Dangerous Music.

If you follow this blog you might know that I kind of like music, just a little, following the news of the death of Tina Turner, I got to thinking the artists that I have seen and those I haven’t, why Tina Turner, well myself and some friends had tickets for the UK tour I’m guessing it would be around 1984 there was about 8 of us and we got tickets for the whole of the tour and we didn’t see her once, why I hear you ask, we went to see the support act who was breaking big at the time “Bryan Adams” on his Reckless tour, she must have come on every night and went why the hell are those seats empty, to be truthful we were in the pub getting drunk, do I regret not seeing her perform, nope I get why people like her and she always put a first rate show on, it simply wasn’t my cup of tea.

I did nearly go and see her in 1990 simply because John Miles was her musical director, but I bumped into him at my previous place of work, so I didn’t bother, nice man and always great to chat too. The times I went to see support acts instead of the headline acts could fill a book, I saw the dickies support the Jam in 1980 four times never saw the Jam once, I saw It Bites a few times as support to other bands mainly over in Carlisle never saw the headline act once, saw girl, Diamond head, Anvil, Budgie (nearly as much as other bands who I loved) Samson with Bruce, the list goes on and on.

In the same token I have seen some shite supports as well, the worst and to be honest not their fault, a Greek version of Budgie called Socrates supporting UFO on their making contact tour just as it all went tits up, I actually sat through the entire set as they didn’t speak English so the patter between songs was non-existent, and the songs were…….erm nope! I have seen good bands play shit gigs, I have seen shit bands play awesome gigs, I have seen local bands that should have been huge, I have over time seen just about everybody I want to with one exception being Steve Walsh of Kansas, either solo or with Kansas itself, I saw Tom Robinson do an acoustic when he stomped  after about 5 songs, because it was (shite) in his words “not working” I saw Simply Red on their first tour and I cant remember who they supported we were out for a drink and they did around a 35 minutes, they were killer, I saw them on the next couple of tours and boy were they tedious, with a capitol T.

I have seem many “classic” acts from the 60’s and 70’s and surprisingly they were all great we used to go and see Engelbert Humperdink whenever he toured as we had a mate who was his drummer, who doesn’t want to miss an opportunity to heckle a drummer, he lost the gig after he told us all to “F*** **F, the drummer not the hump, I saw Don Maclean of American pie fame being the biggest cock walking I honestly though the sound guy was going to kill him, The electric boys another great band as a support , headlining they tended to go off into a jam, they were awesome but kind of went of down the wrong path, Bernie Marsden doing a solo acoustic set supporting FM, it shouldn’t have worked but it did and he was just the loveliest man afterwards another great night of pulling stories from the story box, a great night, Angelwitch again in Carlisle, it was a new line up and although I loved the gig the band were horrible, new line up and it was the second gig, a total car crash!

I saw Huey Lewis before he became Huey Lewis, and I saw Dr Feelgood (the original one) play a gig with around 40 people in and they played like their life depended on it, so cool, I saw Squeeze play a gig were Chris Difford was sick into the bass drum and then continued playing as if nothing had happened, I saw Mensi from the Angelic Upstarts fall off the stage and didn’t miss a beat, I saw the Toy Dolls tear numerous clubs to bits and then stand outside talking to the fans like they  hadn’t even started, I saw Twisted Sister play the Mayfair both times and still cant get over how awesome they were, I forget how many times I saw Slade in venues big and small, I even remember seeing the Mighty Hellenbach play Gimpsville in the Freemason's and they did make us feel like Gimpsville was the rock and roll capital of …..well Gimpsville!

The number of support bands we saw at the Marquee  the one that stands out was a band called Ore, they should have been huge, great songs great band, great vocalist, the only  trouble was he had short hair and weighed about 25 stone, he looked like he would eat the band if he got the chance! I saw FM play there for the first time in their snazzy suits, I saw my mate take the piss out of Joey Dimaio of Manowar who ran away with his tail between his legs simply because he couldn’t get a word in edgeways, Geordies talk much hell yeah!

So today I listened to the radio, and it was Tina Turner hit after hit, again do i regret not seeing her, nope not  really as I said simply not really my cup of tea, the name game is and album title and yes I saw this person play with Magnum, support Magnum and play Trillian’s on a Friday night with Sean Harris of Diamond Head in a band called……….LIFE, all great memories , life is too short enjoy it while you can its not a rehearsal until the next one comes along…………………..Toodles