The Good Times

The Millom Gig

Borrowing the services of a local musician with a suitable old van, the band headed up the A6 and along the Cumbrian coast one Saturday to Millom, just beyond Barrow-in-Furness to play the Ritz Club. It was the first gig for Clube who was both excited and nervous. Millom was not the kind of place to put paid to the nerves. Having arrived early, with the venue still firmly locked up, it was decided to get a few drinks until they were allowed to move the gear in. The pub fell into an uneasy silence as five long-haired youths enterd, and the band ended up sitting around the table subdued and glum, feeling distinctly unwanted.

Escaping back to the venue, it was discovered that the club was on the fourth floor of the building and there was dismay all round as they found no elevator and had to carry heavy equipment up the never-ending flights of stairs. Once this was done they started about setting up the gear on stage and the club owner spoke to them, warning them that there had been trouble here recently.

Clube picks up the story.

"We were warned that the week before the audience had taken a dislike to the band and the singer had been stabbed. As singer, playing my first semi-pro gig I was not happy. "

The band were told that the Millom clubbers only really liked rock'n'roll, Status Quo and that kind of thing. With only two such songs in the repetoire there was much nervousness that showed itself in two lacklustre sets.
With the last set soon upon them, Simonsen rallied the band by vowing to 'fight back' and they returned to the stage with determination. Clube recalls,

"The audience had in effect said, "Come on, impress us," and that's just what we meant to do. We ripped through Jumpin' Jack Flash and Can't Get Enough before exploding in a frenzy with Johnny B Goode. I put all my energy into the performance, trying to engage the audience by acting confident and self-assured. I strutted and posed. The band behind me pulled all the tricks they could think of and the audience got off their seats and packed the dance floor for the first time that evening. We were at last a success."

As seems to be usual for struggling bands, the evening ended with an argument with the club for paying them less than the promised fee before the four flights of stairs had to be tackled again. The trip back to Blackpool included an encounter with a sheep astray in the Lakeland country lanes where their driver got lost, and then a greasy and misbehaved supper in the small hours at a motorway service station. The less said the better, but rock'n'rollers do have a reputation for outrageousness to maintain!

Apache

One of the stranger gigs the band played was for a stag night at a local working men's club. Agganged at the last minute as a favour, the audience of thirty or so men were drunk and most of them were significantly older than the band whose music would therefore not really appeal to them. But 'the show must go on' so the band decided to do the best they could.

A heckler got to shouting out for the old Shadows hit 'Apache'. As the audience drank more, others started joining in the request that the band could do nothing about. None of them knew the song. Eventually some started threatening the band if 'Apache' was not played, and started to come up on stage to smash the amplification equipment. The club manager had to intervene quickly to calm things down. Grabbing the microphone he told them that any damage would have to be paid for. "Look, take this microphone for instance, " he said holding up £60 worth of technology, "This alone costs twenty quid!" Despite his befuddled mind, even the drunken heckler decided that he didn't like his beloved Shadows as much as all that, and the band escaped with themselves and their gear in tact.

Jenks

In some ways, the prize gig in Blackpool was at Jenks Bar, a large sprawling and tacky club opposite Yate's Wine Lodge. The band were not well liked by the management and could not get a regular booking there. However, they were eventualy given a Wednesday night out of season that coincided with the biggest European soccer match of the year, Liverpool verses Bruges.

If the club thought to embarrass the hottest new band in town with a tiny audience they were to be embarrassed themselves. Down At Heel filled the place with the largest mid week crowd they'd seen in many months.

"It was great to play on home turf as it were - this was the place we used to meet and hang out at weekends. I'd always told my school friends that I'd play there one day, and there we were. What a feeling!" enthuses Clube.

"The club still didn't change its mind about us getting a regular spot. "You were lucky, that's all," we were told."

