From memories of art school days playing bass with a future Doctor Who to smuggling cameras into some of music’s most historically significant gigs, readers have shared some wonderfully hazy musical memories, backed up with the clarity that only photography can bring.
After the Guardian’s Music blog reported on a campaign to resurface “long lost” gig photos, we asked what historic gigs you’d been to with your camera, and received some fascinating images from long before these irritating, smartphone-waving times.
Some readers shared negatives that had never before seen the light of day, and some happily reminisced and regaled us with anecdotes they were telling for the 1,000th time.
Below are some of our favourite photographs and stories.
First, Tim Sinclair, now “an old git of 54”, who shared images from Manchester in the early 80s, including the one at the top of the page. Where else but the Haçienda and who other than New Order?
I saw almost all of New Order’s gigs at the Haçienda. I joined in the first week and am still member number 1,002 – though my card was confiscated when my mate used it to buy New Order tickets and it was out of date. These pictures are of their first gig there – I’d seen them at the Ritz in October 81 but was miles away from the stage. For this one I was about 10ft.
It was quite easy to take sharp photos of New Order in the early days as the audience didn’t move around much – it was long before ecstasy took over! I had to sneak my ancient SLR in under my jumper as photos weren’t allowed, though. Christ, I sound like my granddad, but those were great times – nobody gave a fuck and everyone was up for a good time.
New Order were often seen in the club just mingling and having a good night out like us punters – always up for a chat, too. One night I came back from the toilets to find Bernard Sumner in my seat chatting up my girlfriend! He jumped up and said sorry. I asked him what the band was up to and he said, cocking his head to the speakers: ‘We’ve just released our new single. In fact, this is it – first time it’s been played outside London.’
‘What’s it called?’ I asked.
‘Blue Monday.’
‘Fuck me. It’s a bit disco!’ I said, and he disappeared into the darkness.
Dean Weston was also witness to some music history, though he didn’t know it at the time:
I was a second-year undergraduate and occasional official concert photographer for the students’ union at Lancaster University when U2 played there on 2 March 1983. I have a confession to make: I didn’t know who the band were at the time, but took along a single roll of Ilford HP5 black and white film, shot all 36 exposures and hurried out halfway through, feeling somewhat unimpressed. Had I realised just how big U2 would become, I might have taken another roll.
I remember a lot of interaction between Bono and the audience – during tracks, between tracks. It seemed to be not so much U2 on stage as Bono’s backing band, to me.
How could I have known that they would become such a global phenomenon, and that to see them in their early days in a relatively small venue ought to have been something to relish?
This next photo [above], taken at a Public Image Ltd gig in December 1983, is one of those Cartier-Bresson ‘decisive moments’ for me. Definitely one of my better shots. I’d arrived late to the concert and had to rely on a long lens to shoot over the crowd, from the back of the great Hall, but nevertheless managed to capture a menacingly angelic John Lydon.
One of the most surprising stories we heard was this, from reader John Rogan.
I was at Glasgow School of Art with Peter Capaldi and we formed a band, the Bastards from Hell, with Roddy Murray in late 1978. We asked a friend, Iain McCaig, to play drums.
Peter played guitar and sang, Roddy played guitar and bass, and I played bass and sang. Peter and I did swap around a bit as it was beyond both our musical abilities to sing and play at the same time. It was early, raw rock’n’roll with strong influences of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Buddy Holly and late 70s punk. We finished gigs off with [the Sex Pistols’] Pretty Vacant.
The gig photo [left] was taken by Peter’s friend Graham (I think), but I still have the contact sheet printed from his negatives. After this show – I think we were supporting Steel Pulse that night – we changed our name to the Dreamboys, and I played two more gigs with them in early 1979 (see the poster I designed, above).
Then, tragedy! Peter and Roddy decided I was ‘too scruffy’, ‘not stylish enough’ and ‘didn’t practise enough, either’ and I was unceremoniously kicked out of the band. They were right, by the way, on all three scores – I didn’t take it seriously. Temple Clark took my place and Robert Livsey took over on drums before Craig Ferguson: when Robert was drummer, the Dreamboys released a single, Bela Lugosi’s Birthday.
The Bastards from Hell played a reunion gig for a Glasgow Art School talent show in 1980 and Peter and Roddy kindly let me take lead vocals for two songs, The Twelfth of Never and Roddy’s We Eat Babies.
We came last.
