Of course the gig we went to wasn't by any name band, oh no. It was by a local band called Marauder, who were complete shite. I even remember thinking they were shite at the time. There were four of them, bass, singer, drummer and their only one decent musician; a guitarist called Mark Gibson. Gibson had been playing guitar on the local scene since the days of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (more on that later). He'd been in a band at the turn of the eighties called Paralex (with other legendary Newark metaller Phil Ayling. That's them in the picture, Gibson's second right), they'd made waves within that scene and even got onto Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich's NWOBHM compilation album of the early nineties.
We went to see the band in a so-called 'fun pub', why it was called a 'fun pub' remains a complete mystery to me as not much fun was ever had in there. They had a monster made by some local college art students that was supposed to breathe smoke at regular intervals, usually when you were least expecting it and started choking. It was a pub that had MTV on it's many ceiling-hung tellys but the music from the PA never matched the tellys.
Marauder really were Gibson's last stab at making something decent, and I think even then his heart was no longer in it. I remember them opening with a song called Wild, Wild Woman which sounded like something Whitesnake's David Coverdale would have given up on as a bad job. The only other two songs I remember are their eponymous track (where we all had to shout "Marauder!" while pumping our fists) and a cover of Free's Alright Now, which Al told me was a fairly good version as the bass line's hard to get right. Or something.
Still, Marauder it may have been but my live heavy metal cherry had been well and truly popped.
My second gig was at the same venue to see a local hardcore band called The Amazing Screaming Willies. They're still on the go today, albeit in a much more truncated form. In fact their guitarist recently had a book published about his experiences as a grave digger. That was pretty bad, top marks for enthusiasm but the music was terrible. Still, it wasn't to be taken too seriously. The thing that marks out that gig more in my memory was that when it had finished, two morons jumped in Al's car while he was unlocking it and refused to get out until they'd been given a lift home. Needless to say Al refused and I lad we knew called Dave (yes, really) pulled them out and punched them both on the face. I remember Dave then trying to chat nonchalantly to them while they had blood pouring from their noses.
So, that was my formative gig going out the way. The next gig was going to be much bigger.
We went to see the band in a so-called 'fun pub', why it was called a 'fun pub' remains a complete mystery to me as not much fun was ever had in there. They had a monster made by some local college art students that was supposed to breathe smoke at regular intervals, usually when you were least expecting it and started choking. It was a pub that had MTV on it's many ceiling-hung tellys but the music from the PA never matched the tellys.
Marauder really were Gibson's last stab at making something decent, and I think even then his heart was no longer in it. I remember them opening with a song called Wild, Wild Woman which sounded like something Whitesnake's David Coverdale would have given up on as a bad job. The only other two songs I remember are their eponymous track (where we all had to shout "Marauder!" while pumping our fists) and a cover of Free's Alright Now, which Al told me was a fairly good version as the bass line's hard to get right. Or something.
Still, Marauder it may have been but my live heavy metal cherry had been well and truly popped.
My second gig was at the same venue to see a local hardcore band called The Amazing Screaming Willies. They're still on the go today, albeit in a much more truncated form. In fact their guitarist recently had a book published about his experiences as a grave digger. That was pretty bad, top marks for enthusiasm but the music was terrible. Still, it wasn't to be taken too seriously. The thing that marks out that gig more in my memory was that when it had finished, two morons jumped in Al's car while he was unlocking it and refused to get out until they'd been given a lift home. Needless to say Al refused and I lad we knew called Dave (yes, really) pulled them out and punched them both on the face. I remember Dave then trying to chat nonchalantly to them while they had blood pouring from their noses.
So, that was my formative gig going out the way. The next gig was going to be much bigger.
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