gaye bykers on acid | telford | 1987

there was a pub that a lot of people from sixth form went to called (i think) pisces.
i didn't drink alcohol in my teens (i didn't start until i was 20) and, being a rather weedy indie-kid, i was always too nervous and afraid to go in.
after all it was full of guys in black and purple wearing mission or sisters of mercy t-shirts and girls with dangerously back-combed hair and doc martens.

but one evening gaye bykers on acid were coming to town and a couple of people i knew from college said they were going and they'd meet me in the pub.
so, feeling very uncomfortable, i went in.

the barman was wearing a balaam & the angel t-shirt.
i kid you not.
it was that kind of place.

as i walked further into the pub it was like that scene from "american werewolf in london" where the hitch-hikers go into "the slaughtered lamb".
everyone looked at me.
even the jukebox seemed to stop playing.
i knew quite a lot of the faces in there and they knew me yet not a single person acknowledged me.
so i walked back out.
it's the only time i ever went in and it lasted 2 minutes at the most.

in the end i went down to the venue that GBoA were playing and went in there early, bought a glass of coke and sat in a corner feeling very very nervous that someone would ask me how old i was.

it seemed like a long long time before the band came on stage and they weren't really worth the wait.
the excitement that was their first (and best) record became a muddy metal workout live.
i didn't even stay to the end.
i did however make my first sighting of the man who was later to become the drummer in my next band after the colgates.

he was asleep on the front of the stage throughout the bykers' set.