1st STRANGLERS GIG

[wadey1]

its great to hear these stories from people who loved em at the start. i ant even seen the stranglers yet, but i will be going to leeds uni gig this year. first strang related gig was cornwell at cockpit 04, and met him at hmv. sounds crap compared to all these great stories dunnit? i wish i were back in late 70's at my age now.

[theraven1979]

Wadey I wasn't too impressed by the Leeds Cockpit gig - Were you at his HMV gig in Leeds about 10 years back?

Jim

[jem750]

used to go hammersmith all the time, but never saw them there til Dreamtime tour (i think) as the first London shows i saw were Dominion in Aural Sculpture (feb 85 if memory serves)
First show was my first ever gig, Reading in 83, awesome warm day, lotsa dodgy prog, Hanoi Rocks ruled, Steel Pulse bottled off, Big Country ensuring i went straight back to see them at Hammy odeon the next month, and the chaps kicking offf with Nuclear Device, and HC dedicating the heavy drum intro to Golden Brown to all the heavy metal people, priceless!
Actually, I like Sabbath n Thin Lizzy so was good weekend all round for about £17! And Steve Harley was on too, so Acoustic fest is bit of deja vu all round!

Ah yes Reading '83
That was the gig that got me into Big Country, I saw them at Southampton Gaumont on the back of that performance!

First Stranglers gig Southampton Gaumont 13/07/80... Shit that was 26 years ago last week
I remember lots of white light and the standout track 'Toiler'

Jez

[wadey1]

no id haVE BEEN ABOUT 10 THEN BUT I MET HIM AT HMV JUST BEFORE COCKPIT GIG IN 04

[Homer]

Firsy 'half' gig, Batersea Park with my older brother and his mayes,got lost.................missed half tje gig.
Second gig, Loch Lomand,\\\ awesome..........3rd gig, Sundeland Locarno, MB tour......me pished

[bry]

bridlington spa pavilion september 1978, "oh i do like to be beside the seaside. oh i do like to be beside the sea!!"

tis good to see a band at a coastal resort, all that icecream and candyfloss..

funny thing is, last time i saw the stranglers mk1 was just oop road in scarboro in 1990

skids supported in 78, top dollar, JJ jumped off staged and twatted a spitter that too was top dollar... met all the band apart from JJ he was too busy entertaining some ladies

[chatts99]

Just joined but I must admit used the site as a ref point for a while but just
thought what the fuck get involved .
1 st gig Rainbow 81 MIB tour sloping floor football terrace barriers towards the stage got underneath during WIB spent most of the first 3 songe being pulled up off the floor as right in middle of seething blackness
did i need to be hooked any further rest abit of a blur/haze no drugs too young for alcohol must have been a good one 253 bus back home buzzing for days .
worst gig, getting asked to leave Hammersmith 87 for sitting in front row
with feet up on stage think Hugh got the hump or smthg must have been a quiet part of the set hahahaha .
Had nice chat with manager afterwards with bouncers guarding him

[droopsnoot]

My first was Manchester Apollo on the Feline tour in 1983, I remember having to race from the Apollo to the station after the gig and only just getting the train.

My second was Reading Festival in 1983, and we had another train incident in that we had to wait on Birmingham New Street station for about five hours for the morning train back up to Crewe. I only went to Reading for the Friday night, and I now regret not doing the lot and seeing Marillion (I was also into them, but not so much), Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy etc. Big Country were great, as were some of the 'prog' bands during the day (Pallas, for example) but I thought Hanoi Rocks were awful at the time.

These days I tend to stick to reasonably local gigs, more because I can't be bothered travelling than because it's a hardship. I'd like to go on the train (so I can have a pint or three) but the return train is always too early - last train from Manchester on a Saturday night is a pathetic 10.15pm last time I tried in December. Recently (well, in the last fifteen years) I've done Manchester Academy a few times, Preston Guildhall (10 tour), Nottingham Royal Centre a couple of times, Nottingham Rock City a few times, Hanley Royal (now closed), Wolverhampton, Birmingham Academy, Sheffield Corporation and somewhere in Leeds. Oh and Blackpool.

Sheffield Corporation sticks in my mind, partly because it was the most recent (other than Nantwich), and partly because of the journey. I took a Satnav thing from work with me, and because I didn't fancy going out of my way to the north or south to get on the motorway, I programmed it for 'shortest route' rather than 'fastest route'. An hour later, still nowhere near Sheffield, as I drove down yet another pitch dark country lane with clumps of grass growing in the middle, I decided that, detour or not, on the way back I'll go for 'fastest'.

