Happy 90th birthday Edinburgh Playhouse.
It is still one of my favourite venues - a place packed with memories of great gigs and incredible live shows.
The Playhouse Theatre seems to have been surrounded by never-ending roadworks in recent years.
It ought to be the focal point of the area - a landmark building which draws huge crowds night after night. Let’s hope the grand old lady of Greenside Place is afforded that status when the fences come down and the endless redevelopment work is finally done.
As a teenager, it was almost my second home as it hosted pretty much every single touring rock band.
In the early 1980s I saw everyone from Jethro Tull to Iron Maiden, The Rolling Stones, Mike Oldfield, Sammy Hagar, The Who, Gillan, Ozzy Osbourne and Peter Gabriel, hit the stage.
There were back to back gigs featuring Whitesnake - the first saw me pinned to the front of the stage with my head next to a stack of speakers. Couldn’t hear properly for days.
The second saw me buy a ticket off a tout for the very first time, and see the same gig from the Gods high up in the balcony.
Back then, my dad stayed in the row of houses right opposite the stage door. Bands used to soak up so much power his TV would flicker on and off, so we got the occasional free tickets by way of an apology, and even got a backstage tour.
I can still recall standing on the vast, empty stage looking out on the rows of empty seats which climbed higher and higher from the stalls to the circle and up to the balcony.
I can remember standing in the very back row for AC/DC’s gig on their ‘For Those About To Rock’ tour which saw them fire a cannon on stage. The impact still sent me backwards.
After leaving school I got a part-time job as an usher at the Playhouse.
I worked the circle - the door next to the bar - checking tickets and showing folk to their seats, as well as getting to see the gigs for free.
That was great when bands such as Madness made the circle actually bounce as everyone danced, and big names such as OMD and the Human League came to town.
The downside was three nights of Cliff Richard where he broke a guitar string at the exact same point in each set and cracked the very same joke, not to mention back to back gigs by The Corries complete with a kilted fan who thought he'd try to stand on the ledge at the front of the circle to wave his flag. He was quickly huckled back to terra firma...
Then there was Sheena Easton at the height of her fame. The house was packed with young fans, including a wee girl sat in the front row of the circle who took a pic on an old-style Instamatic camera. Her mean-spirited management instructed me clamber along the row and confiscate it - as if any snap taken on an old Instamatic would have even come out in focus.
And, after wee Sheena skipped off stage along came the Grateful Dead for a marathon four-hour set. We got off lightly - they were known to play for up to seven hours.
The smell of weed in the bar was overpowering, and, as the gig began I was asked to help a guy to his seat. He was stoned into unconsciousness, but his mate insisted he had “to see the Dead, man.” Four hours later he skipped out of the venue declaring it the greatest gig he’d even seen.
All I can recall about it was going for my break at the start of a twin drum solo. I returned 40 minutes later. The drummers were still pounding their kits.
But the job, and the venue, also changed my life. It introduced me to Bruce Springsteen.
I can still recall watching his soundcheck through the square windows at the back of the stalls - legend has it he warmed up for several hours - and the boom of Clarence Clemons’ sax solo sending back back into my seat.
Afterwards, we scuttled back round to my dad’s house. The lane was sealed off, but we were able to stand in his garage directly opposite the stage door and watch Springsteen, Federici, Miami Steve, Clatence and the mighty Max Weinberg and company departing with towels around their necks.
I still regret not stowing away and forging a new life on E Street. Reckon I could have built on the three chords I knew on the guitar …
There was a postscript. Almost 30 years later I wrote a column about that gig, and a fellow fan sent me an MP3 file recorded direct from the mixing desk. A sheer joy to relive a gig that sparked a lifelong love of Springsteen's music - and that column ended up making an anthology of Bruce gig reviews which was published last year.
The Playhouse has long since stopped hosting rock bands and moved into the world of west end musicals and touring theatre shows, thus denying Edinburgh a brilliant live music venue, bit it still retains its old magic.
Watching Victoria Wood live on stage was an absolute thrill, while Derren Brown just scrambled my brains with his astounding live show, and The Lion King was a visual delight if not a heck of a long show!
So, here’s to the next 90 years of entertainment. May the sound of laughter and applause continue to roll from the back of the balcony all the way to the stage for another 90 years ...
Comments
Post a Comment