November 23rd 1991 – Leicester University I've no recollection of the support act. This concert was a follow on from being introduced to Steve Earle a few years earlier. Nils Lofgren had always had a great reputation as a guitarist and singer, but I don't think I ever knew he toured on his own, I... Continue Reading →
November 5th 1991 – De Montfort Hall Supported by: Senseless Things I won't name many people during these blog posts, but this gig could only have been inspired by my very good friend, Dean. Now music was getting interesting again. I guess one of the many reason I was seeing the same bands year on... Continue Reading →
October 3rd 1991 – Leicester Poly My second time seeing the Furs, although the first time back in 1989 was in their secret guise of "Book of Days". The Furs were now well established as a pop rock band and lead singer, Tim Butler, has a very distinctive gravelly voice, which had generally made them... Continue Reading →
August 24th 1991 - Milton Keynes Bowl Supported by: OMD, Stranglers I think you still had to get your tickets from box offices in 1991? So I would have got this from De Montfort Hall box office in town centre. On paper this was a great line up for me, OMD a great favourite band... Continue Reading →
June 22nd 1991 – Walsall Football Club Supported by: This is on the list of concerts where, for whatever reason, I appear to have lost all memorabelia for it.....so this is an example of the ticket for the day, but not my original one, I know not where that has gone 🙁 I will see... Continue Reading →
May 30th 1991 - Leicester De Montfort Hall Supported by: Buffalo Tom This was an interesting gig, not one I would have normally have chosen to attend at the time. I hadn't really got into "indie" music yet, so this would be the beginning for me. The whole gig happened quite by chance really. I... Continue Reading →
March 21st 1991 - Leicester Poly The Raw Tour. If it was a funny time at the last Alarm gig, it was even stranger for this one. Sometimes music is a funny old game and when you are growing up with a band and changing yourself and seeing them grow up and change too, you... Continue Reading →
February 23rd 1991 – Leicester Poly Well, this was a controversial one. If anyone if worried about certain words in the dictionary, I will warn you now, that a choice word is used in relation to a cover version of a Patti Smith song. Birdland pretty much swept in and then swept out of the... Continue Reading →
February 14th 1991 – Leicester University Supported by Walk on Fire (may have seen, but no recollection) We saw No Sweat support Thunder in 1990, so we were happy to go and support the guys as they attempted to breakthrough. They were produced by Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, which you would have thought would... Continue Reading →
September 7th 1990 – De Montfort Hall Supported by No Sweat This concert started with a fantastic support band, No Sweat. Another great Irish band that had come over in the late 80s early 90s. They were being hyped heavily as Joe Elliott (Def Leppard) was producing them. The also had a fantastic single out... Continue Reading →
October 2nd 1990 – De Montfort Hall Supported by Wolfsbane This concert support band was the superb, Wolfsbane, led by the charismatic Blaze Bayley (who incidentally would go on to become lead sing of Iron Maiden for a while in the mid 90s) I guess Blaze knew he was supporting the god of rock with... Continue Reading →
September 17th 1990 – Town and Country Club, London Supported by Energy Orchard This was a great venue. A road trip down to London in the days before congestion charges and when you were able to find parking spaces close by the place you were visiting.....strange days! Energy Orchard These boys were from Belfast and... Continue Reading →
March 20th 1990 – Birmingham NEC NO SUPPORT ACT - Not something you see on many tickets. Only certain artists can do this, most are contracted to have some form of support, but this is David Bowie, icon and god of music.....do what the Duck you like son!!! For any number of reasons, I'd yet... Continue Reading →
February 13th 1990 – Leicester University Supported by Slide (but I missed them) I thought this might have been the "Taking on the World" Tour, but I haven't found anything yet to verify that, so it's just a tour for now. Gun weren't around for long, but came out with a brilliant album "Taking on... Continue Reading →
February 1st 1990 - Leicester De Montfort Hall You've probably gathered, I quite like The Alarm. This was a strange time for me though. Really looking forward to the songs and the first gig of the 90s. I wasn't happy at work, I wasn't massively happy out of it either....and then to compound matters, The... Continue Reading →
