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Fact #116822

When:

Short story:

Free play at McIlroy’s Ballroom, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK, where the audience includes a young aspiring rock musician, Andy Partridge, who will find success as the leader of XTC.

Full article:

Andy Partridge (XTC) : McIlroy’s Ballroom, was a department store that also had a ballroom.

I saw quite a few amateur bands at McIlroy’s. In fact, I played in my first band, Stray Blues, at McIlroy’s Ballroom. We got pennied off after one song and we begged the deejay to let us do another one. We got halfway through that and we got pennied off again. Those big old pennies really hurt, I can tell you.

I think the first well-known band I saw there must have been Black Sabbath or Free. Sabbath were all right but of the two, I much preferred Free. Paul Rodgers had his flies undone for two-thirds of the set. Then he realised and had to turn away to do them up. We were right up the front and my mate who I went with was laid across the front of the stage pretending to be stoned or whatever. So as they were getting on stage Free’s drummer, Simon Kirke, kicked him in the head with his big platform boots. He was ever so proud of that.

Heavy rock was all you could see then. Then, when I left school and went to Swindon College, they had bands on there. You’d see bands like East Of Eden … I had a broken foot when I saw High Tide but I could still bang the crutch on the floor in time with the music. There were a few bands I didn’t see much of because I was too busy making out with some girl against the back wall, which is what it was all about.

Some bands were so crap I actually walked out. America was one of those. I thought, ‘How many more times can I hear that chord change, that really sicky sounding major seventh. I also walked out on Amon Duul. I thought they were just a bit too fucking Duul. Went and got some chips I recall.

The Beatles and The Stones played there in the 60s. I’m told The Beatles got booed off. “Get back up to Liverpool you Northern bastards!” There was a big north-south divide then. I know an old fellow who painted posters in there, because I used to work in there as a sign painter, and he said he was working late there one night while this show was going on, and two of The Beatles were in tears. He had to make them all cups of tea and say, ‘Never mind, lads, you’ll make it one day…”
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, January 2008)