S3 gig by M. Refoy

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S3 gig by M. Refoy

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8. Spacemen 3. The Black Lion, Northampton, August 25th 1985

I’m about to sip a beer and Big Tim Sansom is saying something in my ear that I can’t remember........... the beer doesn’t get to my lips because Spacemen 3 have just started playing and I’m totally and utterly transfixed....... I think they started with 2.35........ Tim is still trying to tell me something, he obviously isn’t under the spell.......an electric sitar type drone starts up and Spacemen 3 are relentless.....there’s only 3 of them and they look about 17........Pat Fish has stumbled to the front of the stage and is looking up in awe.......the drummer is pounding a rolling tribal tom tom and staring out in front......the guitarists are sitting down(!) staring at their guitars playing one note forever.........These lot aren’t pissing about.....They’re hooked, and so am I...........


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Re: S3 gig by M. Refoy

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awesome. what's this from?
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Re: S3 gig by M. Refoy

Post by MODLAB »

His FB page.

Here is the rest.


The most memorable rock shows I’ve ever seen in chronological order:
by Mark Refoy on Tuesday, 26 October 2010 at 22:40
1. The Damned at Northampton County Ground Feb 1977
I was 14 and had been buying the NME since Nov 76 and was very curious about this new punk thing so when I saw a local paper ad for The Damned playing at the County Ground I called a friend and persuaded my dad to drive us in (I lived in a village in the middle of nowhere) and managed to convince my parents that it would be a valuable musical experience and they were nothing to do with this dreadful "punk" phenomenon. I'd never seen a live band before and luckily The Damned were at the centre of punk and one of it's prime movers. Inside the venue the DJ played the Pistols' I Wanna Be Me (B Side of Anarchy) which another friend there told me he'd bought a few weeks ago from Boots bargain bin. The support were a band called Bandanna who I suppose were everything punk was setting out to destroy; provincial heavy rock that lumbered along drearily and the singer wore a........bandanna - a sort of low rent Free but without the tunes. They'd probably be very successful today. Anyway The Damned hit the stage and my life changed. I remember The Captain wore cricket pads and they played everything really fast and you just couldn't ignore it. There were a few punks in the audience, 2 of whom pogoed at the front all the way through the gig, everyone else pretty much stood and stared open mouthed. At one point Rat Scabies leapt from his kit and confronted one of the audience because a glass (I think) had been thrown. Then they were gone. A few weeks later I walked to town and back (round trip of 12 miles) and bought their 1st album from Spinadisc with pocket money I'd saved up. I still play it today (well, the CD).

2. Johnny Thunders Heartbreakers at Northampton County Ground 1977/8 can't remember exactly.
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers came onstage to the sound of a Nuremberg rally intro and some guy at the front tried to touch his guitar and Mr Thunders promptly kicked him in the mush and crashed straight into Chinese Rocks. Unforgettable. I was deaf for a week afterwards. Recently a mate of mine who was at the gig told me he remembered Thunders saying "Get your cock outta my mouth" just before they did a cover of Do You Love Me. Make of that what you will.

P.S. I didn't let my younger brother go to this gig, my memory is of my mum consoling him as I was about to go. What a shit elder brother I was. So when Walter Lure played in Northampton recently I bought him a ticket and we went together. What a great elder brother I am, but still, forgive me Niall.

3. The Clash at Victoria Park in Hackney, Anti-Nazi League gig, April 30th 1978
Myself and 3 schoolmates with about 100,000 other people walked from Trafalgar Square to Hackney to march against the NF and see The Clash and others perform at Hackney Victoria Park. The cops were shoving people everywhere to keep in line on the march so there's no change there. Some live footage of The Clash from the day is used in their Rude Boy film and it shows it how it was, totally electric. I don't know how many times I've scanned it to try and spot me and my mates. When they hit the stage Strummer barked, "for those of you who ain't been to London before......LONDON'S BURNING!!!" It was just before my O Levels and I should've been doing studying or whatever but seeing The Clash seemed so much more important. Which it was.

