The Tubes – Newcastle City Hall 13th May 1979

We’d see the Tubes at Knebworth the previous year headlining alongside Frank Zappa and Peter Gabriel. It had been a massive show with a Cadillac  driving onto the stage among other stunts. So when they came to the City Hall we wanted to go and see them again. I don’t remember a lot aboutthe show except that I don’t think it was as extreme as the Knebworth show – a motorbike replaced the Cadillac and if I recall correctly the encores lasted almost as long as the main part of the show! i think they played 55 minutes and then did 45 minutes of encores.

A few years later when the keyboard player Vince Welnick joined the Grateful Dead I dug out the programme to see if he had been a member of the band when I saw them – he had! I was amazed to find that the programme had been autographed by the band but I had no memory of meeting them. After a while of racking my brains it came to me – the band came out of the stage door and sat on the bus. We then had to pass whatever we wanted signing to the road manager who handed it to the first member of the band who then passed it on till they had all signed it! Strange!

I’ll dig it out some day and scan it in!

Set list from the day before in Edinburgh:

Getoverture
Turn Me On
TV Is King
Prime Time
Don’t Touch Me There
No Mercy
Smoke (La vie en fumer)
Only The Strong Survive
I Want It All Now
What Do You Want From Life
No Way Out
Telecide
Love’s a Mystery (I Don’t Understand)
Tubes World Tour / Drum solo
Train Kept a Rollin’ / Stand Up and Shout / Shout / Stand Up and Shout
White Punk Blues / White Punks On Dope
Baba O’Reilly / The Kids Are Alright

One Reply to “The Tubes – Newcastle City Hall 13th May 1979”

  1. Great gig. Threw bars of chocolate into crowd and me and my mate fought to get one. We had already bought the what do you want from live album. It was a great night. Loved it

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *