Thursday, November 10, 2011

XTC!

XTC were the first band I'd ever seen live (April 11, 1981 at the Capitol Theater in Passiac, New Jersey with Joan Jett and The Blackhearts and Jools Holland and His Millionaires).  I wish I had photos of it, but I don't, my friend Rudie took hundreds of pics, but neither he, nor his photos are with us today.  Can any one out there oblige me with some photos?  Their set was mostly material from "Black Sea" as well as favorites from "White Music", "Go 2" and "Drums and Wires" as well as a few previews of tracks that would be on "English Settlement" and they tore it up.  Andy Partridge was wearing a white ruffled shirt and a gray jacket that resembled something a Civil War officer would've worn, every time he sang it looked like his head was about to explode as his face turned bright red as he bellowed all the numbers out like a man on a mission.  The following year we were set to see them again and Andy got "stage fright", which nobody, myself included, who'd ever seen them play bought for one minute.

2 comments:

diskojoe said...

I have a copy of the concert they did for German TV in 1982 & Andy looked pretty intense throughout it, like an angry clown.

So what are your fave rave XTC albums? Are the post-touring albums (Skylarking) among them?

23 Daves said...

An astounding band, you are a man of incredible taste, sir!

I've uploaded a number of their music videos on to YouTube - the promo video never seemed to be their strength, but at least they're the few visual documents we have.