NO: 07 DEC 1985 Thames Hall, Slough

 

Setlist

State Of The Nation, Blue Monday, The Village, Subculture,This Time Of Night, Thieves Like Us, Confusion, Broken Promise, Ceremony, Temptation, She's Lost Control, The Perfect Kiss

Quando Quango opened.

Source is CD from Solitude. Sound is outstanding, with Bernard's guitar being especially noteworthy.

Original listing has Subculture fourth, followed by TTON, but on the source I have, it's TTON and then Subculture, so I have corrected the tracklist accordingly.

Starts with 'Funeral For A Viking', which can be heard only on a newly-surfaced audience version.

State Of The Nation

Fade-in, first few bars cut (SBD).

BS: "Eddie..." (AUD only)

BS: "Thank you very much."

Blue Monday opens with Hooky's bass.

The Village

BS: "Thanks a lot. This is called "A Village". (yes, he says 'A', not 'The')

An amazing rendition.

BS: "Eddie, can I have more light when I'm playing the guitar please? I can't see what I'm playing."

PH: "You leave my mic stand alone, bigmouth!"

Sub-culture

Hooky coughs at the very end. Inexplicably the soundboard version has this and the next song in reverse order.

This Time Of Night

Hooky's backing vocal levels get turned way up during the first verse.

BS: "Eddie, more drum machine. Eddie! Drum machine! Oh... Please be quiet, we're trying to concentrate."

It does little good to quiet the rabble down.

Thieves_Like Us

Cowbell at 0:45 or thereabouts.

Instead of "I've lived my life on alcohol", Barney sings "in shadows", repeating the previous line.

Barney mistakenly comes in early for the "love is found" part, but shuts up and waits for the proper point to come in.

BS: "Thank you very much. Thanks very much indeed. When we...I retire, I'm gonna move to Slough, we love you all so much."

Confusion

Guitar strumming and feedback before this commences.

Barney sings, "You just won't believe me...baby!"

At the end, Hooky's still dealing with a particularly nettlesome punter. The audience version has an edit at this point.

PH: "You have got a fucking big mouth. You really have." Barney then laughs.

PH: "So, like, cunt-face, you paid to get in, you take your choice."

Weirdo

Some very interesting lyrical variations, I don't think its lyrics are nailed down.

"We're as happy as our drunken hearts."

"I know you and you know me
And we're as loose as we can be
We're as loose as an open wind
We're as loose as a guitar string"

And, of course, "just like a fucking lock without a key".

Barney strums his guitar in between this and the next song.

PH: "Oh, that's not a very nice thing to say, is it?" Feedback.

(edit in SBD version)

Ceremony

Ends in Barney scraping his guitar strings. Stellar version.

(edit in SBD version)

Temptation

Another really good performance.

BS: "Thank you, good night". Hooky finishes it off with a bass solo.

Audience tape has a snippet of the PA backing music, a funky number with female vocals.

Of course, the band come back for a couple of encores.

She's Lost Control

BS: "Just to prove we love you all..."

(this is missing from the CD copy, might have not made it to that source, or isn't in my transcription)

A punter then excitedly exclaims, "She's Lost Control!" and cheers erupt around. In my opinion this is a great version of the JD classic.

BS: "Thank you very much. I really do hope you all enjoy yourselves as much as we have, because, for once in our lives we are enjoying ourselves. Why, I thank you so much."

The Perfect Kiss

Barney busts out with a very early guitar solo (at 1:00).

BS: "Thanks a lot, good night!" The female sample then moans, as the SBD tape cuts off. The AUD tape continues a bit longer before concluding, and someone asks if they're going to come back out.

Utterly bizarre a copy of the SBD also appears on the The New York Jets NFL Game Film Library ...the maintainer is from Slough, it seems.

Versions

SBD #1ANA0.  From the "box of tapes".
AUD #1AUD/xST, "Big Al" tape.   Lots of female chatter during the first couple of tracks.  A/B flip between Confusion and Weirdo.  'Big Al' tape has Weirdo mis-labelled as 'Broken Promises'.  Voice in left hand channel calling out 'She's Lost Control' once that song starts.
AUD #2ANA2From TMK.  This source is different than the common variant,  as the start of SLC *doesn't* have the taper blurt out the name of the song.  Also a bit more bass-heavy.  A/B flip between Confusion and Weirdo here as well.
AUDSony WM-D6ANA1SebD and JoB tradelist, could be lineaged AUD #1

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