig 060). As mentioned, The Pirates were gnarled old rockers who had been around for, well, forever really; at least that was our impression, in fact they were in their mid-30s at the time of this gig. (NME journalist Charles Shaar Murray’s group Blast Furnace and the Heatwaves were also on the bill but they cancelled.) We had looked forward to meeting The Pirates, but they weren’t very friendly and didn’t want to talk to us. To be honest, seeing them up close I’m not sure we wanted to talk to them either. Out of their silly pirate costumes they looked like a gang of villains from The Sweeney. Drummer Frank Farley was a silent man-mountain who had worked as a bouncer, ace guitarist Mick Green was also a big lad with a menacing air, but the scariest was bass player and singer Johnny Spence, a little bloke who looked like he would break your fingers for fun. He had what appeared to be a curly perm, which only made him more terrifying. We asked if we could re-position any of their microphones; they said no, which effectively meant we couldn’t use the PA to full effect. For all that we played a good set, hugely impressed that people we didn’t know seemed to be getting into it. The Pirates, as far as I can remember, did exactly the same set as last time round, and the audience were similarly appreciative, but I would never feel particularly fondly about them again.
 
One month later we found ourselves supporting The Adverts, whom I had last seen the year before, supporting the Damned (see Gig 030). By now they had had hit singles and released a pretty good album. Unlike The Pirates they were quite approachable, even friendly. I thought drugs may have been involved, but meeting TV Smith again several years later it was clear he was a naturally friendly guy. This time our set went very well. While The Adverts still couldn’t really play, they were literate and imaginative, and the punks didn’t quite know what to make of them, though they went predictably bananas for hit single Gary Gilmore’s Eyes. The group’s reach still exceeded its musical grasp, which can often produce great results. We hung out for a while after the gig, by which time some or maybe all of The Adverts were completely out of it, while we chugged any cans of Heineken we could find and the caretakers tried to make us to leave. It was all pretty glamourous.

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