1978 an eclectic mix!

No  Reading festival this year, heading off to Knebworth instead. I still managed to cover a pretty wide range of musical styles from The Ramones to Tangerine Dream.

The year started off with a tremendous gig from Ultravox on January 20th at Newcastle Mayfair a couple of days after my birthday, starting the set with one of my favourite tracks 'Hiroshima mon Amour'. Such a pity that John Foxx would leave, although I did get to see the Midge Ure version of Ultravox a couple of times through the 80's and Vienna is a great album, for me those first two Ultravox albums were the best!

March brought Eddie and the Hot Rods, who had Squeeze and a band called Radio Stars on the line up. Radio Stars must have impressed as I do own one of their albums, but I really cannot recall anything about the gig.

By way of a contrast at the end of March I went to see Tangerine Dream, well I say I, by this time I was 'going steady' (lol such a dated thing to say!) with a girl I'd met at Art College the previous year, Sheelagh Connelly, so gig costs had now doubled!! Tangerine Dream were awesome, probably the first gig where I'd seen a full laser light show and Tangerine Dream are comfortably in my top 10 for albums owned!

In April it was the turn of Manfred Manns Earthband once again, this time on the Watch tour, another gig now forgotten .

So along comes Summer and what would turn out to be the last time I would see Genesis for almost 30 years at Knebworth Midsummer Nights Dream Concert. The real treat was getting to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and opening the gig... Devo dressed in white boiler suits and orange propeller hats they were the perfect start to a great day. We also got Jefferson Starship,who due to domestic differences between Grace Slick and her long time partner, guitarist Paul Kantner, performed without her, she returned to America before the gig. It was the first time the Starship had ever played without her. However, they pulled out all the stops and received a standing ovation at the end of their set. Although I do recall an incredibly boring bass guitar solo, wonder if Spinal Tap saw it too!
Oh and Roy Harper played a short set at the last minute while we waited for Genesis to get themselves sorted!
I've got a bootleg of the Genesis set and apart from the awful Follow You Follow Me, they were actually pretty good even without Steve Hackett. However the ...And Then There were Three album was the end for me and I'd not be buying any more Genesis releases for a long long time!

Two special gigs towards the end of the year, both for very different reasons. The first was The Ramones, now I know there's alot of people out there who regard The Ramones as incredibly influential and although I'm prepared to concede that point I have to say that on that September night in Newcastle they were awful, eclipsed only by Wayne County and the Electric Chairs a year earlier at Reading '77

Luckily the year would end on one of the best gigs in a while. AC/DC at The Mayfair on the Powerage Tour, Bon Scott on vocals belting out Whole Lotta Rosie, Hell ain't a Bad Place to be and of course Problem Child and Let there be Rock all the time knocking back Snakebites in the horrible Mayfair plastic glasses - great stuff and proper Rock 'n' Roll not this Mumford and Sons crap that gets peddled for rock these days!