Latest news with #StuartAdamson
The Herald Scotland
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Sex Pistols and Stranglers draw Glasgow's pensioner punks
"I've been enjoying seeing all the old punks in town," the driver laughs. "They've got all the gear... well, everything except the hair." Yes, it's probably worth noting at this stage that it is not, in fact, 1978 and both on stage and in the crowd the passage of time is evident. The line-up offers the first clue: Skids (without Stuart Adamson, deceased), Buzzcocks (without Pete Shelley, deceased), The Undertones (without Feargal Sharkey, campaigning for clean rivers), The Stranglers (without Hugh Cornwell, estranged, also without Dave Greenfield and Jet Black, deceased), Sex Pistols (without Johnny Rotten, legal troubles). Read More: The second clue is the number of camping chairs deployed for the occasion, something you probably didn't get in the Bungalow Bar back in the day. At this point it would be easy to just start riffing on pensioner punks: age against against the machine. Granarchy in the UK. No future? You ain't kidding. It's clear though that there's a real sense of community here. Fans at Bellahouston Park for the punk all-dayer (Image: Newsquest) At the bar, someone catches another punter's Belfast accent and strikes up a conversation. "I'm William," the Irishman says. "... or Liam depending on your point of view!". The two men laugh and offer hearty backslaps. Punk is famously prone to gatekeeping but there's little of that on display at Bellahouston Park, where just about every punk or punk-adjacent band is represented in t-shirt form, from The Stooges and Television all the way through to Green Day and Rancid. One man, sporting a Bauhaus 'Bela Lugosi is Dead' t-shirt, has overcome follicular challenges by gluing a mohawk to a swimming cap which bears the legend 'Glasgow punk all-dayer 2025' in sharpie on either side. You'd be hard-pushed to detect revolution in the air. This is, after all, an outdoor mega-gig where a pint will set you back £7.30 and a t-shirt £35: I am an antichrist/please buy our merchandise, to borrow a quip. Quibbles aside there are lovely moments wherever you look. A girl who can be no older than 12 at the barrier with her parents, all three in matching Sex Pistols t-shirts, a young woman with pink and green hair helping her father, who is traversing Bellahouston on a crutch, to the bar. As Buzzcocks take the stage a man to my right lights up a frankly ridiculous Cuban cigar. His t-shirt, an homage to the two buses promotional poster for 'Pretty Vacant' reads "punk's not dead but I'm not far away". As the band launch into opener 'What Do I Get?' two of his companions begin dancing enthusiastically and, despite the heat, they keep it up all the way to the one-two closing punch of 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've?)' and 'Harmony In My Head'. Between acts the screens alternate some punk favourites with adverts for TRNSMT, which it's probably fair to say is a different demographic altogether even if I do spot a grey-haired woman in a 'Free Mo Chara' Kneecap t-shirt. The Undertones are next up, and in the front circle someone even indulges in a spot of crowd surfing for 'Teenage Kicks'. "You should know better," guitarist Damian O'Neill chuckles. The Derry group are known for two-minute pop-punk tunes and singer Paul McLoone admits they've miscalculated how many it'll take to fill an hour - they play an extra three which weren't on the setlist - and perhaps it wasn't a joke when they declared, two songs in, that they'd just do 'Jimmy Jimmy' twice. Fans at Bellahouston Park for the punk all-dayer (Image: Newsquest) After a half hour break The Stranglers take the stage to the strains of 'Waltzinblack'. Before their entrance I speak to some punters in 'Rattus Norvegicus' shirts, some have seen the band more than 50 times while one, Tom, has never had the pleasure at the age of 47. Some use the break to visit the facilities, one man declaiming: "See at ma age, if ye want a pish you need to plan it 20 minutes in advance - then ye get there and ye don't even need wan anyway." Bassist JJ Burnel is the only original Strangler left but singer and guitarist Baz Warne has been playing with them for 25 years at this point and they sound tight. Their set is mostly built on their early output - 'Duchess' is an early highlight - but Warne gives a knowing smile as they run through 2006's 'Relentless' and he delivers the line: "I saw my love today/she's looking old but so am I". They finish, of course, with 'No More Heroes' and then it's time for the Frank Carter fronted Sex Pistols. The former Gallows man does a pretty good Johnny Rotten, and the band make enough noise I'm reliably informed it could be heard as far away as Bearsden. They may be, as Steve Diggle noted earlier in the day, "all the pensioners" but it turns out these bands can still create an almighty racket. Fill in your own hearing aid jokes...
