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| Richard Jobson at Fire Station Arts Creative, Dunfermline photographed by Paul Slattery |
Rock Photographer Paul Slattery was so blown away by seeing
The Skids in Southampton during their 40th Anniversary Tour that he trekked up to Dunfermline to catch the last night of the tour in their home-town. While he was there he met up with Richard Jobson to visit the "Scared To Dance" exhibition (which includes some of Paul's excellent early Skids prints) and to re-trace their steps some 38 years on from his first Scottish photo-session with the band. Over to you Paul: "On a warm night in April 1978 I went to see
The Skids for the second time at The Red Cow in Hammersmith. Just a week before I’d been impressed with this band at the nearby Nashville and on this particularly hot night The Skids, stripped to the waist, gave it everything a band possibly could. The guitarist was an ace and the front-man threw himself around like no-one I’d seen before. I liked them a lot and a year later, just soon after they signed to Virgin Records, I photographed them in Dunfermline and in North Queensferry by the Forth Bridge. One of the photographs was used on the front cover of Sounds magazine in March 1979 with "Skid Row" on the cover.
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| The Skids, Glen Pavilion Dunfermline photographed by Paul Slattery |
Just thirty eight years later here I am down the front of a Skids gig again in Dunfermline! I’d finally seen the reformed band in Southampton (photos on the Blog
here) the previous week and was so blown away that I decided to come up to Dunfermline and see their home-town gig. It was like the wheel had turned full circle. During the afternoon walking through the town I spotted many Skids fans who were not only from all over the country but all over Europe as well. They have an unbelievably dedicated fan-base and they paid back that dedication in spades by paying a truly stupendous gig at the Glen Pavilion here. The musicianship, the charisma, the passion and the energy is all there,
The Skids have so many great songs to choose from and the set list just a dream. Read Steve’s report in the blog from the Roundhouse gig
here and you’ll get the picture.
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| Richard Jobson, Glen Pavilion Dunfermline photographed by Paul Slattery |
This was a great night to remember and a truly remarkable performance from a band who had only recently got back together.
The next morning I met Richard Robson at The Fire Station Creative where I had Skids photographs on display in the
"Scared To Dance" exhibition curated by himself and Ronnie Gurr. We chatted over a coffee in between Richard signing things for fans and went for a walk round the town retracing the steps I had taken with the Skids back in 1979. There were still loads of Skids fans in town and Richard spent a good part of our walk chatting to them and doing more signing. The landmarks were still there but of course health and safety prevented us from climbing into the Abbey as the band had done 38 years before!
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| Richard Jobson photographed in Dunfermline, 2017 by Paul Slattery |
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| The Skids photographed in Dunfermline, 1979 by Paul Slattery |
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| Richard Jobson photographed in Dunfermline, 2017 by Paul Slattery |
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| The Skids photographed in Dunfermline, 1979 by Paul Slattery |
There’s a huge buzz about the band at the moment, they will be playing more gigs this year and have already pencilled in dates for next year. Go and see them! Here are some of the new and old photos together, all the old ones can be found in my new book "Scared To Dance – The Skids 1979/80" published by
Hanging Around books and available to buy from
here."
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| The Skids, Glen Pavilion Dunfermline photographed by Paul Slattery |
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| The Crowd at Glen Pavilion Dunfermline photographed by Paul Slattery |
Paul talks more about his experiences with The Skids and picks a couple of his favourite tracks in our brand new
Episode 27 of
Retrosonic Podcast, you can listen/download for free below:
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