I suppose if it is bands I went to see, then probably saw a few before that. Certainly remember lots of fiddle players in Shetland, seeing as the Shetland Fiddlers used to practise in our hotel.

I was bouncing on Aly Bain's knee while he played one time.

I suppose maybe Johnny Fatts Blues Band or some such concoction was a band I chose to actually go and watch.

It is all a blur really, the perils of under age drinking . . .

I remember heading to Inverness many a time to catch the likes of Jethro Tull, The Smiths, Run Rig (eughhhhh), Roy Harper, and further south to Edinburgh to see The Stranglers and into England to see The Clash, The Exploited,Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Groundhogs and so many others. Often I did not have the money to get home, nor to find a bed for the night and slept rough. It is hard to remember being so passionate about seeing your idols.

Then when I was the grand age of sixteen I started going to the festivals. (On the back of a massive campaign to raise funds, aided in no small measure by 'happening upon' a loose door on the back of a newsagent's van wherein one found hordes of adult comics . . . sold to the young Dounreay apprentices.) Off to see the world I was, well to a few festivals at least.

The Damned, Alvin Lee, The Band, Van Morrison, AC/DC, Van Halen . . . too many to mention all taken in with plenty of warm beer and other warming substances, and welcomed into the loving arms of the Peace Convoy I resolved never to return to the North.

So I was a few weeks late back to school that summer.