During the halcyon days of 1979 and 1980 The Skids had arrived at a special place as a live band. For me it was what we were all about, the rush, the energy, the audience, the sound of Stuart Adamson's guitar and the two of us flying through the air on stage passing each other mid-flight, smiling with joy. This was what we had dreamed of becoming; a band who could do it live in front a big crowd.
From the opening bars of Circus Games Adamson was capable of creating an electric tension. The music was waiting to burst open, fill the room with an overwhelming sense of being alive. He was in my opinion one of the greats to come from the punk and post punk period and the ghost of him on this recording is evident on every burst from his Yamaha
guitar which created his beautiful uplifting sound.
Our friendship by the time of the last tour was finished, we had gone separate ways; He chose to stick to what he was best at song-writing and being a musician, I was on a journey of
self-discovery which was taking me further and further away from our roots.
We never ever talked about our point of departure, why it happened and why we did nothing to stop it. It seemed natural and part of our evolution as people that we would both move on to do different things. But when it came to playing live, we were as one, totally tuned into what the other would do and captivated by the sheer raw power of what we did each evening.
I loved playing live, hated the studio, and considered myself to be a limited musician but give me a stage and I could dance a Kung Fu ballet all night long. We played with our hearts on stage. Stuart had talent, bags of it, he was a special man, we were only ever equals when the lights went up and we crashed, thrashed, bashed and on occasion elegantly pushed ourselves to a dizzy height.
These live recordings capture us when in our world the only thing that mattered was making peoples hearts pump with joy.
Richard Jobson — September 2006 |