What a great little band they were, the van, the clubs and so much spitting........ I don't know how they did it, but they did.
Midge Ure, Glen Matlock, Rusty Egan and Steve New. We all had a blast while it lasted.
On the first tour at the beginning of this year, 1978, I do not have the itinerary from January for some reason so the scans are from my diary
February and October itineraries are in the gallery below though.
The first few dates were an eye opener for me. It was gross, there are no other words for it. The band were playing for the most part to a punk audience, and the revolting part about having a punk audience was that they spat at the band. I could not believe it. I don't think the band could believe it either, and pretty much from the beginning of the shows, Midge would ask them not to spit. But what a combination of players we had with this band, Midge out of a boy band 'Slik' from Scotland, and Glen from THE punk band of the era, 'The Sex Pistols'.
Anyway, after the first couple of shows we were in Birmingham playing the dive that was Barbarella's, a small club in the centre of town, everyone played it on their way up, we were playing it two nights running. I'm not sure which night it was but half way through the set Glen just launched himself off the stage aiming a well deserved punch at a kid that would not stop spitting. The whole scene became a mini riot and we retreated to the dressing rooms whilst the club security tried to calm things down.
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Thanks to Melanie Smith for the picture of Steve New above. Check out more from Mel at www.mudkissphotography.co.uk
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I remember a phone call at my mother's home in Oxford on the 1st or 2nd of January. It was from Pete Walmesley, and he asked me if I was doing anything as he needed a tour manager for a band he was managing called The Rich Kids. I can't remember why they hadn't already got someone lined up but it was real last minute.
The first show was to be in 7 days time in Glasgow. I said OK and sped up to London the next day to meet the band and get started. I went to a studio, I don't recall which one, where the band were with their producer Mick Ronson, finishing off the album gHOSTS oF pRINCES iN tOWERS
I don't know where the first half of the itinerary has got to, but I've scanned my diary for January and you can see it's all names and phone numbers, that's how you tour managed in those days, by phone or in person.
Young Master Jones
It was toward the end of January that Mick Jones popped up for a hang with the band and I can't exactly pinpoint the days. Mick got on particularly well with Steve and the two of them would be rolling spliffs and drinking cocktails until one or other or both of them fell over!!! It was very funny. Anyway, one night turned into several days as in the morning Mick piled into the van with the rest of us and ended up on tour with us for about a week I think.
I'll never forget coming down one morning and finding them both in the bar, like 11am, and Steve and Mick were drinking 'rattlesnakes', it was a cocktail with at least three different spirits in it.
In Newcastle things got a little out of hand, and I've got to say I was very close to getting badly beaten up. The crowd was heaving at the Mayfair Ballrooms. It was a mix of punk and post punk with a lot of alcohol adding to the scene. The show started off with the usual spitting but soon turned into a throwing match, as plastic half and pint glasses came whizzing on stage. The crowd was so large that the security did not have the situation under control and I saw two culprits on the balcony throwing one after another half empty glasses toward the band. I ran up there and grabbed a couple of kids, then security came to my rescue as I began to lose control of the situation.
Anyway things got worse, Midge got cut by a flying glass and I ended up taking him to A and E in Newcastle after the show for a couple of stitches in the head. Midge was very calm about the whole thing, very calm.
A few days later, on our arrival in Doncaster, I found out a little more of what had been going on in Sheffield after the gig the night before. The police showed up at our Doncaster hotel, but they were from Sheffield. The Sheffield hotel had reported us to the police in regard to a broken cigarette machine they'd found empty the morning after the show. I calmly but boldly told the officers I knew nothing of such an incident and what did they want to do about it? Nothing was done, as they really didn't have any evidence against anyone, but it could have been different....
Towards the end of the tour I was asked to go and see Lawrence Myers in Regent Street by, I believe, Ian Wright of MAM. Ian was setting up a tour of Europe for the band 'Sailor', who had been a support act a couple of years earlier to Cockney Rebel, so I knew them all. John had recommended me to their management to tour manage the tour. What a difference it was to the Rich Kids punk scene!!!!
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We leap ahead in 1978 to the second tour I did with the Rich Kids. It was to be their last real tour and I've put it on this page even though the date sheets are not now running in date order so to speak.
Looking at my datesheet I just want to point out that here in October, I went to visit Lindsay Brown at his offices in Derby Street, Mayfair. Very posh address. Lindsay was a partner in Rock Exchange with David Walker, which was a management and agency outfit managing Barclay James Harvest amongst other acts. Here I also met for the first time Simon Renshaw, who became, along with Lindsay, a life long friend.
So Rock Exchange was going to be the promoter for the first and only Kate Bush Tour. I'd been approached by Hillary Walker, ex EMI, to be the tour manager and I went to have a chat with Lindsay about the whole thing, before it started in earnest early 1979. As I recall the shows had already gone on sale. I seem to remember Lindsay telling me that it had sold out with virtually NO advertising whatsoever. A promoters dream.....
