When time finally ran out for the Glasgow Apollo, forty years ago
The Apollo memories are quite imperishable.
The Rolling Stones were one of the biggest acts at the Apollo Many of the bands that played the venue are, like the Apollo itself, no more, having broken up for one reason or another: 'musical differences', frustration over a lack of success, a desire to follow individual dreams.
But a gratifying number of groups are still thriving today: Neil Young, the Stones, the Cure, Status Quo, Rod Stewart, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Robert Plant, the Rezillos, Robin Trower, AC/DC, Rod Stewart, Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton, Hawkwind, Jethro Tull, Jackson Browne, Van Morrison.
Santana, too. Led by Carlos Santana, who turns 78 next month, they entertained the OVO Hydro just a few nights ago, nearly half a century after their last appearance in Renfield Street.
And then there's Paul Weller, of course; it was his old band, The Style Council, who brought the curtain down on the Apollo on Sunday, June 16, 1985.
Time has been busy catching up with other Apollo acts. Black Sabbath, who played Green's Playhouse, the Apollo's forerunner, as long ago as 1970, are bowing out with a huge farewell gig at Birmingham's Villa Park on July 5. That same night, a few miles away elsewhere in the city, Jeff Lynne's ELO will play the first of five last-ever concerts – two in Birmingham, two in Manchester, and one in London's Hyde Park.
Elkie Brooks, who experienced the Apollo on a handful of occasions in the latter years of its existence, is on a Long Farewell Tour. In August, The Who will embark on their North America Farewell Tour.
To look through the comprehensive gig listings curated by the people behind the excellent Glasgow Apollo website is to be reminded the astonishing wealth of gigs that took place there, across so many genres.
Read more:
The names of some of the acts – Renaissance, Rare Bird, drummer Ginger Baker's group Baker-Gurvitz Army, the all-female US rockers Fanny, Gentle Giant, Kokomo, Glencoe, Golden ('Radar Love') Earring, the Groundhogs, Traffic, Japan's Sadistic Mika Group – are familiar to fans of a certain vintage today.
Less familiar, possibly, are Tea, who supported Baker Gurvitz Army in 1975; Dave and the Mistakes, who opened for Elvis Costello and the Attractions in 1981; and Sandii & the Sunsetz, another Japanese group, who were the support act for (of course) Japan in 1982.
It's interesting to look back at the music weeklies and see what they made of certain concerts. Here's a small but vibrant selection:
* 'Heat, dust, smoke, lasers and Genesis combined to turn the Glasgow Apollo into a replica of Dante's Inferno when the band descended on the city on Friday night' – Melody Maker, July 1976.
* 'Rory G[allagher] made it however, and played an undeniably proficient over two-hour set to the most rapturous reception I've seen in ages. The audience was crazy, drunken, happy, and collectively about as intelligent as the average tree-stump: in short, all the jolly working-class virtues that made me leave Glasgow in the first place' – Sounds, April 1978.
* 'Fred Turner [of Bachman Turner Overdrive] is a real sweathog of a bass player. Whether he's hungrily engulfing chip sandwiches in a Glasgow hotel under the lights of a documentary film crew, or bouncing all over the Apollo stage until the lighting towers begin to develop major instabilities, you gotta admit the dude is, like, heavy, man. He ought to do a seesaw act with Leslie West' – NME, May 1975.
Lynyrd Skynyrd were a hugely popular attraction at the venue (Image: Unknown) * 'As a unit [Lynyrd Skynyrd, above] peaked with 'Tuesday's Gone', which took on a church atmosphere – in Glasgow the audience even started the Terrace Sway.... In Glasgow, the entire audience sang 'Free Bird' in its entirety. That's freaky (good-freaky), 3,000 people singing homage to a guitarist [Duane Allman] they've never seen' – Sounds, February 1976.
* 'Backstage at the Apollo the theatre photographer is taking a group shot of the Rolling Stones receiving their trophies earned by selling out the three shows there. 'More ANIMATION pleeeze,' Jagger shouts good naturedly to the nervous photographer. 'When the Faces played here they could only afford one trophy', Woody [Ron Wood] informs the gathering, 'so we gave it to Tetsu [Yamauchi] to make him feel wanted'. Tonight each band member gets their own special souvenir. Just another memory. Keith gives his to Marlon [his son]' – Sounds, April 1976.
* 'For Scotland, the Pretender changed tactics. Wearing a tartan wool scarf, he concentrated on rock 'n' roll. It was such good rock that it made me think maybe the Eagles aren't the best American rock 'n' roll band. Maybe the best American rock 'n' roll band is Jackson Browne ... Browne's initial self-centred introspection gently fades away. The Glasgow Apollo was cold, and Jackson Browne wanted to warm the place up with some powerfully generated rock. I almost thought he'd do 'Whole Lotta Shakin'' – Sounds, December 1976.
The Apollo was noted, then, for many things: for its unassailable place on the Scottish gig circuit, for the rampant fervour with which many groups were greeted, for the less-than-salubrious nature of its backstage facilities. It all added up to a brilliant, authentic venue.
The Apollo was living on borrowed time 40 years ago, however. The outcry that had greeted an earlier closure date, in 1978, when the venue's operators were granted a licence to turn it into a bingo hall, was decidedly more muted in the run-up to the Style Council farewell in 1985.
As to why, David Belcher, the Herald's music writer, had this to say: 'The answer on everyone's lips is the Scottish Exhibition Centre, which has been bruited as having the ability to stage five to 10 10,000-seater per year along with up to 40 annual 2,000-seater shows'.
