You Can Go Your Own Way.

My Twitter friend @abigvictory made me revive my “blog”.

I’ve to tell you all about my first concert experience.

Summer ’78 Loch Lomond, north of Glasgow. Me. 16. Fleetwood Mac. Rumors.

“Go Your Own Way” was rockin’ the charts and I still remember vividly things I was doing, where I was going that summer when I hear the song. My best friend bought Rumors first and we’d listen to it at his parents house and look at the exotic pictures, inside the album cover, guys wearing shorts in a sunny place.

Fleetwood Mac came to Glasgow. The Glasgow Apollo. My weekend home for the next five years.

Status Quo recorded “Live!” at the Apollo in ’76. Almost every act who played the Apollo would say we were the hardest audience to crack. Almost every act would say it was the best place in the World to play. 

Fleetwood Mac, Rumors tour, Glasgow Apollo, summer ’78. My first concert.

I’ve not listened to Fleetwood Mac for years but everyone knows Rumors was one of those seminal albums and I don’t mean the related to semen meaning of that word. It defined West Coast Rock AOR MOR whatevah. It stands today as the pace setter for many acts that followed.

Things I remember about the concert.

1. Stevie Nicks falling over at the side of the stage.

2. Lindsay Buckingham shaking his curly locks during guitar breaks.

3. John McVie’s big ass acoustic bass.

More than anything else I remember this being my first visit to the Glasgow Apollo. In the next few years I would see the “best light shows” hear the “loudest sound systems” and sneak in fire exits to see Queen, Tangerine Dream and Thin Lizzy. Saturday afternoons we’d get the train to Glasgow to buy albums in Listen and buy tickets at the Apollo. We’d go into the auditorium, onto the stage, air guitar and wave to the “crowd”.

I’ve got so many memories of the Apollo I might share here but for now, this was my first.