Saturday, 21 February, 1981 – Brady’s, Liverpool, England 

  1. W.M.C. -Blob 59
  2. Lie Dream of a Casino Soul
  3. Totally Wired
  4. An Older Lover etc
  5. Cary Grant’s Wedding
  6. Prole Art Threat
  7. New Face in Hell
  8. Middle Mass
  9. The Container Drivers
  10. Leave the Capital
  11. Jawbone and the Air Rifle
  12. Winter
  13. Slates, Slags, etc.
  14. English Scheme
  15. Fit and Working Again
  16. Fiery Jack

NOTES

A very clear audience recording in most parts. A nice “club” feel to the sound albeit a tad bass heavy in places.

It opens with a mutant “Blob 59/proto Lie Dream” reading.

There is some feedback on “Older Lover”.

“Alright don’t let shabby newspapers come between us” introduces one of the few known outings of the prog-tastic “Cary Grants Wedding” and features one of the first known hearing of the conceptually continuous “Wolverines'” that pepper Mr Smiths utterings over the years. An excellent reading.

Some serious tuning problems feature in “New Face” with a meandering guitar noodling section at the beginning as Craig tries manfully to get his instrument in some sort of tandem with the rest of the band. He fails and the version is seriously sans-guitar and has overblown bass until the kazoo kicks in and then it all seems to right itself.

There is a period of intense tuning after this. Mark indicates that the band have been “contriving a break”. A very dense version of “Middle Mass” follows with some minor sound problems caused by the bass notes of the keyboard. Marc Riley eventually gives up on the keyboards complaining that they are out of tune.

More guitar problems beset a hiccup start to “The Container Drivers”.

Unfortunately the rest of the gig is missing after “Leave the Capitol” on my version so I cannot comment any further at this stage.