Punks throwing pints at me? I just couldn’t get enough: Rocker reveals his most inspiring gig
Primal Scream frontman’s memoir remembers concert that sealed his future
Rocker Bobby Gillespie has told how being pelted with pint glasses at his first gig inspired his dreams of stardom.
The Primal Scream frontman worked as a roadie for Glasgow band Altered Images, fronted by Clare Grogan, before forming Primal Scream and agreed to stand in as drummer as a one-off after regular player Tich Anderson pulled out just before a gig supporting punk outfit Spizzenergi at Middlesbrough Rock Garden in August 1980.
He said he got such a
buzz from being on stage and winning over the crowd of hundreds of punks and skinheads that he “wanted more”. The musician – who has gone on to have massive hits like Loaded and Movin’ On Up with Primal Scream – recalls his “baptism of fire” in his memoir Tenement Kid.
The singer, 59, said: “By the time we took to the stage it was rammed full of 600 deranged-looking, gluesniffing, third-generation Mohicanned-punks... There was also a big gang of angry-looking skinheads with their furious-looking girlfriends in tow throwing pint glasses full of beer at us.
“We never moved from the stage. We played our songs defiantly. In the end we got the audience’s respect because we stood our ground and kept playing. That was my very first gig, my baptism of fire.”
He added: “The feeling I had playing the drums that night was one of complete exhilaration. It was a thrill like I’d never experienced before.
“It was one thing watching a band from the audience or at the side of the stage – which was an amazing buzz – but it was entirely different actually sitting onstage, dead centre, in the line of fire...This was a hit like no other; a deep hit to the soul. I wanted more.”
Gillespie went on to play stand-up drums for another East Kilbride band, The Jesus And Mary Chain, before going on to global success as a frontman with his own band, Primal Scream, which he’d started in 1982.
In Tenement Kid, Gillespie recalls his upbringing in Springburn, Glasgow, through to the release of Primal Scream’s iconic album Screamadelica, released 30 years ago.
The rocker, who started planning the book pre-lockdown last year, said publishing the memoir was “just like when you release a new album”. Football fan Gillespie famously follows Celtic after falling in love with the club during the trophyladen Jock Stein era, when they conquered Europe and won a remarkable nine league titles in a row.
But in the book he reveals the first football strip he owned was that of Old Firm rivals Rangers. He writes: “For my sixth birthday I received a Rangers strip from my grandparents. I didn’t even know what football was. I wanted a cowboy or cavalryman outfit.
“I went up to their flat in London Road (ironically very close to Celtic Park) and they dressed me in this Rangers shirt and I didn’t know what it was. It was the classic 1960s Jim Baxter-era strip – blue jersey with white V-neck, white shorts, black socks with red tops.” He said all his childhood friends were Celtic supporters, however, adding: “Celtic were the best team in the world.
“This was the era of the legendary Lisbon Lions; the team had recently won the European Cup in Portugal, beating Inter Milan by two goals to one...
“That Celtic team captured the imagination of street kids like us. The mythology is genius. The whole squad came from within a 10-mile radius of Glasgow except Bobby Lennox, who came from Saltcoats, 30 miles away. In these days of globalised football it could never happen again.”
Tenement Kid by Bobby Gillespie is published by White Rabbit