Stranglers in circa 1980. Truly, truly up themselves and awful.
I saw them around that time, at Bath Pavilion, while sitting on the end of the stage taking photos*. Excellent gig, somewhat spoilt by a bunch of Bristol oiks turning up and doing a mass charge through the audience shoving and kicking people out of the way. One of these tossers stood in front of JJ, making ‘come on then’ gestures, then jumped on the stage and carried on doing it, with no response from JJ, until he turned around and did a big ‘look at me’ posture to his brainless mates. Meanwhile JJ had walked back to his amp, put his bass on its stand then walked back to our hero, and tapped him on the shoulder. As matey turned around, JJ did a beautiful straight armed punch to the face, the bloke literally flew vertically backward off the stage, before falling onto his mates. After he picked himself up, JJ gestured to him to come forward, which our genius did, earning himself a kick to the face.
I wouldn’t have said The Stranglers were a favourite band, but they earned an undying place in my heart after that.
*Sadly, I didn’t get a photo of the punch, I was sat open-mouthed, and it never occurred to me to lift the camera and hit the button. Bugger.
Reef. Lead singer was so drunk he kept falling off the stage.
Sparklehorse at the Fleece, Bristol. Mark Linkous walked on stage and promptly took a bottle of JD out of his jacket pocket, which he was already part way through, and he continued to swig from it, getting more and more shitfaced as the gig went on, by the end a roadie had to catch him as he fell off the three foot high stage. He’d actually forgotten one of his own songs, despite being shown the chords and key.
Despite all that, it was an amazing gig, quite riveting, watching someone get utterly, and almost literally legless on stage, yet still function.
The point is, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ‘favourite’ band who’ve actually disappointed me, I have seen a couple who I was expecting good things from, based on past history though, one was Katastrophy Wife, Kat Bjelland from Babes In Toyland’s new band.
God’s teeth, they were dire, just embarrassingly awful, it was truly a car-crash of a gig. Oh, and a very, very, very drunk John Martyn at a venue in Bath, which was also pretty awful, it was embarrassing watching him make such a spectacle of himself on stage.
Never stopped me loving his music, though, and being very sad indeed when he died, tempered a bit by the knowledge he was responsible for his own demise.