Scariest moment at GIGS

[London Calling]

Relating to the scariest moment at football matches post. I started to think of my worst memories at Gigs. A lot of the football posts related to the period 1987-93. At the same time every gig in Brighton at the Top Rank seem to range from a couple of fisty cuffs to a full scale brawl. I conclude that Yoof at that time literally got their kicks at games and concerts, whilst now its in pubs and the street.

Anyhow here's my worst 3.

Specials 1979. At the Rank. Packed gig, full of London Skins. Jumping on everyone. The Specials had if I recall left the stage about 3 times in the first 10 minutes. Eventually Jerry Dammers came back on stage. And basically announced if there was to be one more fight, or Nazi salute they would never play Brighton nor any where else again.

Everyone cheered. They came on to a blinding track.....within 10 minutes the atmosphere was electric. Whilst there was tension, it was wild, stage invasions etc.

I remember about six encores and having a duet with Dammers.

Great gig. But very scary walking back to the Brighton station area.

Gary Glitter in around 1984, One of his XMAS specials. At the Rank again. The organisers thought it would be a fun gig. They hadn't reckoned on the Sycho billies who had come down to see the support band-the Meterors.

Despite being gig wise. I was attacked by a mob but somehow stayed up and concious to live another day.

About 1981 Ken Livingston arranged a party for the "March for Jobs" at Brockwell Park, Brixton.

It just happened to coincide with one week after the Brixton riots. The tension getting to the Park was unbelievable. At the concert it was mayhem every kin and sycho was after the "lefties". Bottles rained down especially to the front. Even the Damned threatened to walk off. If you were black you had it.

But then after the gig, we had to walk back passed the burnt out cars etc. With streets full of pissed up skins and pissed off coppers and pissed off rasta's.

Oh what fun!

Oh those were the days.





LC

 

[scarby]

crass, 1980 at digbeth civic hall birmingham i was 15 and budding punk, had a pistols "hanky" hanging from my bondage trousers, when the biggest f@ck off skinhead in the world decided he wanted it ........................................................................................
o.k then

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

when the cheeky girls came on stage

 

[subi]

Although there wasn't too much trouble the scariest atmosphere was seeing The Cockney Rejects at The Top Rank when there were loads of WHU skinheads and anyone who wasn't suitably bald like myself spent most of the gig one step away from crapping themselves.. good gig tho!

 

[whitelion]

Although there wasn't too much trouble the scariest atmosphere was seeing The Cockney Rejects at The Top Rank when there were loads of WHU skinheads and anyone who wasn't suitably bald like myself spent most of the gig one step away from crapping themselves.. good gig tho!

I recall being at that gig. Sham 69 was pretty tasty too. Atmosphere pretty threatening.

 

[Vlad the Impala]

1978. Wembley Arena. Great British Music Festival.

Some idiot chose a line-up of the Jam (Mods), Generation X (Punks), Slade (Skin'eads), and The Pirates (a few Rockers).

Only one person stabbed to death 10 feet from me. Could have been worse I suppose.

 

[whitelion]

1978. Wembley Arena. Great British Music Festival.

Some idiot chose a line-up of the Jam (Mods), Generation X (Punks), Slade (Skin'eads), and The Pirates (a few Rockers).

Only one person stabbed to death 10 feet from me. Could have been worse I suppose.

Vlad, similar situation at Reading Rock in 1978. Remember loads of bottles flying though the air. The target? John Peel. http://phillong.future.easyspace.com/timeline.html

1978
Headliners: The Jam, Status Quo, Patti Smith
At last the event is known as the Reading Rock Festival, and punk makes its presence felt, in the form of Sham 69, Penetration, John Otway, the Tom Robinson Band and The Jam - singer Paul Weller smashes up his equipment on stage. Resisting the tide of change are The Pirates, Ian Gillan, Lindisfarne and Foreigner.

1983 was the other Reading Rock that I attended. Also pretty tasty:

1983
Headliners: The Stranglers, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy
Weekend tickets: £16.50
Perhaps as a result of the year before, this is billed as the last ever and sees Steel Pulse bottled off after 10 minutes by knuckle-dragging bikers. Big Country and the Stranglers close the Friday night. Saturday sees Black Sabbath (fronted by Ian Gillan) playing before an unfinished replica of Stonehenge - which is where Spinal Tap got the idea from. Sunday brings Hanoi Rocks pelted with bottles, but rising to the challenge and Thin Lizzy’s emotional farewell UK performance. The sun shines for three days.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The Adverts at the Greyhound, Croydon, circa 1979. Hundreds of skins had gone in in ones and twos then all met up down the front and just basically started a cull of us puny punks. It was like being set on by a pack of rottweilers. Bloody terrifying. There was one of the evil scum went into the gig with a crutch and when the lights went down he just started swinging it things around like a club and bringing it down on people's heads. Like TV Smith said on stage when his umpteen appeals for an end to the violence ad failed 'No Time To Be 21 - And No Time To Be The Adverts'.

These same skinheads are no doubt the exact same set of low-IQ far-right inbreds roaming the streets of Croydon, shitting on their own doorsteps and smashing the place up every time some bunch of johnny foreigners dares to dump England out of a major football tournament. Bless.

 

[cheeseroll]

Tom Harks account sounds truly scary. I saw most gigs at that time around central London and there did not seem to be the same tension as in the "provinces". However the Electirc Ballroom/Music Machine was always scary..

 

[Gwylan]

The Clash at Crawley, August 1978. Bunch of skins invaded the place. A couple of them got on stage and gave the support act, Suicide, a going-over.

