GIG
This was the first gig I was ever involved in. For Christmas 1983 my friend Andy and
I decided to get guitars and form a band. A friend of ours, Paul, played drums in Artane
Boys band so we got him involved. We had been listening to my brothers’ record collection
for a few years and got a Clash book so we could do some Clash songs.
We went to see Dublin punk band Paranoid Visions play a few gigs and thought they were brilliant. They weren’t professionals, they just got up on stage and made a racket but they also had stuff to say in their songs. This was great to us. British bands like Crass, Flux Of Pink Indians and Partisans were favourites of ours so we got the band going knowing that if they could do it, we could too.
After learning how to play (!) we decided to do a gig. I had been to see The Gorehounds play in Tommy Dunne’s Tavern so I knew it was available for live music. I rang up the manager and asked could I book 2 gigs. To my astonishment he said yes so we were ready. My brother John was drafted in on vocals. Some other friends had formed a ‘serious’ band (in that they knew how to play their instruments) but they had no name. We asked them to play and put them down on the (handwritten) poster as “SUPPORT”.
We didn’t think about it at the time but that band then called themselves “Support” and it
made me reflect upon how we use that word all the time in music. It has become a pet peeve of mine, as I felt embarrassed that we had the audacity to label them that way’. I know it’s just a word but its use can be widely interpreted. We pestered all our friends and associates to go to the gig and to our surprise 70 people came along. During the second week Deko, singer from Paranoid Visions, got up on stage and sang along to one of our songs. We felt it couldn’t get any better than this
