I Swear I Was There – Memories of the Free Trade Hall

“I don’t believe you, you’re a liar – play fuckin’ loud”, drawled Bob Dylan at the Free Trade Hall on May 17th 1966. What followed was an exhilarating and venomously delivered version of “Like A Rolling Stone”.

Dylan was angry and like his rival and contemporary, John Lennon, when wound up, he was brilliant. What rattled Dylan was a catcall of “Judas” from 16 year old Keith Butler in the audience because he was playing with an electrified band (The Hawks, who themselves would go onto have a distinguished career) and not acoustically.

Fans of folk music, who Dylan was strongly aligned to in his early career, were, and are, notoriously puritanical about their beloved genre. What Dylan did, in Butler’s eyes, was tantamount to a betrayal akin Continue reading I Swear I Was There – Memories of the Free Trade Hall

Raving And Rolling At The Russell Club

On the crest of the Two-Tone Ska wave, Madness played the Russell Club in Hulme during September 1979. Peter Barry, a home and away Red from Hulme, saw the Nutty Boys play there, on what was a fairly raucous night.

Peter explains: “We were Perry Boys and had a bit of a skirmish with them in The Russell the week before their first appearance on Top Of The Pops. They were gobby Cockneys, being the big-time boys, and I ended up belting Chas Smash. If you look up Madness’s singing The Prince on their first appearance from Top Of the Pops, you’ll notice that he is wearing a trilby carefully positioned to obscure his eyes; that’s because at least one of them is black.”

Madness on Top Of The Pops in September 1979

Madness weren’t the only band to have trouble at their concerts. David Murray, an Old Trafford lad and United supporter, saw Continue reading Raving And Rolling At The Russell Club