Heaven knows I'm happy now ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's incredible to think that The Smiths  first LP came out forty years ago this month. February 20th, 1984. I was 23 years old. The band has been a part of almost two-thirds of my life. I'll never forget their arrival on 'the scene', via John Peel, inevitably. They got accused of being depressing, but I hadn't heard anything as exciting and fresh in a long time. Indeed, it didn't take me long before I wore a string of beads around my neck when I went out for a pint. (God, the memory!) The band had split by '87 and, of course, poor old Andy Rourke is dead, but their music goes on and on for me, despite Morrissey's best efforts to make me dislike him. Here's my copy of the record, replete with a photo-pass for their 1984 gig at Manchester's Free Trade Hall ..

You weren't there, man...

I was minded last night of that old Vietnam war saying "If you can remember the sixties you weren't there!" The reason? I was reading the Q magazine '10 Greatest Gigs' list last night, and they've included a gig by The Smiths, which they called 'The Homecoming'. It was at Salford University's Maxwell Hall, on the 20th of July, 1986. "It all came together that night" sayeth John of The Marr. Apparently, when The Smiths came on the mosh-pit transformed instantly into a 'heaving human vortex' and the event was 'so tumultuous' that the floor below the gig suffered serious structural damage. They even had to tie the speakers down with rope to stop them falling on the audience! Man, I'd love to have been at that one! Oh, I was! I went! I saw it all .. except, I can't remember a bloody thing about it! I can remember their gig at the Free Trade Hall, 'cos that's where I shot my iconic - he said, modestly - images of Moz and his gladioli, and I can remember their gig at The Palace Theatre in Manchester, 'cos they came on to that tune from Romeo and Juliet and I was yacking to Kevin Cummins at the front of the stage, but can I remember this Salford gig? Can I buggery! Yet, I was there .. I have my ticket stub! I kept it! (Well, it does say To Be Retained!) Damn, I just wish my memories had been!..

Ay, Caramba...

Nice to see Michael Palin following in my footsteps on his TV programme this week! He travelled between Belem and Manaus in Brazil this week .. a trip I made as a missionary in the eighties, single-handedly introducing The Smiths to those poor, musically deprived Brazilians! Here I am - mullet intact and T-shirt artistically de-sleeved - sailing up the Rio Negro with a French guy whose name I've forgotten and the Brazilian cook who made us spaghetti every night of the trip! I'll never forget getting back to Rio only to find Sugarloaf Mountain hidden by fog and the statue of Christ The Redeemer covered in scaffolding! Sounds like a good excuse to go back...