         |
Pete Kember – Jason Pierce – Will Carruthers – Johnny Mattock
Rollercoaster / Mary Anne / Things’ll Never Be The Same / Take Me To The Other Side / Starship / Revolution / Che / Suicide
May not be the whole gig.
Photos by Rose Melberg, who I haven’t been able to contact. Rose – I hope you are happy to have your photos here, please let me know if not.
I was a mere 18 when I attended this show with a work colleague from Reading. He had some friends coming up to see the show, so we decided to go along and meet up with them. We bought our tickets from the promoter himself at lunchtime on the day and got a look at the stage being set up. I was aware that the Sex Pistols had famously played at the venue in 1976, but didn’t give it that much thought on the day to be honest.
Not mentioned on the tickets we had (green, above), but the opening act were Chapterhouse who played an intense half-hour set. They went down well with the crowd, which is more than can be said for The Wishing Stones, whose lightweight ‘indie’ melodicism sounded weak in comparison. I remember one of their number responding to a heckle with the ultra-predictable “I ****ed your mother!” This led to eye-rolling all round and it was a relief when they left the stage. They were quite simply on the wrong bill.
Spacemen 3 – this was the one and only time I saw them – were excellent, of course. We hadn’t previously heard their music, so the inevitable neophyte response of “Hawkwind” was our initial reaction. I can say for sure that it was hearing them play ‘Revolution’ and ‘Suicide’ for the first time that ultimately won me over and had me purchasing ‘Playing With Fire’ a short time afterwards. That album made me a lifelong fan.
I think I can confirm that the above setlist is complete as I remember it being a fairly short set which left us wanting more. We were certainly left non-plussed by the lack of an encore, especially as they left the guitars feeding back for what seemed like an eternity before the plugs were pulled! Shame they didn’t come back on and do ‘Repeater’, but c’est la vie. Great memories.
To be fair to The Wishing Stones, it wasn’t a good time for them, they were going through the process of breaking up, and they were also aware that they weren’t a good fit for the Spacemen 3 audience. More here: http://www.cloudberryrecords.com/blog/?p=383
Yes, I was merely relating the way it went down on the night. Part of the audience disquiet may well have been caused by a lack of a bar in the venue!
I later became more aware of The Wishing Stones via their connection to The Loft and I now think they were a pretty good band in retrospect.