Saturday, June 08, 1985

GIG 11: Bad Manners / Meteors @ Scooter Rally, Castle Donington

 


There was a Scooter Rally being held in Castle Donington and Jon invited me, it was 8th June, 1985. Old school mate Andy was driving and I was hanging out with Psycho Sandra at the time and I asked her if she wanted to come along. She was called Psycho Sandra for very good reasons! This was a person who was high on life with a  punk rock attitude and she lived up to her name. The four of us  (including the driver) thought it would be a great idea to drop acid before heading on the three hour journey, and by the time we got there I began to be a bit edgy to say the least. Here I was, the only punk rocker in a huge field full of mods, and being off my box only added to my paranoia as people would mutter ‘Punk’s dead mate’ at me. So imagine my nerve endings, when we entered the main arena and the support band (some mod shite) The Gents were stopped mid-set and a panicky voice is announcing over the PA; he’s pleading with the crowd at the front of the stage to clear the way for an ambulance to get through as someone had just been glassed in the throat and was losing a lot of blood. Shiiit…


It was getting from bad to worse, I kind of fancied Sandra, even though she scared the shit out of me, and she kind of fancied me, but she disappeared for what seemed like hours only to return with a psychobilly lad she had copped off with. While she was away, we watched The Meteors, who were pretty good and I had last year been introduced to their fantastic debut album ‘In Heaven’ (still such a good record), so at least I had something positive to focus on while being surrounded by thousands of fishtail jackets and the smell of shit scooter engines.


By dark Bad Manners were on stage and it was raining. We were still in the throes of the Pink Panther or the Microdot tabs we had taken, so it felt like we were protected from the damp. Sleep wasn’t going to happen, the come-down was fucking awful, five of us crammed into this Vauxhall Cavalier; Andy, Jon and myself trying to sleep, dying to sleep but unable to, twitching uncontrollably in a lysergic loop as Sandra and her psychobilly boyfriend had noisy and violent sex next to us, well, virtually on top of us.

No comments: