gjinblack wrote:Ifirst posted this in 'Memories of Black and White,in 2008, however it was my first gig so I've pasted it here.
Ah go on then..
"The first time I saw the Stranglers live was only the 2nd gig I had been to, the first being Gary Numan on his Teletour '80 at the Glasgow Apollo, who I went to see with my big sister. The next time I went to see a band at the Apollo it was the MIB tour in Feb.1981. I was still only 14 and this time I went on my own. I can still recall the army jacket I had on, a bit like the one Travis Bickle sports in Taxi Driver except his didn't have a freshly hand-scrawled Stranglers logo in red felt tip, that ran down the back of it in the rain as I waited excitedly in the long queue outside the Apollo. I was thrilled to be out in the big city at night and ecstatic to be finally getting to see the band that I had loved for a long time. The gig was fucken amazing, I watched from the bouncing balcony, soaking in everything; from the electric buzzing atmosphere of a classic Stranglers gig; the band in full flight below me, as I observed and absorbed every minute detail from my elevated viewpoint.
I raved about it for months afterwards....
- it really is a blur now, the details gone, lost to the mists of time and burnt out braincells but I still wouldn't swap what memories I have left with anyone. There might have been people at the same gig with better memories of it than me but no one felt as fucken electric as I did that night.
Being "lost in the crowd" at those early Stranglers gigs. No feeling like it. Not even seeing the band for most of the gigs due to getting right down to the front of the huge Apollo stage and being part of the universal unconscious, jumping and shouting and clapping and cheering and singing along and sweating and falling over and picking others up. Truly excstatic.
It shaped the way I experienced gigs for a lifetime, I'm still unable (or not comfortable) to sit at a fucken
Rock N Roll gig. Sacrilege."
I'm a comedian and poet, so anything that doesn't get a laugh is a poem. B.Hicks.
"Further modulation of the frequency rotation, Triggered waveband activation - near elation"
'Why are you so edgy, kid ?'