I don’t suppose I should be at all surprised my hearing is so crap! All those years of gig-going have taken their toll.

It was fun while it lasted, though!

A post I read at the weekend on the Glasgow Apollo Facebook page, prompted me to think about the number of concerts I had been to. But, you know, I couldn’t put a number to that. Quite simply, I have no idea.

There are over a hundred ticket stubs in the image above, but as I mention, that represents only a fraction of the shows I attended – I’ll get to that in Part 2, tomorrow.

Broadly speaking though, my concert-going days are split into two distinct time periods – the 1970s ‘Apollo’ era and then, my love of ‘live’ music reignited by both my sons playing in gigging and touring bands, the late ’90s through to around 2012.

The first show I went to was in March 1973, and Rory Gallagher was the headline act. I would see Rory another four times in Glasgow. (Support, rather oddly, was Greenslade – Dave Greenslade, keyboard player with the jazz / prog rock band Colosseum having turned ‘solo.’ So the first band I saw play ‘live’ was Greenslade, rather ironically at The Greens Playhouse in Glasgow, which would shortly thereafter be, supposedly 😉 refurbished and re-launched as The Apollo.

The last show I attended was Bo Ningen – a London based band from Japan who play LOUD prog / psych / spacerock / noise. I’d seen them several times previously but on this occasion at King Tuts Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow, they really did ‘turn it up to eleven!’ So much so, no exaggeration, I could hear nothing in my right ear for best part of a week. It wasn’t just the usual ringing sensation which would disappear after a few hours, but silence. Complete silence.

I paid heed to the warning.

( Part 2, ‘Open House’ continues tomorrow.)