4. Bauhaus, Northampton 1978/9
I can't remember when the first time I saw Bauhaus was, either The Racecourse Pavilion, The Harpole Paddocks or The 5 Bells. They made one hell of an impression though, they were like NOTHING around at the time. They could alienate certain members of the audience. At The 5 Bells they were half way through Bela Lugosi and someone lobbed a beer glass which crashed in front of David J. But nothing could stop them in full flow and they carried on without flinching. At The Paddocks gig they started with Bela and my brother was standing right in front of Murphy who proceeded to drape some kind of black shawl over him throughout the long intro. My bro stayed stock still and didn't flinch, partly because he's a stubborn fucker and refuses to be intimidated by anyone but also because Murphy was well known for being a bit unpredictable onstage and could lash out with a mic stand if he didn't like the look of someone. But then Murphy peeled away and sang "White on white translucent black capes......" and all was good. Bauhaus might have inadvertantly started "goth" but they had more in common with Iggy & The Stooges and other such confrontational art/punk. Oddly enough many years later my brother was acting in a play in London with someone who turned out to be Pete Murphy's wife.

5. Throbbing Gristle at Northampton Town Hall 1979?
I think Bauhaus may have supported at this gig but I can't remember. Throbbing Gristle did their thing and Northampton......hated them. So much so that the lighted cigarette butts thrown in contempt at the stage by irate punters were picked up by Genesis P. Orridge which he then stubbed out on his hand, showing the audience he could take anything they threw at him. They were actually fantastic, filling the old grand town hall with a haunting avant garde symphony. A few weeks later I saw Genesis P Orridge at........

6. Joy Division/ The Buzzcocks at Hemel Hempstead Pavilion November 5th 1979
.............queueing for a drink before Joy Division went onstage. I approached him a bit nervously and said "how's your hand after the Northampton gig?" and he just shrugged and said something like "oh it was nothing, they can't hurt me" and he then proceeded to ask all about me and my friends and he then hung out with us, chatting and answering all our questions about music and “being in a band.” I asked him if he was here to see The Buzzcocks and he looked at me as if to say “are you mad?!” and he said “no, I'm here for Joy Division.” I'd seen Joy Division on Something Else about a week before this gig, anyone who saw it will never forget it. So when they supported The Buzzcocks it wasn't your usual "let's see if the support band are any good" atmosphere. They were a major draw on their own. Some of my brother’s friends had come down particularly for Joy Division, which really impressed me. The only songs I knew of theirs were Transmission and New Dawn Fades from the John Peel show which I remember them both doing. I also seem to remember them playing Digital and my brother turning round and mouthing the words “this is great” to me. Someone knuckled me on the back of the head because I was showing my appreciation by moving around a bit though not really "dancing" and he said "These lot are shit." But Joy Division did not give a shit what Hertfordshire folk thought of them, they were totally amazing - which sounds so obvious now because it’s been said a trillion times before but it was the truth. It was strange because you’d be blown away by the power of the performance and how great the music was and at the same time thinking “why would he wear shoes like that?” In those days we’d try and meet the bands after the gig so we went to the back of the venue and Hooky came out and gave us loads of massive posters of Fact 10 Unknown Pleasures which was on my bedroom wall for years.
Anyway, The Buzzcocks were the main draw on that tour and contrary to rock mythology they were not blown offstage by Joy Division, they were amazing in their own right although not as otherwordly or futuristic as Joy Division. A big fight broke out in the audience between rival skinhead gangs halfway through the gig (always fights at gigs in those days) and The Buzzcocks walked offstage and the house lights came on. A man came onstage and said the band won’t come back onstage if people are fighting. After about 10 minutes they came back on and finished the gig, it seemed normal back then!
We spoke to Pete Shelley afterwards and he was very friendly and talkative. He said Joy Division were mates of theirs who started around about the same time and I said “why don’t you do Times Up anymore”, and he said “They’re Howard’s lyrics, I can’t remember them.”

