The first song I really got into by The Close Lobsters was ‘Never Seen Before’. A cracking 7″ single released on Fire Records in 1987, just before this Buzz Club show and the reason we booked them.
I was aware of them as they were on the original N.M.E. C-86 tape with ‘Fire Station Towers’ the year before. We were starting to book lots of C-86 bands to play in Aldershot now. We’d already had The June Brides, The Chesterfields, Mighty Mighty and The Mighty Lemon Drops. Danny and I had started The Buzz Club originally so we could see (and support) bands we were curious about. Now, there was a real scene, with bands from Bristol, London, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The Close Lobsters were one of the Scottish ones, somehow Scottish guitars jangled in their own fantastic way.
I was working at Our Price Records – I think actually in the Aldershot branch for this gig. It was very handy as it meant I could put the fliers on the counter and chat to customers about the gigs we had coming up at The West End Centre. Here’s the flier I made, using Letraset and the photocopy shop across the Green in Frimley Green.
Thanks to Tim Paton for this live shot, taken on the night.
This is another of the gigs Philip Hutchinson found photos and live cassette recordings in his garden shed in 2018. Here are his previously unseen photos of The Close Lobsters at The Buzz Club.
(Thanks to Justin Thomas for tidying the photos up a little for me.)
Plus the set list and letter from the band after Hutch sent them a tape of the gig –
Here is the actual gig, as recorded by Philip including the sound check on cassette, recorded on his hand held Sony Walkman.
‘Hello we’re called U2 and this is ‘With or Without You’!
ITTLG 