It’s June 1978. Hammersmith Odeon. I’m 17. I’m at my first ever gig: UFO, my favourite band at the time. 23-year-old Michael Schenker on guitar, my then rock god. I was enraptured.
This afternoon. I’m 64. I’m watching random drum videos on YouTube. I suddenly remember that UFO gig 47 years ago. I search. Bang. There it is. No video footage, but pretty good audio. I click play. I close my eyes. I am again enraptured and 17.
These days you can find millions of gigs on the web, in some form or another. And if you’re a music fan like I am, and you’ve been to a shed load of gigs over the years like I have, well, you gotta look for them, haven’t you?
Queen at Wembley in 1984. I remember Freddie forgetting the words to Love of my Life. There it is – audio only again – and there’s Freddie forgetting the words.
Bowie, Milton Keynes, 1983 when he was the biggest pop star in the world. Video footage, but only of the day before I’d been there. Darn.
The audio of Springsteen solo at Brixton in 1996 is exactly how I remember it, when at the beginning he asks for quiet because it’s an acoustic gig: “… if somebody around you is making too much noise feel free to tell them to shut the f**k up.” This got a big cheer.
There’s amazing video footage of Kraftwerk in 1981 on the Computer World tour, although I’m pretty sure it’s not the Hammersmith Odeon which is where I saw them. You might think Kraftwerk would be a bit dull live. They were anything but. And they were clearly having fun, too.
Iron Maiden at Hammersmith in May 1983. At some point, vocalist Bruce Dickinson announced the score in the Cup Final replay. I’ve just found audio of that gig and sure enough, about 16 minutes in there’s Bruce saying he doesn’t know anything about football but Man Utd are winning 3-0.
Incredibly, there’s even video footage, albeit only two songs and of spectacularly bad quality, of Fishbone in London in 1989, a gig I’ve described to everyone since as jawdropping.
A mighty memory – the Van Halen gig
But the gig I count as my favourite does not appear to be anywhere online.
It was Van Halen at the Rainbow Theatre, London on 22 October 1978, when they were erroneously billed as The Mighty Van Halem. My friend had got me a ticket. We arranged to meet outside the venue, he’d give me my ticket and in we’d rock. Unfortunately, the trains were a bit slow that day and I got to the venue late.
I hung around outside. Eventually, I cottoned on that I’d got there so late he had gone in, along with my ticket, and it looked like I was going to be out of luck. For no reason though, I just stayed, loitering outside the Rainbow like a poor lost soul, no doubt with a crushed look on my face.
A guy wandered over to me. He asked me if I wanted a ticket. I said I had one but it was inside, which probably puzzled him.
Looking back, I guess he was a tout, but that makes what he did even more remarkable. He handed me a ticket. I think initially I repeated that I already had one but it was inside. He insisted. He said something like “You don’t wanna miss Van Halen.”
I asked him how much he wanted for the ticket. He didn’t want anything. I took it, gratefully. I went in and Van Halen blew my socks off, as I had suspected they would. They had only one album out, one of the greatest debut albums in rock history, so they probably played all of it, plus some other songs.
I have since checked on Setlist.fm and that is exactly right. All I can actually remember is watching Diamond Dave Lee Roth, the singer, climbing the giant Marshall stacks. In later years, I discovered he does mountaineering as a hobby, so I guess a speaker stack was a breeze.
I never did meet my friend who had my ticket during the gig and, if I’m honest, I can’t actually remember which friend it was. I don’t think I held a grudge. I would have been just so relieved to have got in and seen the late, great Eddie Van Halen when he was, remarkably, also only 23.
But I can’t truly relive it just yet. I like to think, though, that someone somewhere is diligently sifting through old Van Halen recordings. Maybe he or she will read this article and get right on it. A man can dream.
There are, however, a ton of high-quality photos online from this gig taken by the brilliant Jill Furmanovsky. I can’t use any of them here but just do a search, if you’ve a mind to.
Have you found your favourite gigs online?
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