Squeeze – 5 November 1982 – live at Top Rank Reading

2 Responses to "Squeeze – 5 November 1982 – live at Top Rank Reading"

Mark says:

5 March 2010 at 1:54 pm

My first Squeeze show, I remember it well. Well, I remember it. I had to check on David’s archive to find the date.
I lived in Basingstoke at the time, and the live music scene was a busker outside of Woollies on a Saturday. It never occurred to me that you could go and see the bands play live that you had seen playing on Top of the Pops or heard on National Radio 1.
This was long before the www revolution, the only net we had in our house was for me nan’s hair at night, so you couldn’t go looking for this sort of info, it had to find you.
Then I began a job in London and oh, the bright lights/big city opened my eyes. There was Time Out and the Evening Standard, full of ads for culture, the likes of which we never got in our corner of North Hampshire, then a fellow worker would pass me his Melody Maker when he had finished with it and I would read about bands and albums and gigs. I had always loved Squeeze from the moment I melted my brother’s pink vinyl Take Me I’m Yours on his radiator and now I could learn about them, see adverts for their album and, crucially, see their tour dates.
I guess I must have sent off a cheque to the venue, this was prior to anyone trusting me with a credit card, and got my tickets back.
My memory is pretty vague about the show. I do remember getting there ridiculously early, only to find that about 100 others were in front of us in the queue. I remember carrying my camera (with telephoto lens) around my neck but under my coat, so I could sneak it in. I also remember that the tele lens was too long (or we were too close to the stage) so it never saw action. I recall that the support were a duo called Mechanix, or was it Mekaniks, who were pretty good. As for Squeeze, of all the people on stage Don Snow is the one I can still picture, not sure if it was the hair, or if he was particularly animated compared to the others. I remember vividly “I Think I’m Go-Go” and the lighting effect; a bank of lights either side of the stage that shone towards each other at the last Go-Go, creating bars of lights in front of the band. I recall having to explain to the bloke in front that I wasn’t pleased to see him, but that my lens couldn’t go anywhere else. And saddest of all, i remember we had to leave early, to catch the last train back to Basingstoke.

And then a few shows later Squeeze split.

But this whetted my appetite for live music and in particular the Deptford boys. My next show was the Difford & Tilbrook show at the Lyceum and countless other Squeeze/GT/CD shows since, but you never forget the first time, well, not all of it.

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packetofthree says:

7 March 2010 at 3:14 pm

Thanks so much for your review Mark – memory does play tricks on you – especially since it was ‘Cool For Cats’ that came in pink vinyl and not ‘Take Me I’m Yours’! It’s hard to imagine leaving before the end. Tragic.

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