deputysherrif

“Time blurs the memory but I'm sure this was the Original Soundtrack tour and I was there. Great concert and they played "I'm not in love" live without any tapes (they did use some new fangled thing called a splitter or something like that, which is cheating a little bit) unlike Queen who I saw later on the next year. When Bohemian Rhapsody came on, they went off and left a tape playing!
Best part of the night though was the final number "Rubber Bullets". No diddly dum diddly dum like the record - heavy as it gets just like Status Quo would have played it - brilliant.
I also used to fill Kevin Godley's AC Cobra with petrol everytime he called in to the garage where I worked. Lovely bloke, quite happy to chat, never left a tip! Devastating when you are only 16 and skint!”

“I think this was the Dark Side of the Moon tour. People queued overnight to get tickets and it sold out by lunchtime (dinner time in those days up north). Two days before the gig a few of us were in Hime & Addison on John Dalton Street, a record shop that also sold tickets, and somebody asked if they had any returns for the upcoming King Crimson gig. Unfortunately there weren't any for him but we realised that people did return tickets for concerts they couldn't get to, so we asked if they had any returns for Pink Floyd.
"how many do you want?" the guy asked.
"Four please." (More in hope than expectation)
"you're in luck" he said, "just got four back on the front row, do you want them?"
One of the best gigs I've ever seen and we didn't have to queue for a minute.
What a result and I still think that the old Free Trade Hall was one of the best venues to see a band, except for the bars upstairs where they had only bottled beer. In their favour though they did sell Polish Pure Spirit which is better than any vodka I've ever tasted.”

“What a great gig. Half of the week it was the Hardrock and then with a flick of a switch, half of the floor rotated and it was a disco! Can't remember the name of the disco because I never ever went. It used to play proper disco music which anybody who ever went to the Hardrock would never listen to.
Can you imagine - dancing to the Tams on a Thursday night and then watching Ten Years After the night after! I think not.
What was incredible about the Hardrock was the free Sunday night gigs - six or seven up and coming bands who to be honest nobody had ever heard of. Can't remember all of the names of course because most of the bands never made it but a couple I do remember were the Sutherland Brothers (they sang a song called Sailing which they had written themselves and which had not yet been covered by Rod Stewart) and a band called Tin Lizzy. They opened with a traditional Irish son called Whiskey in the Jar - wonder what happened to them?
The most memorable thin about the Hardrock was how low he ceiling was for such a large venue, which channelled the sound towards those stood at the slightly higher part right at the back. Guess who was stood just there when they saw Black Sabbath? Guess who's hearing is now totally gone (except for the whistling of course).
Wouldn't have missed amoment of it though...”