[Radar]

how can you forget your first stranglers gig.................thats like saying you cant quite remember your first fuck

lots of thirteen and 14 year olds in here giving up their memories of stranglers gigs in variuos emporiums and festivals errrmmmmmmmm................well i'll join in the fun

first gig.......i was 12 and three quaters and 10 days and it was the Torrington in Finchley..dont remember much about it though..you know..it was a long time ago......I remember Dave had a tash and Jet had a great big grey beard and they played a load of songs.like nice and sleezy (Or was that a bit later) anyway.it was amazing.and i think that i am great cos i was there......if you know what i mean

cant believe me mam and dad let me go..............cos we were living in Devon at the time.they must have been worried sick

hey...........it was the punk days....did I care if i turned up at my primary school the next day.did i fuck.....respect to all you children who saw the Stranglers in night clubs, pubs and 18 only venues when you were as young as i was....wernt we fucking amazing??????

[PaulinLondon]

Sunspots!! I was there mate!! I remember it well. The ticket cost £2.50! I remember buying the tickets! I was only sixteen at the time and had Never been on a train before. I caught the bus to Newport then the train to Cardiff and I had never been to Cardiff before either! I even turned up at the venue on a Saturday afternoon to get my tickets.......and I got 'em too. I remember the gig very well. My friend drew the Stranglers logo on the back of a denim waistcoat for me so I would look like a punk! This was my first 'real' gig and I will never forget these guys coming on stage , I thought they were the roadcrew but they started playing and the opening bars to 'Of One Skin' (I was later to find out) rang out..........these were The Skids and bloody good they were too. I went to see them a year later in Newport Stowaway with a band called The Edge!! (I can tell you a lot about that band too but maybe again sometime!). Me and my friend Martyn were right at the front of the stage in between Hugh and Dave and I will never forget when they walked on stage and burst into Burning Up Time as we were covered in phlegm! It literally rained down on us! The gig was well over an hour and I remember Toiler, Tank, Do You Wanna, Death/Night/Blood, London Lady, Threatened, Curfew, 5 Minutes,Dead Ringer, Bitching, Dagenham Dave but no SBC or NMH!! This was the first of the 117 times I had seen the band and although the gig the following year at the same venue (were you there sunspots? Can you remember JJ jumping into the audience to hammer a guy for spitting?!!) was the best moment, never mind the best gig in my life, I will never forget Cardiff Top Rank, Cardiff, £2.50!! 28 years have past by since then but I still get goosebumps before the band come on stage and no more so than Weston two weeks ago as it really, really took me back to those times again........A good omen maybe? I no longer have my wild-eyed innocence or the whole world in front of me now like I did then but what I have got are memories that I will take to the grave with me.

Fly straight with nostalgia and a tear in one's eye.............

Forgive the repetition but it does not get better than this.

Bring on the Meninblack. So long as it is IV, let the words and music speak, for they do.

[rustyboxx]

Hey, thanks for this site. Me and a mate have just booked to see the band play in Bournemouth and were trying to remember what year we first saw them play. 1978!! Jeez, I was 16 and she was 14 and we didn't even know each other then.

Cheers for the gig archive, couldn't find anything else on the net to track down the year. Great job!

[C r a s s !]

Just joined but I must admit used the site as a ref point for a while but just
thought what the fuck get involved .
1 st gig Rainbow 81 MIB tour sloping floor football terrace barriers towards the stage got underneath during WIB spent most of the first 3 songe being pulled up off the floor as right in middle of seething blackness
did i need to be hooked any further rest abit of a blur/haze no drugs too young for alcohol must have been a good one 253 bus back home buzzing for days .
worst gig, getting asked to leave Hammersmith 87 for sitting in front row
with feet up on stage think Hugh got the hump or smthg must have been a quiet part of the set hahahaha .
Had nice chat with manager afterwards with bouncers guarding him

Hello chatts... good gig... Rainbow in March 1981? I remember it – and Hugh was moaning at the spitters!

Didn’t they play MiB instead of Waiting for the MiB… I may be wrong, but it was a great gig all the same. Always was at the Rainbow wasn’t it.

253 bus eh? That was my bus route. Which way did you head back to – Bethnal Green way perchance?