The Skids in Brighton. And they were fantastic!

The Skids – Live in Brighton

The Scots punk veterans, The Skids, were back in Brighton 29/06. It was one of the hottest days of the year and The Skids pleased and thrilled the sweating fans in Concorde 2 for nearly 90 minutes with old and new material.

The Skids

The Skids are a Scottish punk rock and new wave band, formed in Dunfermline, Fife in 1977 by Stuart Adamson (guitar, keyboards, percussion and backing vocals), William Simpson (bass guitar and backing vocals), Thomas Kellichan (drums) and Richard Jobson (vocals, guitar and keyboards). Their biggest success was the 1979 single “Into the Valley” and the 1980 album The Absolute Game.

The Skids: Pic by Ian Bourn for Scene Sussex

The Scots punk veterans, The Skids, were back in Brighton 29/06. It was one of the hottest days of the year and The Skids pleased and thrilled the sweating fans in Concorde 2. They put on a terrific performance with original singer Richard Jobson and  William Simpson on bass fire up a set full of those crowd pleasing anthems from the bands 70s, 80s releases and albums and more recent material from the new Burning Cities album. Jobson was clearly thrilled, and rightly so, to tell us about the album and how well it had done.

The Band

• Richard Jobson – vocals, guitar
• William Simpson – bass guitar, vocals
• Mike Baillie – drums, vocals, percussion
• Bruce Watson – guitar, vocals
• Jamie Watson – guitar, vocals

The Set

As I mentioned before – this was a fabulous mixture of old and new material. A well put together set and perfectly executed. From the get-go Jobson immediately took over the stage, he is a big fella and is captivating, and charming, to watch with his engaging and powerful stage presence. He doesn’t keep still for a second, and wins the “trickiest person to photo” award so far for 2018! Cant blame him though – the crowd, and myself, also danced and sang for pretty much the whole set!

The Skids: Pic by Ian Bourn for Scene Sussex

The Skids hit the stage to a loud and long lasting rapturous reception. Brighton was ready for this.

The first song for tonight was This Is Our World from that new album Burning Cities. A perfect opening salvo which gave us an insight in what was to come! Charade, Of One Skin, Melancholy Soldiers came at us hard and fast as we headed into Working For The Yankee Dollar. Jobson reminded us just how relevant the song is today. Jobson just doesn’t stop, although did stop to have a wee moan about being knackered from all the jumping, boxing maneuvers and one legged scissor kicks. He also apologised for a lack of coolness with a huge smile on his face. Safe to say he was enjoying this!

The Skids: Pic by Ian Bourn for Scene Sussex

That was followed up by a stunning rendition of The Saints Are Coming – with chants and all! It was so damn hot, Jobson towering over us with sweat running down his face and arms. A brief interlude when Mr Jobson gave us his take on the 70’s and how the Leo Sayer song “When I need You” was maybe a bit… err… wrong. “Leo Sayer is a wan*er” he shouted as the sound tech guys played the song in question in the back ground to much amusement from the band and the crowd! The camera lens was actually starting to steam up! Fabulous to see Jordan Mooney down at the front in the crowd and also Charlie Harper (UK SUBS) in attendance. Circus Games fired up with yet another stadium pleaser Masquerade both belting songs and served to fuel the heaving crowd. The band had the crowd – and they knew it, they really ramped it up.

The bass, and guitar opening heralded Into The Valley  this is such a thrill to see it done live, and undoubtedly one of the  punk songs from the period. The crowd went absolutely nuts – with much shouting and fist pumping – awesome!

That just about wrapped things up. The Skids went off stage but were quickly back with two more songs ‘Animation’ and ‘The Olympian’, then a brief sing-a-long to Into The Valley led by Jobson and then TV Stars, the original B side to Into The Valley – with a ear crunching shout of Albert Tatlock from the band and the crowd. What a way to end it!

A Video

The Skids – Live in Brighton

A triumphant return indeed for The Skids to Brighton. They smashed it with a top quality live performance, and it was great fun to be there. Well played, and many thanks for allowing me to grab some pics.

Theatre Royal

What I love is going to see a gig and you catch a guest or support band that you have not seen or heard of before. Tonight Theatre Royal were the openers for The Skids. Loved it! An exciting mix of acoustic and electric guitars to open the set gave these guys a really unique and refreshing sound. That sound caught me as I was unpacking my gear – the guitars and vocals just hooked me from the start – Tune Out. Everything was finely tuned for their set. An astonishingly good collection of tunes from a band who know exactly what they are doing. Loved it guys.

The Band:

Oliver: Vocals, Guitar
Robert: Guitar, Vocals
Jon: Drums
Brendan: Bass

The guys have some releases already and you can find those on spotify and bandcamp, well worth a visit and a listen. Hopefully these guys will return so I can catch a full set.

Theatre Royal – pic by Ian Bourn for Scene Sussex. Quite a crowd!

“the paisley-shirted sound of the Medway Towns meets the West-Coast of The States.” Steve Lamacq BBC

These guys seem to have had a pretty hectic tour schedule, and they had pulled quite a crowd for themselves. Had a chat after the set and told them how much I had enjoyed it and the music, and they just seemed to be a great, friendly bunch of musicians. They list their influences to include the Velvet Underground, Love, The Kinks, The Beatles.

Last words from Theatre Royal: “We have started and one day we will finish…”

The Skids are on the WWW – here

Theatre Royal on Facebook – here

Concorde 2 is on the WWW – here

AGMP are on the WWW – here

That’s it! See you down the front, come and say hi!

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