Welcome to the latest Squire newsletter on this special weekend - its May Bank Holiday which means its time for another Mods Mayday!
It seems like Squire have been invited to play every Mods Mayday ever! From being the first band on stage on 7th May 1979 at the original event, to headlining the 20th Anniversary in 1999, the 30th Anniversary in 2009, and the more recent annual events in London, we are there!
Its fun to look back on various years and see what other bands are playing and how we are flipping the set list to catch the audience by surprise! The opening number is always a ‘statement of intent’, and defines the energy of the set! We try and configure the Mods Mayday set list to reference the actual original event, and have on various dates, including the 30th Anniversary Mods Mayday event in Birmingham in 2009, actually played the original 1979 six song set in the exact same order we played on that fateful day!
Every song we played on stage at the Bridge House on 7th May 1979 was recorded and three were released on the Bridge House album, Walking Down The Kings Road, Live Without Her Love and B-A-B-Y Baby Love. The other three eventually surfaced on the extended edition which then included all six songs, adding I’ve Got You On My Mind, Its A Mod Mod World and The Face Of Youth Today. Its always fascinating to see how many of Squires key early songs were performed on that date.
The 30th Anniversary event is a particular favourite! We even created a special 30th Anniversary edition of The Fan Club vinyl album for the gig - 30 numbered copies using the original rubber stamps in a commemorative red and blue colour!
The number of bands playing was ambitious, to say the least! Yet we all managed to get on stage and the event ended on time! Held over three days at The Sound Bar in Birmingham, I recall it was so successful that we were asked to play the same event the following year!
What is always exciting is waiting to be introduced on stage. When the band eventually get on stage and make sure everything is ready, there’s always a buzz of anticipation and nervousness, and an uncertainty of whether we will be introduced formally, or just fire up! You just never know what the promoter has in mind, or what they’re going to say - but it all adds to the excitement of the event and you just want to get going and make sure everything is working and you can hear everything in the monitors as well as possible.
So it was at the Birmingham gig, and as headliners, we went on last to an exhausted audience who had already enjoyed three days worth of bands. It looks like we were introduced by Paul Hooper-Keeley from The Threads and his various projects! We found a video of the entire concert! And would like to share a clip of the intro and first song - we steam into B-A-B-Y Baby Love and the energy is blinding - a really fast version!
I can see I’m still playing the now incredibly rare Rickenbacker 325 3/4 sized guitar, the same guitar I used on all the early 1978, 1979 & 1980 dates, and Mods Mayday 1999. I continued to use it live on stage right up to late 2015, when it was replaced on stage with a larger Rickenbacker 330. Here is the newer Rickenbacker at the 2016 Mods Mayday concert at the 100 Club in London!
Enjoy the clip and if we don't see you on Sunday at the London Mods Mayday, we’re on at 8.10 pm, we’ll tell you all about it next week!
All the best from Squire