The Who fan Mark Hesselink, who lives in Canada, says as a 16-year-old he thought he was witnessing history.
I was born in Rotterdam but grew up in the Toronto suburbs after coming here with my family in 1970. Like lots of kids my age, I fell in love with pop music, and when I was 13, I started going to concerts. I was captivated. I convinced my dad to lend me his camera and started taking pictures at shows in 1980, when I was 14. Going to shows was all about the spectacle. It was special, and taking pictures was a way for me to mark the experience and my presence. I photographed dozens and dozens of shows from about 1980 to about 1985 – the pictures are unpublished and mostly unseen.
As I got a bit older my interests changed: I became very involved with the early 80s post-punk hardcore scene. I continued to take pictures, but my camera turned away from the glamour of the rock stage and towards the dance floor and my friends.
I had been to see the Who early in October 1982 as part of the same ‘farewell tour’. It was the first time I saw them live and I had a really distant seat. And I thought that was it – but then they announced a couple of weeks later they would be doing their ‘final’ shows here in Toronto, at Maple Leaf Gardens, in December. I was able to get a good ticket for the last show on Friday 17 December. At the time there was so much anticipation; I was anxious that I wouldn’t be able to get my camera in to the show. We would be seeing the end of the Who.
They played. It was anticlimactic. They were good enough, but I didn’t feel the sense of loss I was expecting. And I didn’t think that any of the pictures I took were at all special, and didn’t represent how I felt about The Who or what they meant to me – except maybe this one picture of Pete Townshend.
Then there is Tim Richards, who moved in musical circles in Norwich.
As a university student in the late 70s who loathed my degree, I invested all of my spare money and too much of my time into my hi-fi, records and photography. I had a Russian Zenit camera, which was all I could afford – but being cheap it meant I could buy some lenses to go with it. I photographed everything around me: the brutalist University of East Anglia (UEA) architecture, the stalls in Norwich market, my friends, and above all the bands I saw. I don’t know why – it was just something I had to do. Saturdays were spent mooching around Norwich record and camera shops, and what money was left was spent on gig tickets and beer for the evening.
UEA was a place where bands would often do warm-up gigs before starting national tours, so we got to see all sorts. I would go along, camera in hand, hoping to take some good shots that I could perhaps sell, or that would help me make a break for art school or a career in photography. In this I was utterly unsuccessful.
I remember this Specials gig [above] as something of a landmark: a fresh, new, exciting style melding English and African-Caribbean fashion and music. Not only were cultures and genres mixing but [trombonist] Rico Rodriguez also bridged generations and brought a depth and authenticity to the music perhaps some of the other ska bands couldn’t muster. Their debut album had just been released, and an awareness of them and their fresh take on ska and the 2-Tone fashion meant there was a palpable anticipation of their arrival.
As well as students, there were plenty of young people from Norwich: everybody had been scrabbling around trying to find something appropriate to wear, including plenty of pork-pie hats
This picture of the Cure [above] was taken in the summer of 1979, not long after their first album was released. Hardly anybody knew who they were, and not many turned up to find out.
“I stopped taking music photographs in 1981, although I did manage to marry my interest in photography and my studies by using aerial photography and satellite imagery for mapping natural resources, and have spent most of my career since doing that.
Next, a splash of colour from 1980s and 90s Dire Straits superfan Tina Threadgill.
My friend Diane and I were fans who met through the pre-internet DSIS, the Dire Straits Information Service, which was run by Liz Whatley at the band’s London office, Damage Management. We had already paid a fortune for front-row seats to see the band in her hometown, San Diego, and now we were in LA, where I lived, for the two shows at the Great Western Forum. We had fifth-row seats for these shows, but we knew the Knopfler Rules: you could always take photos and rush the stage and get up close around the time the band plays Two Young Lovers – and security would let you without hassle. I borrowed a pretty expensive Olympus camera for the second night.
Liz found out how much we had spent on tickets from scalpers in California (hundreds of dollars, which was a lot then) and she must have felt sorry for us – so she put us on the guest list for the last ever concerts in the States that April, in Seattle and Portland. I’ll always be grateful to her for that. Those were the last concerts Diane and I saw together: I moved, we lost touch, and I heard she passed away.
The photos mean more to me than just long-lost pieces of paper in a drawer: they’re moments that remind me of a genuinely important time in my life. Sure, I go to Knopfler solo gigs now, here and there – and he’s still an amazing guitar player – but it’s not really the same.
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