When I was about 16, I started hanging around with a kid called Phil. We didn’t go to the same school and he was a HTFC supporter. He knew a kid who lived across the road and the thing we had in common was music. I remember going to see SLF with him one Friday in Bradford and the night before I had watched TOTP and it was the first time Culture Club were on. That night he had been to Leeds to see them. He looked like the bloke with the big hair in Blancmange and lent me the first two Teardrop Explodes albums, so it was the end of 81, beginning of 82. He suggested we go and watch them at Sheffield City Hall. I was keen, but Sheffield midweek at 17 was a difficult one to get to from Huddersfield. Down the road was a girl called Jane and he said her dad would drive us there, visit relatives in Barnsley and pick us up after the gig. It sounded too good to be true, but sure enough it was. Jane was quite tidy and her dad was a top bloke, but they were both Manchester United fans and not plastics, they were season ticket holders and Man Utd were quite ordinary at the time, it was post Tommy Doc.
So it was that we went to Sheffield and I always like the opening track to a gig. I was looking forward to “Treason,” “Reward”, “When I dream” & “Passionate Friend.”
It was a good atmosphere pre concert, but I remember one guy shouting “Ego Tripper” quite a bit and another bloke up in the seats was a Julian Cope look alike, complete with leather trousers. Strangely enough, the song that they opened up with stole the show and it wasn’t any of the aforementioned, it was “Like Leila Khaled Said" and Cope s live performance brought the song to life that night and it always sounded much better when I heard it from then on. I didn’t know who Leila Khaled was and there was no Google back then. Apparently, Cope wasn’t a political revolutionary, he just took a liking to her, or that’s what I read. Really glad I went, so thank you Jane s dad.
Enjoy.
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