Friday 10 June 2011

Everybody needs a bit of magic sponge.... Heavy Stereo !


So its 1995 and everything is sweet and all rosy with Glasto just around the corner when i open up my weekly NME and see Justine from Elastica wearing a t-shirt with the  logo of "Heavy stereo". So i bit and found out who they were and bought the 1st single "Sleep freak" and i played those 3 songs till i wore it out. I was diggin the 70s Glam rock style which was a change from all the mod stuff most other bands were influenced it
(Which aint a bad thing!).
Cut to a while later and i find myself and my mates following them around at all sorts of gigs including Glasto 95.
I remember The Mod father ( BAH !) Paul Weller was playing the local leisure centre at the time and everyone had tickets apart from me and my 3 mates.Which suited us fine because we found out that Heavy stereo were playing at a local pub along with "Baby bird", "Northern Uproar" and "The long pigs". So we walked up to the door and was refused entry as we was too young!, we pleaded that we wouldn't drink as we was only there to see the bands!. NO ENTRY!, so with our spirits crushed we headed back home when a scruffy man walked up to us asking why we wasn't going to see the bands?.We explained why and he ran off and entered the pub and after 10 mins he returned explaining that he had put our names on the guest list as he was the tour manager!. 
A swift 2 fingers up to the Doorman was called for when we entered......... which we did!.

It was a fantastic night "Baby bird" was unheard of back then but i do remember them playing the soon to be released single "Good night" and were really fun and interactive with the crowd. After them were "The longpigs" who were just fantastic and i bought the 7" of "She said" on the door on the way home!. Northern uproar were SHIT and to make things worse myself  and the rest of the audience couldn't get passed the fact the the lead singer sounded like he was saying "Fuck you" after every song when he was actually saying Thank you. Heavy stereo was of course fantastic and played mainly the b-sides from their 2 singles and a few tracks from the upcoming album. Just before they played the song "Magic sponge" Gem the lead singer announced that "Everybody needs a bit of magic sponge!" to which my self and my mate Geoff repeated at the top of our voices at every time they played the song at every gig we saw them at!.

Im sure When they supported "Cast" a few weeks later Gem smiled at me when we shouted this in the front row!.

But then again i also think that Sonya from Echobelly winked at me during a gig and i thought my luck was in!!

Nothing happened!




1 comment:

  1. Now i know why you had a smile on your face Gav` when you came home that night.
    What you are doing here is great long may it continue.

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