Slade, Manchester Apollo, 30 March 1982
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In the early 70’s Slade had been the most popular band in the UK charts. They were the first act to have three singles entering the chart at number 1, and recorded six no. 1s in total. They had been a mainstay of the Glam Rock era. During the late 70s they had made an unsuccessful venture in the USA, hoping to make it over there. That meant they were much less visible in the UK, and their status declined as Glam Rock passed its sell-by date, and the Thatcher government with its attacks on the unions helped inspire the punk revolution. By 1982 even punk was on its way out. The New Romantics were about to take over (and in turn they would make way for boy and girl bands).
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Slade remained popular with their die-hard fans. A wider audience was attracted with their new album and Merry Christmas Everybody had already become a mainstay at many Xmas events. They had also acquired a bit of a metal following after an appearance at the Reading Festival in 1980 (as a late replacement for Ozzy Osborne). Slade were typically playing student halls, and I had already seen them in February 1980 at Manchester University. I had also seen them in their Santa outfits when they played in December 1980 at a nightclub called Rotters (now long gone) which was just up Oxford Road from the University.
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In 1981 they managed to regain some traction with the release of “We’ll Bring the House Down” allowing them to fill some of the larger venues. In Manchester that was the Apollo – capacity was still only a few thousand with the fixed theatre seats remaining in place. This was a sell-out on the back of the recently issued “Till Deaf Do Us Part” album and the top 30 single “Lock Up Your Daughters”. Although the 1983 single “My Oh My” reached number 2 in the UK charts Slade would never repeat the success of the early 1970s, but remained in the public eye as much as a result of the regular Christmas re-release of their most famous song.
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Searches of attendees were frequently carried out at the Apollo, but I managed to get through without an issue. The lens was small and I would often hide the body of the camera behind my back. My recollection of the Apollo was there was a tendency for concert-goers to try and smuggle cans of beer in, with the risk of the cans being used as weapons against unpopular support acts. I don’t think they minded the alcohol per se – it’s just they wanted people to get drunk at their expense rather than bringing their own stuff into the venue. Hence the searches were more to do with trying to find any stashes of alcohol, or preventing anyone who was perhaps a little too much under the influence getting into the theatre. Either way, the bouncers employed on the doors were not the types to be messed with.
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This was very much an experiment – I was not particularly near the stage and only brought colour film with me leaving little flexibility over exposure and an uncertainty over how the pictures would come out. In those days I had no real experience of photography beyond a Polaroid I had used as a teenager, and it was only later that I started appreciating the additional flexibility afforded B&W and positives/slides. I dropped these negatives into the local photo processors for development and although the stage lighting resulted in a number of shots being overexposed, some came out remarkably well, and indeed suitable for enlargement. I used flash for some of the shots, but it became apparent after they were developed that it was not necessary, and equally could result in a lot of heads from the audience dominating the photo. The other problem with flash is it risked drawing the attention of security staff and I was to not bother with it on future concert excursions.
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