The Courier
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Courier
Big Country's Why The Long Face album found the band on form - and on tour with the Stones
Big Country released Why The Long Face 30 years ago with Stuart Adamson delivering a powerful anti-war and pro-Earth message. Big Country were revitalised in 1995. Why The Long Face was the follow-up to the critically acclaimed sixth studio album The Buffalo Skinners, which got to number 25 in March 1993. The album took three weeks to record. Adamson opened up about the unusual place he found inspiration in a forgotten interview in June 1995 that has been uncovered from the archives. 'I've always been a traditional folk song writer and I've had my material performed by many artists across a wide spectrum from ABBA to a bizarre Japanese beer commercial,' he said. 'Good things have happened to us with amazing regularity. 'I am hopeless at organisation. 'A lot of songwriters are. 'Lyrics come to you at the most bizarre times. 'I was out for a run in Lincolnshire, and all of a sudden I'd got this lyric. 'I ran back to the studio where we were recording and wrote the entire lyric for I'm Not Ashamed, which became the first single.' He described the album as 'modern day folk and country played on loud guitars'. 'I have been trying to write songs that are much more personal, again using contemporary folk as an influence in the writing,' said Adamson. 'It's more about people relating to each other than worldly events.' You Dreamer and I'm Not Ashamed were the first two singles. They were songs with anthemic chorus which also became live favourites. Charlotte, Send You and Wildland In My Heart were heartfelt ballads. Post Nuclear Talking Blues spread the anti-war message. Adamson, guitarist Bruce Watson, bassist Tony Butler and drummer Mark Brzezicki were still making sense in a changing musical landscape. Why The Long Face was released during the Britpop era when the radio was full of bands like Blur, Dodgy, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene, Pulp and Supergrass. The hedonistic rock 'n' roll lifestyle that defined the Gallagher brothers held no attraction for Adamson, who said he preferred to get his kicks in the studio. 'I have seen any amount of burning out on gratuitous sex, wild parties and all that goes with that side of rock 'n' roll,' he said. 'But I've been in it for most of my life and not lived the lifestyle. 'It didn't interest me. 'I get my kicks out of the creative side and still love performing. 'I get my high out of writing a new song, recording it, playing it, and seeing that it gives people enjoyment.' The band went on a record store tour across the UK to promote the album. Adamson's biographer, Allan Glen, said this was an interesting period for the band and a real test of their resilience and commitment to making music. He said: With NME, Melody Maker and the radio saturated with Britpop, creative thinking was required to promote a country-flavoured introspective album heavy on the threat of nuclear war amid the loud, brash and life-affirming sounds of acts such as Oasis and Blur. 'Big Country still had an incredible reputation as a live band. 'The band's long-standing agent, John Giddings, was keen to take advantage of it. 'Strong sales of Why The Long Face in Germany coupled with the band's live reputation paid off when Giddings booked the band to play with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in Dublin and for nine dates as support to the Rolling Stones.' Big Country performed nine dates in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands on the European leg of the Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge tour. They played in front of a combined audience of 800,000 people. Mick Jagger hailed Big Country as one of the Stones' best-ever opening acts. Bruce Watson returned the compliment when he said the Stones were the only band Big Country had supported that he wanted to watch every night. Not everything went to plan. Watson found himself locked up inside Colditz when the band were travelling from Leipzig to Berlin to open for the Stones at the Olympic Stadium. Big Country decided to investigate the castle 'high on yonder hill' that became infamous as a Second World War prisoner of war camp. Watson wandered into another part of the castle and got locked in a wine cellar. The only way out was through one of the ill-fated tunnels. He was later freed by a guard. The band returned to the UK. The Why The Long Face tour started in Norwich in September 1995 and included dates at the Rothes Hall in Glenrothes and Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow. Adamson led a Greenpeace march in Edinburgh before the Rothes Hall show and handed over a petition of 10,000 signatures to the French Consulate. He was protesting against nuclear tests by France in the South Pacific. Big Country dedicated their tour to Greenpeace and the tour programme included a leaflet urging people to 'stop nuclear tests' and donate to the charity. There was a Greenpeace stand at every concert to gather support. The band also released the EP Non, which featured the tracks Blue on a Green Planet and Post Nuclear Talking Blues with all proceeds going to Greenpeace. Big Country also provided pre-match entertainment to 40,000 fans at Hampden Park in November 1995 for the League Cup final between Aberdeen and Dundee. '1995 was another example of Big Country as a classic rock band with an innate ability to survive the vicissitudes of the ever-fickle music industry,' said Allan. 'It also set them up a few years later for arguably their finest single of the 1990s. 'Fragile Thing was the track that would have kick-started their career had someone not screwed up. 'On the night of its release, chart regulators CIN informed the band that the CD2 format and its jack-in-the-box style lid had one too many folds. 'It denied them a spot in the Top 40. 'Yet that compulsion throughout the '70s, '80s and '90s to make music, regardless of the external circumstances, was what made Stuart Adamson such a gifted – but often tortured – songwriter.'
