THE CLASS OF '79 (Part 16)

In a few weeks time I’m going to be celebrating a very significant anniversary. 31st May to be precise…..

It will be the 30 years to the day that I saw my first ever live gig at the Glasgow Apollo. The headliners were The Police and there were two support acts for the princely sum of £2.50 (although until I found a picture of one of the tickets from that gig, I was sure it was only £2)

I had bought my ticket some months earlier not long after hearing Can’t Stand Losing You for the first time. It was for an unreserved seat in the Stalls, and from recollection, it was something like ticket #358. It was highly unusual for an-all seated venue like the Apollo to have unreserved seating, but this was probably on account of the fact that a band such as The Police were never going to sell out the 3,500 capacity, and indeed there were no tickets on sale for the circle or upper circle. (These were days when outwith The Apollo very few venues in Glasgow would book bands seen as part of the punk/new wave movement)

All that changed however in the few weeks before the date of the gig as a re-released Roxanne became an enormous hit in the UK, and all of a sudden the demand for tickets rocketed - especially in Glasgow as it was the opening night of the tour. But it was only on the actual day that tickets were released for the Circle, and I remember a couple of class mates going in that morning to buy them and me being quite smug about it as it was well-known fact that the vicious bouncers at the venue didn’t allow anyone to stand up in the circle but were pretty powerless to prevent you pogoing in the stalls.

So you can imagine how heartbroken I was on arrival when, despite having a ticket for the stalls, I was refused access because they were full. What had basically happened was security was so lax that with tickets to all parts of the venue being the same price that the stewards/bouncers didn’t bother checking to see where you should be going and had only started to pay attention when downstairs got overcrowded. So, there I was with a seat in the circle for my first ever gig….and down below in the stalls I spotted those very classmates I had been mocking a few hours earlier…they had done the right thing in going straight to the venue after school in the hope of seeing the band go into the venue via the stage door, while I had gone home had something to eat and then made my way in not long before the start of the show at 7.30pm.

My face was tripping me when Bobby Henry took to the stage. What should have been a great moment in my life felt such an anti-climax, and I didn’t really pay too much attention to the musicians……even now I can’t tell you anything about him or his band despite efforts via a google search. But I do know he/they were signed to A&M records and were labelmates of the headline act.

After maybe 20-25 minutes they shuffled off and things livened up thanks to the music that was being played over the PA system which was a mixture of UK and US punk/new wave. Then the main support act came on ...The Cramps.

They were not what I imagine 90% of the audience were expecting. Where The Police were a band who wanted to conquer the world via catchy pop-songs on the radio, this lot just wanted to shock your senses into submission. The music seemed tuneless in many places and the lyrics were undecipherable. The lead singer had no intention of trying to win over a largely hostile audience who seemed determined to live up to the stereotype that if a Glasgow crowd didn’t like you they were very vocal in letting you know all about it. The boos were deafening…..all it succeeded in doing was making the band play louder and faster. I reckon at least half the audience walked out seeking the sanctuary in the foyer.

The singer (I had no idea at this time who he was) started delivering weird monologues in between the bursts of music and really antagonising what was left of the crowd. The Apollo had a stage that must have been about 15 foot high that was impossible to invade, and this allowed him to continue to wind everyone up in complete safety as no-one could get near him….and with this knowledge, the singer decided to get his dick out and wave it around a bit as the ultimate inult to those who were screaming for his head on a plate.

Cue pandemonium down in the stalls. But then when you thought it had reached fever pitch doesn’t the singer not just decide to jump off the stage and into the crowd below??? But where I was expecting the crowd to tear him limb-from-limb, they bowed in respect and treated him like a god….or maybe they were terrified of the bouncers who were quick to dive in beside the singer hoping that trouble would break out. After maybe 35 minutes it was all over to a mixture of cheers and boos, but the latter did exceed the former...

Did I enjoy it? I suppose I did, but in all truth I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all as it felt it was more like a theatrical performance than a gig. But given that I can recall so much of it, you can be certain that it left an impression on my young mind….

And so to the main act, who I reckon didn’t take to the stage until almost 10pm and didn’t play for much more than 45 minutes including an encore. I cant pretend that I can recall the set-list song-for-song, but I think just about every track from Outlandos D’Amour got an airing, including a spoken vocal from Andy Summers as he serenaded a blow-up rubber doll during Sally (which to my 15 year old mind seemed just as outrageous as anything that Lux Interior had gotten up to a little while earlier…I soon learned….). I also remember immediately discovering that the legend about not no-one being allowed to stand up and pogo in the circle was a load of nonsense as everyone got out of their seats when Sting & co took to the stage…and we stayed on our feet for the remainder of the night

It turns out that the gig became a special one in the annals of The Police…as recounted by Andy Summers himself in his autobiography:-

The stage at the Glasgow Apollo slopes downward to a drop of about twelve feet. The edge disappears into blackness, and in the heat of the moment it would be easy to dance off it. We pogo about on this incline, with the Scottish audience chanting and screaming. The balcony sways, bending up and down as if it is about to shatter, but oblivious to the fragility beneath, the fans jump up and down as if tempting fate.

This is our first gig as headliners in the UK., and with a crowd surrounding the hotel and waiting outside the Apollo, it's already out of control. I hit my pedals, leap in the air, run around the stage, and pray that we are not about to witness a tragedy.

Toward the end of the show we do a song called 'Be My Girl - Sally' which after the initial chorus has a monologue from me about a hapless individual's love affair with a blow-up doll. I always deliver this ditty in a Yorkshire accent, as it seems to give it the right tone, and even this unlikely piece gets chanted along with, and we all rise to a crescendo with "And I only have to worry in case my girl wears thin.

Back in the dressing room, drenched in sweat and sitting among piles of little tartan-wrapped presents, we remark about the bouncing balcony, amazed that the whole thing didn't collapse. Later we find out that the Apollo has been condemned.

I’m proud that I was part of that bouncing balcony on 31st May 1979….and it was a place I would return to again and again and again over the next few years.

Andy Summers wasn’t lying however when he said the venue had been condemned. The Apollo was closed by the safety authorities two months later but it re-opened within weeks. Over the next few years it would be periodically closed down and then re-opened again after some safety work had been carried out. The final gig turned out to be 16th June 1985 and I was there that night to see The Style Council.

The Apollo was torn down in 1987 and it lay as a gap site in the city centre for a long while before a 203-foot high 18-screen multiplex cinema with a pub and a comedy club on the ground floor opened in 2001

mp3 : Bobby Henry – Head Case
mp3 : The Cramps - Human Fly
mp3 : The Police – Landlord/Next To You (live)

The tracks by Bobby Henry and The Police are rips from my vinyl copy of the 1979 compilation LP Propaganda a copy of which is available for £15 on ebay just now…The Police tracks were recorded in April 1979 at the Bottom Line Club in New York.

Happy Listening.