7. New Order, Northampton Roadmenders 2 February 1981
It was said in the music press at the time that the remaining members of Joy Division were going to carry on playing together but they hadn't decided on a name. Some of the names suggested were The Witch Doctors Of Zimbabwe, The Eternal, The Sunshine Valley Dance Band and New Order. So when I saw a poster in Gold Street Northampton for New Order, Section 25 and The Stockholm Monsters at the Roadmender I thought, right, it must be them. And it was.
While The Stockholm Monsters were playing a heckler near me started shouting abuse at the singer which prompted him to throw his bongos into the crowd at this guy. When the song finished he plaintively said "can I have me bongos back please?"
Section 25 weren't very memorable but they had all the Factory ingredients; big reverbed sound, haunted expressions and an air of onstage indifference.
New Order started with In A Lonely Place and my god what an opener. I couldn't get the tune out of my head for weeks after. When it started my mate Carl Solomon (1964-1987 RIP Solly) shouted into my ear "It's Atrocity Exhibition, It's Atrocity Exhibition!" because of a sort of similarity in the drum pattern but it soon turned out it wasn't. When the singer played the melodica it was a masterstroke, a soon to be iconic image. We only recognised Hooky from Joy Division because of his beard - the others were so anonymous looking. The singer/guitarist looked really young and they'd got an exotic looking girl in the band too! Wow!
I think they'd hired a huge quadrophonic PA system so their sound totally filled the Roadmender. At one point some local idiot started heckling between songs which seemed to make them play with an added resolve. They didn't do an encore - an aspect of early New Order that pissed a lot of people off in a "I've paid my money and I want to see a proper rock concert!" way but at this gig it seemed so complete and perfect that no-one noticed they only played for about 45 minutes and then were gone. Many years later I asked one of them if he remembered playing the gig. He looked up searchingly for a few seconds, going through his memory then saying resignedly "do I fuck!"

8. Kraftwerk at Hammersmith Palais July 1981

A mate said "I've got a spare ticket for Kraftwerk in London, do you want to come down?" I was vaguely aware of synthesisers, Germany and robots but I knew nothing about them. We got to the Palais and there was no support and huge curtains concealed the stage. After an hour or so a disembodied robotic Teutonic voice intoned over the PA "Ladies and gentlemen, the Mensch Maschine, Kraaaaaaftveeeeeeeerk." The curtains swept open to reveal four giant video screens and a member of the band in front of each one. This was the Computer World tour, all the songs had a vibrant techno sheen and were played with clinical precision. It was the sound of the future. You still hear their beats and sounds sampled in today's records. On the way back home on the train I had their melodies running around my head, I bought the Autobahn and Computer World albums when I got home. A guy who came with us who wasn't too impressed with Kraftwerk said on the train journey home "I should've gone to see Dylan, he was playing at Earl's Court tonight......they were a bit of a con....I reckon they were using backing tapes." You don't say buddy.


9. Spacemen 3. The Black Lion, Northampton, August 25th 1985
I’m about to sip a beer and Big Tim Sansom is saying something in my ear that I can’t remember........... the beer doesn’t get to my lips because Spacemen 3 have just started playing and I’m totally and utterly transfixed....... I think they started with 2.35........ Tim is still trying to tell me something, he obviously isn’t under the spell.......an electric sitar type drone starts up and Spacemen 3 are relentless.....there’s only 3 of them and they look about 17........Pat Fish has stumbled to the front of the stage and is looking up in awe.......the drummer is pounding a rolling tribal tom tom and staring out in front......the guitarists are sitting down(!) staring at their guitars playing one note forever.........These lot aren’t pissing about.....They’re hooked, and so am I...........

10. Clare, The Compass Club, Bletchley 1987
I went to see a Northampton group called The Apple Creation (Jonny Mattock on drums) support a group called Clare from Milton Keynes. Clare had a totally nuts singer who jumped onto the venue floor and pushed himself around on his back from one side of the room to the other, screaming into the mic at the same time. The band had their backs to the audience and played as if it all was completely normal. They were fantastic but I never heard of them again. I think they did a Peel session, does anyone know anything else about this band?
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