They created mayhem in the audience, a bloke next to me, who was just minding his own business, got a head-butt for his troubles and there were fights breaking out everywhere.

Walking through Crawley is edgy at the best of times, but I was glad to make it back to the station in one piece that night.

As London Calling says, a lot of gigs in the late 70s and early 80s were punctuated by violence. I remember The Jam playing the Embassy cinema and a riot breaking out; the band played on while the old bill turned up and started beating shit out of people.

I remember the Specials concert that LC mentioned, that was hairy. Sham 69 were a band who always seemed to attract trouble, a mate of mine ended up in hospital after a Bradford gig.

It's strange to think now how concert-going was so dangerous back then.

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

Buzzcocks Top Rank 78'ish

Some bastards run off with the bands drum kit ... Skins V Punks for once the skins came out worse ..

UK Subs .. Top rank ... 79'ish

London Skins V's everyone else ... Nicky garret jumped of stage a smacked a skin round the head with his guitar. Bottles, blood and bodies all over the shop. Funniest sight was a couple of skins taking on one the fat chinese bouncers ... they got smacked into next week. The leas signer of one of the support bands (the Dodgems) got a kicking whilst ahving pee.

UK Subs Crawley ... 1980

Same as above but worse ... much much worse.

 

[Dandyman]

I went to the Buzzcocks and Specials gigs and a load of my mates went to the Clash Crawley Leisure Centre gig - it must be a generational thing !

One of the Skins from that era is still (allegedly) involved in Albion "fringe" activities.

 

[Hiney]

Specials 1979. At the Rank. Packed gig, full of London Skins. Jumping on everyone. The Specials had if I recall left the stage about 3 times in the first 10 minutes. Eventually Jerry Dammers came back on stage. And basically announced if there was to be one more fight, or Nazi salute they would never play Brighton nor any where else again.

Everyone cheered. They came on to a blinding track.....within 10 minutes the atmosphere was electric. Whilst there was tension, it was wild, stage invasions etc.

I remember about six encores and having a duet with Dammers.

Great gig. But very scary walking back to the Brighton station area.

When I read the title of this thread I thought about the Specials gig at the Top Rank - I think they were also on with Madness and The Selecter.

Absolute f***ing mayhem

Vowed never to go again, only to witness similar scenes when The Clash played there

(Not so) marvellous scenes!!!

 

[Brighton Breezy]

Sham 69 were linked quite closely to the ICF and used to attract a lot of trouble at their gigs because of this following. One of their members allegendly used to travel to West Ham away games with the ICF.

 

[attila]

I was attacked on stage by about 20 British Movement boneheads in Skunx
punk/skin club, Islington, '82, had my instrument smashed over my head. I went nuts at that, I have to say, and we chased the scum out!
One of many in those days: 'Staring at the Rude Boys' by the Ruts and 'Ghost Town by the Specials just about sums it up.

 

[Screaming J]

Weird, I went to loads of punk gigs from 77-79 and quite a few "two-tone" type ones afterwards but never saw any real bother.

Mind you I always avoided anything to do with Sham 69 as Jimmy Pursey was just a complete grade A tosser.

I'm not sure whether watching John Cale chop the head off a chicken, swing the corpse round his head then fling it into the audience at the Croydon Greyhound in 1977 counts as scary but it was certainly a bit odd!

 

[timseagull]

Being up against the barrier at a big festival.....with the enite crowd on ya back is very scarey.

Even more so if it is hot and security turn the hoze on you to keep you cool. Not so good when you have ya money and ya ticket home in ya pocket....

 

[harold robbins]

I remember the Clash gig at Crawley. One of the first appearances of The Specials (second support band ) who were superb.Two memories of that night:-

1. Someone had the great idea that the best way of calming the skinheads down was to bring on stage their idol, Jimmy Pursey, to sing with the Clash.I think he was there as a guest.Right person perhaps.....but White Riot was definitely the wrong song!.

2. I went with a mate from school. Amongst a mob of very violent and right wing skins I am accompanied by the only West Indian in the hall...scary stuff!

 

[Marc]

Stage diving, twice been drunk and caught out by the "lack of people to catch me" scenario where I just fall from a height straight onto the hard floor...always got up and back in the pit though!

Green Day at Reading 2001 (i think), was crowd surfing and again a lack of people, head went down first and in that split second thought my neck was gonna snap....thankfully someone grabbed my legs and dangled me inches above the floor!

Donnington Monsters Of Rock 1995, Machine Head on stage and the biggest circle pit i've ever seen started up...with me in the middle! Being small and seeing 6'+ brick shithouses running around at lightning speed was'nt the most pleasant of thoughts...but they we're playing 'Davidian' so I just went for it and somehow managed to get through to safety......then in the adrenaline rush decided to run around myself!

Other than the above, never seen any major bust ups at punk gigs that you got in the 70s.

 

[London Calling]

Sham 69 were linked quite closely to the ICF and used to attract a lot of trouble at their gigs because of this following. One of their members allegendly used to travel to West Ham away games with the ICF.

I think it was their drummer, who did an interview in Sounds travelling to an away game with his "mates". Soon afterwards the band realised that the image they were protraying was not helping them. And Pursey started a sea change to being anti-racist etc. Also influenced a lot by Joe Strummer on how to conduct themselves.

Didn't the Cockney Rejects play on their Millwall roots. I haven't played their first album for at least 25 years. Isn't there an intro to an track about WHU = crap and Millwall being the TEAM.

LC