Wednesday, September 06, 2006

my first gigs

It was Monday 27th of November 1989, some how we had heard that Little Angels were going to play in the Maritime bar at the Cliffs in Westcliffe. To Simon and I this was our rite of passage, we’d seen it on TV and watched the videos but this was it, we were going into the real world of heavy metal, and to top it all we had seen Little Angels on MTV’s Headbangers ball.
I don’t remember too much about the night, we had just enough money for the train fare and the door, some cigarettes and a bit for drinks. We were totally out of place; we bought coke in a pint glass (looks like Guinness) and waited for the band as the place filled up with some pretty scary looking characters. Some bloke gets up on stage to a scattering of cheers (jeers) from the occupants of the bar (not enough to call them a crowd) and told us that Little Angels would not be playing but the support would be Red Dogs. Gutted. I have no idea what the band was like, it was 17 years ago and my first experience of live music and my first experience of VOLUME. I saw moshing up close for the first time, fuck me what have I got into? I was blown away, next time I was gonna get in there.

Monday 4th of December my diary says,
Went to cliffs pavilion to see Horse London a heavy metal band but they did not turn up, but their support group Mistress played. Wasn’t much head banging but some idiots did some slam dancing, still the group was better than Red Dogs who played last week.

As you can see I had become an expert over the space of a week, and those idiots I so bravely cussed in my diary were a couple of punks, at least this time we plucked up the courage to order beer at the bar. I must have joined in this time because the entry for the next day said,

Woke up with bad neck, bad back, bad attitude and bad breath. Went to college, came back. Pissed off.

It didn’t get much better

I saw Mistress (the correct spelling) alongside After Dark and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers at the Round Acre in Basildon on the 23rd of December and did it all properly this time, moshed and mashed.

It was about this time that my mum suddenly got a social life and it happened to be on a Monday, 11th December 1989 to be precise. Oh the bitterness, it still rankles.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

crap jacket only side pockets, collers are too small, and you wouldn't look like either, a 90's grunger dealer, or a 70's pimp