Since first hearing the Everybody Knows this is Nowhere album at a young age, I have always been a huge Neil Young fan. However, his visits to the shores to have always been somewhat sporadic so when it was announced in 1987 that he was touring I grabbed the opportunity with both hands. The double bonus was that it coincided with my 19th birthday.
The gig was at Birmingham NEC which was by far my largest venue thus far. Uncle George was the designated driver with me and my brother in tow. We set off at 3pm on a Tuesday and we located the NEC about 6.30pm. We decided remarkably to go for a beer so located a couple of slightly rum pubs nearby the venue and arrived back about 8pm.
It was a long walk around a lake from the car park to the venue. The venue itself was cavernous and as a result rather soulless. It could be argued loosely that the venue had their own brewery serving Arena bitter, Arena lager and Arena wine indicating quality, but in reality, it was warm overpriced woeful ale!
It was all seated and we were about 70 yards from the front. Neil and Crazy Horse came on about 9.30pm and his opening salvo was ‘Mr Soul’ and ‘Cinnamon Girl’. It was an unresponsive audience initially, but they warmed up when he played ‘Sugar Mountain’.
The opening chords of ‘Powderfinger’ sparked a group of 20 people to move to the front, swiftly followed by us thus creating a mini moshpit about 10 yards from the stage. He encored with ‘Like A Hurricane’ and ‘Tonight’s the Night’. It was a decent performance overall.
We discovered on arrival back at our seats that mine and George’s coats had been pilfered, which necessitated a visit to the reception to report said incident. Unsurprisingly, we are still to this day waiting for the prodigal return of our jackets!
We detoured to a poor-quality Chinese in West Bromwich for a snack and landed home about 2am.
My only other gig visit to Birmingham was on Friday 23/11/18 to see Mogwai supported by Twilight Sad at Birmingham Digbeth Mill. George, John Dewhurst and I met at a very busy New Street station and dropped our bags at a local Premier Inn.
We jumped in a cab over to a very cold Digbeth suburb and located the venue. Further down the road was the Digbeth Dining Club, which was an interesting multi roomed venue. We had a quick look at the nearby Ghetto Golf before heading to the Old Crown for a pie and a pint.
We encountered a local chap called Simon who we tagged along with to the gig. Prior to the gig we visited the Birmingham Spotted Dog which was an interesting old Irish boozer with fiddly dee bands playing in two separate rooms and they had some fine Guinness on tap.
The Mill was a recently opened venue and was located under a railway bridge. The capacity was probably around 400. Mogwai were as good as ever, but the venue lacked something for me as it was a tad cold and a little industrial for my tastes. We headed back to the Spotted Dog for ‘one for the ditch’ before heading back to the lodgings.
You should have taken Phil Collins advice Prior to the NY gig mate…….No jacket required !! (Cue tumbleweed)