25 Mar, 2008 The Light Poured Out Of Them
I am often asked what are the definitive highlights throughout the years in Simple Minds, and well of course there are so many that instantly come to mind. But those obvious ones are. well, too obvious to mention, and so with that as an understanding I will skip them for the present.
Personally, it is the alternative highlights that somehow linger most strongly for me. What I mean by that for example is that while I cannot really remember what or how I was feeling as we counted down the seconds backstage prior to the Live Aid show at JFK Philadelphia. I can on the other hand somehow never forget how over the top excited I was on hearing from our manager Bruce Findlay that we would get the chance to open as support act for Magazine on what would be our first tour of the UK.
Of course it was such formative days for us back in April ’79 and therefore the very idea alone that we were to tour anywhere was exciting enough in itself. However to know that we would be accompanying a group that in our opinion stood head and shoulders above anything else that was around at that time (or any other time for that matter) was really overwhelmingly pleasing. In fact I think I recall that we all met up in a Glasgow pub that night to celebrate, or was it merely to pinch ourselves, as in, was this really happening?
Well it was and indeed it did happen, but let me try and put some perspective on why we were so excited at the prospect.
Although never that much of a commercial success, Magazine were easily much, much, more than that. Based on their John Leckie produced debut album Real Life (sic!) – the UK music critic’s universally claimed the Manchester collective to be the coolest, artiest, and most intelligent band on the planet. They were absolutely right! And when I turned up albeit with the very highest expectations to witness them on their debut tour – playing at Tiffany’s in Edinburgh in the Spring of ’78 – Devoto, Mc Geoch, Jackson, Formula & Barry Adamson, stunned me in a manner few ever did. They really were that awesome!
With a sound that mixed punk rock with Kraftwerk, Roxy with James Bond themes, Bowie and Sly stone, Beefheart and Gliiterbeat. Magazine and their unique musical power lives with me to this day. But back then they also intimated the hell out of me, least lead singer Howard Devoto did. Devoto – like the cat in The Master and Margarita – was simply otherworldly both on stage and off.
It was Easter ’79 and our tour started up in Aberdeen, I think! Then again maybe not! And if not, Aberdeen was surely one of the first of around twenty dates that would take us through the UK including of course most of the major cities in England. All of which was new to us, having never set foot out of Scotland up until then apart from a trip to Manchester to feature in the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test.
In any case it was in Aberdeen where I recall that we finally met with the members of Magazine, and it would not be rude to say that they were hardly the friendliest or most welcoming types. They were far too mysterious for anything like that as it happens, and in any case they were nevertheless usually very busy having the longest sound checks imaginable. Brilliant they were as well!
Seemingly they were under great pressure to produce live, the brittle cinematic sound of their recently released Secondhand Daylight album. A melancholic set that was a trillion miles from the screeches of punk, and was both devastatingly brave and as downright adventurous as anything the then masters – Bowie/Eno – were capable of. Yes, that is how good Magazine were and that being so I was not as interested in making friends with them as I was with watching them night after night after night. Which is precisely what we did.
Little surprise then perhaps to discover that over the following month Magazine became a colossal influence on Simple Minds as we criss crossed the nation together, getting a great reaction most nights ourselves. But nevertheless we probably were hanging on to their coat tails as they careered onwards pulling out performances that were without doubt unparalleled. The scope of their band was overwhelming and each and everyone in their line up had qualities that would have made most other groups shake their heads in wonder. Devoto – not the greatest singer in the world – was of course a star, but like all great bands they had easily more than one.
Because left of stage (from the audience POV) stood John McGeoch, born in Greenock, Scotland.
McGeoch’s guitars in every reality were the sound of Magazine, and as he went on to prove, McGeoch was the most imaginative guitar player
of his generation. Ask Charlie Burchill, ask Johnny Marr, ask anyone who loved Magazine!
Ask me even, and I will tell you that I have experienced few things more pleasurable than to stand twenty feet from McGeoch’s Marshall amp as he fired out those brilliantly spiky motif’s that frame such songs as Shot By Both Sides, The Light Pours Out Of Me, Rhythm Of Cruelty, and so many more. John deserves to be in any top ten of guitar greats and he certainly merited ‘Spellbound’, the recent radio retrospective on him as the great unsung guitar hero.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/doc_johnmcgeoch.shtml
And so there we were that Easter – fans on tour with their favourite band! Could it get much better? Well, not in terms of the audience warmth to us as rookies learning the touring ropes. Evidently we were making some kind of impression as our album was hanging around the top thirty. Plus, as you would expect we were making the best of life on the road and all the frivolities that went with it. Great fun! We were making a lot of friends for sure, and yet somehow not with the guys in Magazine who barely seemed to have a word to spare.
Maybe we irked them, maybe they thought we were mimicking some aspects of their work, maybe they were unnerved by the reception we were getting, or maybe they just did not notice us at all!
It makes no difference now. Magazine were a band apart and deserved the kind of giant success that conspired to elude them. But their legacy goes on and nothing would please me more than to find out that our next album returns to the kind of tones and influence that was shaped by Devoto and McGeoch.
What a gift that would be!
Jim Kerr