Belcher also noted that the Apollo was damp and crumbling and that its fabric had deteriorated alarmingly over the last five years – not surprisingly, perhaps, given that the place had opened, as Green's Playhouse, back in 1927.
The Apollo's time was up, then. But who could possibly have guessed in 1985 that its absence would be mourned, four decades later?
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The boom in digital clones of the dead began in the far east. In China, it can cost as little as 20 yuan (£2.20) to create a digital avatar of a loved one, but according to one estimate the market was worth 12bn yuan (£1.2bn) in 2022 and was expected to quadruple by 2025. More advanced, interactive avatars that move and converse with a client can cost thousands of pounds. Fu Shou Yuan International Group, a major funeral operator, has said it is 'possible for the dead to 'come back to life' in the virtual world'. According to the China Funeral Association, the cost is about 50,000 yuan per deceased person. The exploitation of grief for private profit is a risk, according to Cholbi, although he pointed to a long history of mis-selling and upselling in the funeral business. Kasket said another pitfall was privacy and rights to digital remains. 'A person who's dead has no opportunity to consent, no right of reply and no control.' 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Daily Mail
11 hours ago
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It is one of the most famous rock scandals of all time. In February 1967, police stormed the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards ' country house in West Sussex and arrested Richards and Mick Jagger for drug possession, leading to the pair spending several hours in jail. Now a newly unearthed statement made by the Stones' lead singer while he was on bail reveals extraordinary details about the circumstances of the Redlands raid – including that Jagger believed he was under state surveillance at the time, and that the phone line to his flat in London 'was being tapped'. The 14 pages of typed statement – described by Rolling Stones biographer Philip Norman as 'highly significant' – reveal Jagger believed his calls were 'not being monitored but being taped' and that the authority for this had been given 'from quite high up'. He also believed his flat was being watched. In the statement, taken shortly after the raid, he says: 'I am sure I was being watched at my flat. The method of observation was either from a florists' van or a removal van. 'Apart from my own observation, I was being told by two sources that I was being watched [including] Keith Richards' chauffeur.' Jagger, then 24, also said his phone was 'always going wrong and people were getting through with wrong numbers'. The 14 pages of typed statement (pictured) – described by Rolling Stones biographer Philip Norman as 'highly significant' – reveal Jagger believed his calls were 'not being monitored but being taped' and that the authority for this had been given 'from quite high up' He added: 'I was told that the telephone was being tapped by a contact at the GPO [General Post Office]... He told me I should be careful what I said. He said he thought it was being done with authority from quite high up.' The statement was discovered during a London house clearance in the 1980s and was passed to a collector. It has never before been made public. Mr Norman called the statement 'a fascinating addition to one of the great rock scandals of all time'. He said the details of the alleged surveillance support claims that the FBI had plotted to persuade the British establishment to secure drugs charges against the Stones. Such charges would prevent their entry to the US, where authorities feared they could add fuel to the cultural revolution. The incident saw Jagger take responsibility for amphetamines found at Redlands which were said to have belonged to his then-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, who was not charged. Richards was charged with allowing cannabis to be smoked on the property, and another guest, Robert Fraser, was charged with possessing heroin. Jagger was jailed for three months in October 1967 and Richards for one year, but the pair spent only one night in prison. Jagger was taken to Brixton Prison and Richards to Wormwood Scrubs, but Jagger's punishment was quickly overturned and Richards' conviction quashed. The case caused an outcry and Times editor William Rees-Mogg criticised their harsh treatment in an essay entitled 'Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?' The trial, in Chichester, heard lurid details that Ms Faithfull had been naked but for a fur rug, which she was said to have partially dropped in front of police. It also led to unfounded rumours that Jagger had been performing a sex act on her with a Mars bar when the 18 officers burst into the mansion. Convent-educated Ms Faithfull, who died this January, was reportedly traumatised by the allegations. In the statement Jagger – who was knighted in 2003 – says 'there is no truth in the allegation Marianne allowed the rug to drop' and that it covered more of her than the clothes she normally wore. Mr Norman said the remark from Jagger about the rug was important because 'he's never commented about that at all'. The fascinating pages were discovered in a brown envelope rescued during the house clearance by an alarm fitter, who passed them to a Rolling Stones fan. The fan, who declined to comment, is selling the statement alongside other memorabilia. Mr Norman described its contents as significant because Jagger has still, to this day, never publicly commented about being under surveillance or even the raid. 'He's said he can't even remember which prison he was in, which is ridiculous,' Mr Norman said. The author said Jagger's statement 'adds substance' to the idea that the FBI were 'in cahoots' with UK spies to stop the Stones going back to America: 'Police alone wouldn't have watched [Jagger] like that or tapped his phone.' Mr Norman also highlighted the 'clear details' Jagger set out. The statement reveals how he recalled Ms Faithfull wearing 'black velvet trousers, white bra, white blouse and black coat' and 'mauve boots' before she went to bed for a brief nap. She then reappeared in the lounge not long before police turned up at 8pm 'wearing only a large fur rug'. Mr Norman said: 'He has always just said he can't remember anything about anything. Yet there's this spot-on memory of what Marianne took off before [wearing] the rug.' He added that Jagger's statement 'adds fresh detail to the scandal which [Redlands] was'. Mr Norman branded the authorities 'disgraceful' for targeting 'musicians doing nothing terrible other than making rather louche singles'. The statement details what everyone did on the day and the drugs taken – but potentially incriminating comments are crossed out. The party was said to be the first time Jagger took hallucinogen LSD. Surrey auctioneers Ewbank's, who are selling the statement on August 21 with other Stones memorabilia from the same fan, described it as a 'significant historic document'. The company's specialist John Silke said: '[Jagger's] testimony is the most extraordinary document.'
