“What I remember is playing Queens University, Belfast in 1977. We were picked up from the airport in a transit by the social secretary. – the bloke who books bands for universities. ‘You might need your passports for ID ‘cos were going through a checkpoint soon’, he said. A while passed – no checkpoint? Someone asked when it was coming up. ‘Ah fuck, it was blown up last week – I forgot’. He pointed back to a large hole in the road. ‘It used to be there’, he said dismissively. We wondered what the hell we were doing there.

We needn’t have worried. It was one of the best we’ve ever done, anywhere, anytime. And the audience – they were fucking marvellous. All that tension let out. Dunno who made the most noise, them or us. I think we were the first band from across the water to play Belfast for some years – everybody avoided Northern Ireland. Too fucking dangerous – you must be mad, they told us. But a year earlier we were playing a pub called The Kensington in Earls Court – an IRA bomb went off down the road, we could fell the walls shake whilst we were playing. That seemed pretty dangerous to me, just being in London at that time. Never knew what might happen.

Saw Jake from SLF a few years back. First thing he said, remember playing Belfast ’77? Never forget it, mate. Never forgot that audience. Never forgot what they had to live with outside either”.

Above image taken at The Ulster Hall - Photograph © Bernie McAllister