“Memories of playing Belfast? It Was down to the management. Actually there was an on-going connection throughout the Radio Stars period thanks to the record company (Chiswick, run by Ted Carroll) and Asgard Management (run by Paul Charles). We did quite a few gigs in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The tour with the Hot Rods was so long though, that, after about two months, the whole thing began to blur, at least geographically. My main memory is staying in a hotel which looked quite normal but which was surrounded by barbed wire and sandbags. I remember armed squaddies in the streets and also that the pubs closed in the middle of the afternoon, but the bar people were quite happy to come outside and serve us drinks sitting in the garden ‘until we open again’ which, fortunately for us, rather defeated the object of closing”.

Quote © It Makes You Want To Spit! Book 2003.

“One thing that struck the band when we played the Ulster Hall, and in fact anywhere in Northern Ireland, was the amazing reception we got from the audiences, best in the United Kingdom. At one point in the Ulster Hall, I seem to remember climbing up the side of a giant organ at the back of the stage and somehow getting up on to a balcony, probably durning ‘No Russians In Russia’, balancing along the edge, finally jumping down to the stage and somersaulting into the audience. This seemed to cause the entire hall to erupt, something that was almost on a par with the madness I had witnessed when I was in John’s Children, and caused the legendary riot in Ludwigschafen, Germany. Well maybe not quite like that, because this was a very wild but friendly audience, who seemed genuinely pleased that we had come over to Northern Ireland. We stayed in some hotel just outside Belfast, which was a bit like Stalag Luft 3 in reverse, with barbed wire fences, lookoutposts and guards. Easy to get out of, but a bastard to get back in. One night we were woken with the sound of a huge explosion. It seemed like it was in the hotel, but apparently the nearby railway had been bombed.

We went over a fence, through a yard and down a back alley and on and on and on until we were both soaked and out of breath. Anyway, we eventually found a phone box that was working and got a real cab back to our hotel. It was the same man!! No, only joking. (Well it would have been a better story). Apparently we were miles away from where we should have bee. So God knows where we were originally being taken. Or perhaps he really was trying to take us to our hotel and had got lost. Northern Ireland – I love it!”

Quote © It Makes You Want To Spit! Book 2003.