Never look a gift horse in the mouth. There's just been a mini revival of the focus group with two related topics. I think I missed the boat on both so may as well share them here with my many regular readers. Here's part one.
1. Genesis (Earl’s Court) February 1998 – The point at which I realised it was time to move on from Prog Rock and explore other avenues of music. This was the tour when the bloke out of Stiltskin was signing vocals and only Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford were left from the original band. An atrocious show made worse by our seats being at the very back of the floor area in Earls Court and seemingly a good 3 feet below the level of the seats nearer the front. We did complain and get moved to the side but it was still crap.
2. T’Pau (Hammersmith Odeon) March 1988 – As so often is the case with bad gigs this involved a girl. A girl who suggested going and I felt obliged to say yes to. It was as expected dire and made worse by the fact that the following night they ended up cancelling the gig due to Carol Decker’s throat problem. So near and yet so far.
3. Jimmy Page (Hammersmith Odeon) November 1988 – This was the closest thing I had got to a Led Zep gig and I was very excited. Jason Bonham was on drums and I was looking forward to an evening of Page songs interspersed with Zep classics. I think it was in support of a Page solo album that I had got but this meant sitting through a couple of hours of these new songs, and only the occasional classic. Without doubt the most bored I have been at a gig, having just about the survived a ridiculously long guitar solo, the Bonham drum solo and 8 minute instrumental version of Stairway to Heaven finished me off and we left for the bar.
4. Spiritualised (Astoria) January 1998 – One of those awful NME “awards” shows. I’ve subsequently seen Spiritualised quite a bit and like them a lot, but this was not a great gig. There were four bands on the bill and they got progressively worse as the evening wore on. Dawn of the Replicants (interesting), Jonathon Fire*eater (ok), The Crystal Method (really f--king dreadful) and then the big headliners hit the stage and were … dull as dishwater. I think one of the guys from Suicide joined them on stage for a few numbers, which I probably should have appreciated more than I did, but by then it was just an un-listenable noise.
5. Dio (Hammersmith Odeon) December 1987 – Shockingly bad yet fondly remembered. By the time the lead guitarist was shooting lasers from the end of his guitar at a giant silver spider hanging from the ceiling we were in hysterics.
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