December 14th 1989 – Birmingham NEC A couple of months before the concert, we had seen The Who at the NEC, so to follow it up at the same venue with another icon of music was tremendous. This was another worrying gig watching an old star performing to us "young" 24/25 year olds. By the... Continue Reading →
December 13th 1989 – Leicester University I don't remember the two support bands much, nothing at all about Rumble Fish, although I'm pretty sure Huge Big Massive were another Leicester band (as were Diesel Park West) and maybe shoe gazer type music (I apologise if I've just done them a complete dis-service, someone help me)... Continue Reading →
November 12th 1989 – Leicester Poly This was another exciting day, having been a Psychedelic Furs fan for a few years now, they had announced a surprise gig under their cover name of "Book of Days". I don't think this happens anymore, but a few times in my teens, bands did this, Naz Nomad and... Continue Reading →
October 15th 1989 – Leicester University We had spotted this one in the local paper (The Mercury sometimes did things well ;-)). Naz Nomad and The Nightmares? Who? There was a thing in the 80s which was real fun, where bands would tour under false names. Usually when they wanted to trial out music or... Continue Reading →
October 7th 1989 – Birmingham NEC The Who, iconic, this would be their 25th anniversary tour.......25 years and still rocking the hell out of venues, well, after a break from each other! The Who broke up in 1983, reforming for Live Aid in 1985, so I'd heard a fair bit of stuff by now and... Continue Reading →
September 7th 1989 – De Montfort Hall Funny old band, Black Sabbath.....you were never quite sure what the line up would be. Suffice it to say, for this tour, Ozzy Osbourne had been gone a while. Sort of didn't matter, as this will always be Tony Iommi's band. So the line up for this tour... Continue Reading →
March 17th 1989 – Royal Centre, Nottingham I still love my pop music, I just really enjoy it more with strong vocals and guitars. Mark Shaw was a case in point with Then Jerico. They were an amazingly musical band producing two spot on albums quickly, but I only really followed them for those first... Continue Reading →
August 20th 1988 - Donington Park "don't fuckin' kill each other " Axl Rose addresses the audience during the Guns N' Roses set..... The saddest day in my music gig going and a quote from Axl which was borne from his frustrations as the huge crowd surge at the front, he didn't know what was... Continue Reading →
June 17th 1988 – Leicester De Montfort Hall Aztec Camera would be a frustrating enigma all my musical life! That sentence says nothing about my love of Roddy Frame's music (the lead protagonist...in fact The band!) There was something really special about Roddy's talent and yet no one seemed to get him (that's how I... Continue Reading →
February 15th 1988 - Leicester De Montfort Hall I couldn't get enough of The Alarm and Mike Peters singing in these days. I won't be surprised by the time I end going to gigs if these guys are one of my most watched bands over the years. The Alarm had now done 3 great albums,... Continue Reading →
September 15th 1987 – De Montfort Hall It was just over a year since we saw Def Leppard make their UK comeback at Monsters of Rock. Now, surprisingly, they were coming to lil old Leicester! We had been having problems as a city attracting bands to play here. They tended to go to Nottingham and... Continue Reading →
June 13th 1987 - Wembley Stadium Only the second time I would have seen U2. Still very, very exciting. We had cars now and in those days it was relatively cheap to drive and park in London. I think there was 4 of us went to this gig, seem to remember only one car load.... Continue Reading →
March 14th 1987 - De Montfort Hall Now, the newspaper article I have seems to suggest the concert was at the university......this isn't my recollection or that of Setlist website or other websites. I'm pretty sure it was the De Montfort Hall, although I don't have this ticket either to prove it...another pissed up youthful... Continue Reading →
August 16th 1986 - Donington Park Monsters of Rock.......the home of Metal, the church of Rock.....it's difficult to sum up what the feeling was looking back to a 21 year olds first ever full blown heavy rock concert! To this point in my musical adventure, I'd touched on what would be classed as true rock... Continue Reading →
May 6th 1986 - Leicester University Now with 3 albums out, including big hit "The Whole of the Moon", The Waterboys were a well known band, but still hadn't really hit the big time. They had a great cult following, which included me, but to a certain extent, we were all a little bit disappointed... Continue Reading →