Southport

Southport in the 70s boasted the biggest concentration of millionaires in the UK. Down At Heel did their normal level-headed best to scandalise their teenage sons and daughters at the Dixieland Showbar in the true tradition of rock'n'roll. By the time this gig came along the band brought its own retinue of fans and follwers with it. Just as well - the ladies of Southport took a shine to the scruffy-haired boys from Blackpool with their loud music. Inbetween sets they would hang around near the band and look furtive in the time-honoured way that would-be rock chicks do. Girlfriends kept the band members on the straight and narrow, ensuring that the minds were kept on the music.

"I remember that the DJ was called Daryl Jay," laughs Sattin. "Initials, D.J. - see? At the end of our last set he played 'Freebird' as a tribute to us.

"It was really embarrassing, and I learned a golden rule of playing in a rock band; Never dance at a club when you're playing there. When the band hit the dance floor all the local punters cleared the floor and just stared at us! It was obviously a very uncool thing to do."

Mardi Gras

Towards the end of the band's career they were to play two back-to-back mid week gigs. The first was played on Wednesday at the Mardi Gras night club near Blackpool's train and bus stations. As with the Jenks gig, the band pulled in a large crowd and played a blinder. At the end the place was errupting and the DJ was running out of superlatives as he called the band back to the stage for an encore. Clube recalls the siruation.

" We'd vowed never to play 'Smoke on the Water' at any gig. I don't know why 'cos we enjoyed jamming the song at rehearsals. But the DJ at the Mardi Gras didn't give us any choice in the matter. After playing other peoples' requests all his life, it seemd like he wasn't going to give up the opportunity to make a request of someone else! The audience took up his shout for 'Smoke...' so there it was. We played it.

" After the last set the normal bevvy of beauties lined up for our attentions, and Gavin and I deliberately sat with drinks trying to look totally unconcerned. That's always guaranteed to irritate the girls no end. Ha!"

In the meantime Miffy (the band's beloved roadie) took up position at the entrance to a corridor that led to the ladies toilets.

" He hit upon the idea of rolling around the floor as though drunk." says Clube, "That gave him the opportunity to appreciate the passing young belles from a - shall we say 'interesting perspective'. And amazingly, the plan seemed to work OK unitl he was rumbled by a no nonsense Lancashire lass who gave him a piece of straight-forward advice - very unladylike language though. Shame on her!"

The gig almost didn't happen. Sattin had gone down with a viral infection and was not well. It had taken a huge amount of cajoling from Gavin and the rest of the band to persuade him to play.

"I don't remember anything, " says the bass man. "I was so drugged up it was like playing in a fog."

"Nigel was in a bad way but he played a great gig." adds Clube. " I'm glad he agreed to do it in the end. That gig really cemented our reputation in town. A couple of weeks later I turned a corner to see a guy walking down the street with the band's logo beautifully embroidered on the back of his denim jacket - just like people used to do for their favourite pro bands in those days. Nigel used to tell me it was a lot less hassle and just as much fun being famous in your own home town as being a big international star. I think, that day, I appreciated something of that comment."

Tiffany's

The venue for the second night was Tiffany's for the Young Socialists' Penpushers Ball, with Down At Heel headlining the evening. Roadie, Ian 'Miffy' Smith was unavailable and was replaced by a friend of Simonsen, Ewart, a true man mountain. University friends of Clube had come to see the band in action and one of them, Sultan Merchant, who was a talented photographer, was allowed to use a camera. Some of his shots from that gig can be found in the gallery section of this site. Sattin was still unwell but left his sick bed again so as not to let everyone down. Again the band turned in one of their best performances. At ease with each other musically, Simonsen and Clube would suddenly start jamming in the middle of a song or switch rhythm, turning a rock song into a funk workout.

And...

There were other gigs for the band, and although they were always promised good money they never got paid what was agreed. At the end of the day they didn't let it bother them because it really was the music that made it all worthwhile. To be young, talented, in a rock'n'roll band with who knew what future ahead of them, these were the good times, the best of times...