Masquerade (The Skids, Poole; Dorset, 1980)
One of the great acts that came through the post punk boom with suitable rage and also the ability to make people dance into the new decade was The Skids from Scotland. Myself , my girlfriend of the time and two mates-involved with my up and coming “I`m going to be a pop star if it’s the last thing I do” project, managed to get tickets to see them live at the Poole Arts Centre gig on their tour to promote their album “The Absolute Game”. I already knew the album very well and was really looking forward to it, whilst the others were a little more apprehensive and concerned that they may be going to one of those evenings in which you don`t know a single tune being played! Anybody who has encountered the Skids, knows this is not a likely event anyway , in retrospect as there are so many wonderfully catchy interludes along the journey of their tunes, a trend and knack which continued into Stuart Adamson’s` work with Big Country in the middle of the decade.
Back to the gig in hand-I had read a review in the NME just prior to leaving for the show in my mates Rodney’s` tiny Wolseley and was intrigued by advance news of the set list, which reported that the band were starting with their current single “Circus Games”. Now, this song as a single track was heavily based on the use of a children’s choir. Surely I thought, they would not tow the whole rabble on tour? Hmmm. Anyways, before taking our seats, other mate present Paul, decided to have one of his little challenging bets that he liked to do as to who would guess the opening number correctly!
Well naturally, I put in my “guess”, which was pitched against “Into the Valley”, “Masquerade” etc, the band struck up the opening chords and to everyone’s amazement, I won the bet. I felt I could hear a tape of the kids singing on the chorus going on, so I thought I would just nip back a couple of rows, to the sound engineers desk, to see if I could shed any light on this. Well, I didn’t, but what I did see, in big black marker pen, written on a sheet of A4-was the evenings set list 
Because I was the youngest and cockiest, on returning to my seat, I was informed that the bet would not count unless I could guess the next number as well. I faked racking my brain, and yelled into ears already shrieking with live music, what I felt “I would play if it were me;” I was called a jammy git etc, this continued for about the next hour as I continued to “rack” my brain to think of what The Skids would play next. I didn’t do badly really, I only had to return to the engineer’s desk once to check that I was correct-and at no point did the band announce that they were going to “put in a new one tonight”. Result!!
After the show had ended (after a total mosh pit down at the front where the seats were sparser) one of the bouncers from our local supermarket, was also security at the gig and let us through the stage “door” to take our chances on meeting the band. This was turning into a pretty good evening as you can tell by now.
Back stage, we found a corridor and slowly investigated between what appeared to be dressing rooms. Panic ensued when we heard voices, and so we quickly opened the nearest door and bundled in.
Now, at some times of the day, a shower is a very welcoming thing, but compared with meeting the Skids backstage, I guess it’s a little wet in circumstance and it was probably a good idea to get out of there or you could be locked backstage for quite a long time! Five or ten minutes were enough, and we decided to just get out of there, get back to the front of the venue and go home. Boldly, we stepped from the shower. A broad Scottish accent said “Hey lads-did you want a beer??” So there we were, face to face with Stuart Adamson, offering a four pack of Hemelin Light lager (remember that one `80s crew??) I was of course lost for words and still can’t believe what I said to this day. “I was about to have a shower and get on, but yes that would be very nice thank you!” Arrrrghhh! What a loser!!
So , the next thing we know, there we are in a wonderfully hospitable dressing room, filled with happy after show chatter, loooaaaads of fruit and Hemelin (??) and THE band of the moment. The guys were all really nice and we all shared a great fondness for Bill Nelson and his Red Noise etc projects which amongst other things kept many a conversation going pretty late.
There was only one little foible really to contend with in the whole of the rest of the evening. On hearing about my uncanny ability of predicting a set list (uh –oh…), the crew were really impressed to hear what I thought about this-and that etc, and the next thing I know, the manager of the Stranglers at the time, was listening in too.* (I actually don`t know why he was there or what involvement if any he had with the Skids)
What a wonderful buzz at the start of the 80`s for an 18 year old kid though wasn`t it? An 18 year old kid that until this day, never actually told anyone that he had simply read a set list by The Skids that nobody else had noticed
Kindly written and published by kind permission of Martin Kitcher
Short URL: http://80slegends.com/?p=1503
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