The Cure. What can i say? Sheer utter brilliance ! I’ve only managed to see them live twice, but , both times have been mind blowing. I just love them. I only managed to get on the 2nd row,despite getting there (what i thought was) really early. But it was just such a fantastic night!
2nd night seeing Velvet Revolver at Hammersmith. Crazy as it sounds now, i drove back n forth to Boston for each gig !
Bournemouth, Sheffield & Glasgow got cancelled 🙁
There’s a decent audio recording of both John Norum & Ace Frehleys sets out there. Also, the band filmed a mini documentary of their visit to the UK.
Yes, they really DID throw out bibles to the crowd !
“St Valentines Day Massacre”
Last night i’d see of the tour & was up in the balcony. The great thing was that at this (+the other Hammy O shows) they played the extra tracks which they’d slotted in previously at other shows. I guess that they were rehearsing them for when they played Hammy O. The reason for this was that they were recording the shows for a live album. Of course, in the end they released the show from Long Beach with a few bonus tracks from Hammersmith. I’ve always thought Bruce sounded much better at Hammersmith….
We had the day down London & when we wanted to go back to our hotel,we couldn’t due to police cordoning off the area. At the time, we didn’t know that the IRA had set off a bomb at Harrods which killed 6 people. Strange as it may sound, when we did find out, i don’t think we were scarred or anything. The Priest gig was great. The following day me & Andy went to see Arsenal play & we were in the infamous North Bank terrace. The tubes didn’t run so much on Sundays back then, so, we had a bit of fun getting back to the bus station.
So this is where it all started for me. My first ever gig & a band that i adored. I was also “lucky” from day one : Around the time, the weather was awful with snow & ice etc. Obviously, don’t wanna make a 2 hour plus journey in that. So my dad said if the weather’s ok, we’ll go, but if it’s bad, we wont. Well, the weather got bad, so we wern’t gonna go. He’d ordered tickets but then cancelled the cheque. A couple of days later, the tickets turned up…& the weather got reasonable enough. The gig was ON ! I was 13 & very excited about it all. Even the trip to London was a big thing, let alone seeing my fave band. I remember standing on my seat in the stalls (already a rebel) & enjoyed every minute of it. They played a few songs i didn’t know, which turned out to be covers of David Bowie (Heroes), The Kingsmen (Louie Louie), Donna Summer (I Feel Love). There was one thing that REALLY stood out for me at this show & it wasn’t the obvious Debbie Harry…it was Clem Burke, the drummer ! I was amazed & probably focused on him more than anything. He had so much energy & just held things together (That’s not saying the rest of the band were no good, it’s just me, even at my first gig, looking at things differently than the obvious). Well, it was a great start to my gigging life time 🙂
Many years later, i managed to find a bootleg from Hammersmith. It’s sourced from an American radio show. Dunno if it’s the show i saw, but, it’s great to be able to relive the gig 🙂
