The summer of 1970 was the best of times for me. I was 18
and had just left the Kings School, Peterborough and was waiting to go to
college in September. I got a summer job at Chivers-Hartleys canning factory on night
shift. For 12 hours every night I sat at a conveyor belt as millions of peas passed
by. I had to pick out any pods before they reached the cans. There were dozens
of Irish students working there as well. They used to come over every summer
for the annual pea canning campaign. We used to pass the time chatting and
joking to relieve the boredom and I made quite a few friends. Unknown to me, one
of those students was Bob Geldof who later became world famous in the Boomtown
Rats and for organising Live Aid. I do not remember speaking to Bob at the time, but I read about his
Peterborough experience years later when he wrote his autobiography. I think
Bob lived in digs in Gladstone Street. Although the hours were long, the money was great, and
being students, we didn’t have to pay income tax . For the first time in my life
I was loaded. On Saturday I would head for town. Harry Fenton’s was the shop to
buy clothes such as Ben Sherman shirts and Levi Sta-Prest jeans. I even bought a
suit in Burton’s that I called Mr Burt because that is what it said on the
inside pocket. Then I would head for the record shops to buy some albums. The music
that summer was great. Alright Now by Free was heard everywhere
and Lola by The Kinks. I bought lots of albums including Ladies
of The Canyon by Joni Mitchell, Full House by Fairport Convention
and Déjà Vu by CSN&Y. Saturday afternoons we would hang about in the
back room of Purdy’s coffee bar or on Cathedral Square to find out what was
going on. It never seemed to rain that summer either.
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| Bull Hotel. |
On Saturday evenings our gang would head for the Cardinal
Bar in the Bull Hotel. It was called the Cardinal Bar because there were two
huge pictures of Mazarin & Richelieu on the walls. We would find out what was happening after the pub closed. There were always parties, where we would
drink Woodpecker cider or Watney’s Party 7’s. They were these huge cans which
held seven pints of beer. I remember one night on the way home from a party, me
and two friends met this skinhead who had just come out of a chip shop. He put his chips on top of a wall and challenged us to a fight. My mate Daz gave him a slap around the ear. He ran off and we ate his chips.
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| Cathedral. |
Sunday August 23rd, 1970 was the most memorable day
of that summer. My Irish friends were excited because Skid Row were to
appear at Cloud 9. This was a music venue in the Grand Hotel, Wentworth
Street which was just off Bridge Street. It was run by a local promoter called
Steve Allen. We were lucky to have Steve Allen because Peterborough was one of the few towns between London and Birmingham with a club featuring live bands. Saturday night was soul night. I only went a couple of times to
that. I did not like it because there were always fights. Sunday night was the
night I liked when they had progressive rock. It was a much nicer atmosphere. I
had seen a few bands on Sunday night already, but Skid Row were to be a
revelation. They must not be confused with a later American band of the same
name. This Skid Row were a three-piece band from Dublin comprising of Noel
Bridgeman on drums, Brush Shiels on bass & vocals, and Gary
Moore on guitar & vocals. I had never heard of them, but my Irish
buddies assured me that Gary Moore was the best guitarist in the world. When
the big night arrived Cloud 9 was packed. I think half the audience were Irish. There
were canning factories in nearby Wisbech & Kings Lynn as well, so it seemed like every Irish
student music fan within a 30-mile radius had descended on Peterborough.
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| Noel Bridgeman, Gary Moore, Brush Shiels. |
There might have been a support band, but I do not remember
them. Skid Row were unforgettable though, especially Gary Moore. I
was young, but Gary was even younger than me, a precocious talent. He had long
hair and had not yet acquired the ugly scar on his cheek that he had in later
life. He was lost in the music as he played unbelievable licks on his guitar. I
do not know anything about the technical side of guitar playing, but I have not
heard a better rock guitarist since that night. I rate him up there with Rory Gallagher,
another Irish guitarist who I also admire. I'm not usually a huge fan of loud rock music. I generally prefer the singer-songwriter folkie sound, but I make an exception for the likes of Gary, Rory, Phil Lynott and a few others.
I found out later that Gary’s
guitar was a 1959 Gibson Les Paul which he had bought from the late great Peter
Green. Gary could make it talk and sing. Later in his career Gary became known
as a Blues guitarist, but that magical night in 1970 when I saw him, he was an absolute rocker. I could not possibly tell you the names of any of the songs because this was a
few weeks before their first album was released, but I knew I was in the presence
of greatness. I cannot believe that gig was 50 years ago today. It still
seems fresh in my mind. It's funny how sometimes I can't remember what I did yesterday, but can recall vividly the events of half a century ago.
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| Gary Moore's Gibson Guitar. |
The long summer of 1970 was coming to an end. About three weeks
later, I was off to college. As the train left Peterborough I watched the
cathedral in the distance disappear from view, and knew that one chapter of my life was closing and another was
about to begin. ..............To be continued..
