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Stuart Adamson / The Skids / Big Country

skankdelvar

By skankdelvar,
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Frank Blank Grand Master

Frank Blank

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5 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

Remembering Stuart Adamson (Big Country). A good man with his share of demons. Born this day in 1958, gone these 20-odd years.

 

port_sa.jpg
 


I don’t dig a lot of guitarists but he was a great player. I disliked Big County deeply but loved The Skids. 

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skankdelvar Grand Master

skankdelvar

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1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

Big Country were an amazing band

 

Indeed so. They matured beyond the bagpipe guitar thing and knocked out some amazing songs. For a brief time they were spoken of in the same breath as U2 and IMO they were the better band. Nicely enough, the Edge paid great tribute to his friend Adamson and donated a guitar to a fundraiser for Adamson's family.
 

Edited by skankdelvar
clarification
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dmccombe7 Grand Master

dmccombe7

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49 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

 

Indeed so. They matured beyond the bagpipe guitar thing and knocked out some amazing songs. For a brief while they were spoken of in the same breath as U2 and IMO they were the better band. Nicely enough, the Edge paid great tribute to his friend Adamson and donated a guitar to a fundraiser for Adamson's family.

I'd agree with that. They were producing some fantastic songs and i believe the Edge made a comment that he wished U2 could produce songs like Big Country.

Had things not taken a bad turn i quite believe they would have taken over the mantLE from U2. Just a personal opinion of course.

My punk band plays Into the Valley which is also an amazingly powerful song. With a drop D on the E string it may well have been one of the early songs to have that AFAIK. Think that was back in late 70's.

Dave

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Velarian Grand Master

Velarian

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7 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Big Country were an amazing band. Saw them support Bowie at Sunderland in 80's think it was Glass Spider tour and they were better than Bowie. Fantastic live band, so much power and energy.

Sad 

Dave

I saw them at Reading festival in 1983. The Stranglers were headlining and BC were on just before them. They blew the Stranglers away IMHO and I’m a Stranglers fan!

 

I saw them again a good few years later in a side tent at the Heineken festival in Leeds and I can honestly say it was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. The band were really enjoying themselves and they just kept going, encore after encore. Brilliant. 

Edited by Velarian
Turns out it was 1983 not 81.
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jezzaboy Veteran

jezzaboy

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I did a deal years ago with @lawriemacmillan and he played with Stuart if I remember right. The guy was a great writer, guitarist and singer in the Skids and Big country. I still love the first BC album The Crossing. Sadly his personal demons got the better of him :(

Edited by jezzaboy
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Rich Grand Master

Rich

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1 hour ago, skankdelvar said:

They matured beyond the bagpipe guitar thing and knocked out some amazing songs. For a brief time they were spoken of in the same breath as U2 and IMO they were the better band. 
 

Agreed wholeheartedly on all counts. I loved Big Country and SA's untimely passing was a tragedy on many levels. A solemn reminder of the need to talk, to ask "are you ok?", to listen.

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NancyJohnson Grand Master

NancyJohnson

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19 hours ago, skankdelvar said:

Remembering Stuart Adamson (Big Country). A good man with his share of demons. Born this day in 1958, gone these 20-odd years.

 

port_sa.jpg
 

 

In 1983, when I were just a mere slip of a lad, me and my good lady saw Big Country, The Alarm and Yip Yip Coyote at the Lyceum.  So taken with the band, me and a mate decided we should catch them a few months later and decided that (for logistical reasons) we should fly to Jersey and see them in the Fort Regent Centre.  My brother (and my mate's dad) both worked for British Airways, so flights were arranged.  We'd procured tickets through my mate's channel Island office and found two days board in what could best be described as a house straight out of The Munsters in Pontac. 

 

Gig day we pulled on our Big Country shirts, thumbed a lift to St Helier and got picked up by a very drunk man driving a Lord's Taverners Fun Bus.  We arrived at the venue around midday, found a bar, had some lunch at which point Big Country just sauntered in.  I doubt any of the punters in there knew who they were, but they saw us and just sat down with us.  We had a couple of pints, discovered Mark Brzezicki knew my brother, that Tony Butler lived a couple of doors away from a friend of mine in Sandhurst and that Stuart was amazed and appreciative that we'd flown over for the gig from London.  They invited us in for the soundcheck.  We just hung around with them until 7.00pm.

 

Post gig, we went back to Chez Munsters and were back at the airport about 7.00am for the flight back and in they strolled, saw us and just started cheering and greeting us like old friends.  Stuart bought me a roll of film for my camera as I was out of money.  We were on standby, so had to wait for seats on the plane, we got called at the last minute, got on the plane and they're cheering us on (again).  

 

I met Stuart a couple of times after and he remembered the whole thing.  He was a lovely, lovely bloke.  I miss him.  He shouldn't have gone like that.

 

[Edit] Just wanted to add something for context here.  We (me, my best mate and my wife) were all mahoosive Skids fans and remember that The Crossing hadn't even been released when we did the Jersey trip.  Obviously, it was an absolute joy to be two young blokes standing in the middle of the venue watching them soundcheck for an hour, it was like a private gig.  (Later in the same year, I recall an occasion where me and my mate experienced something akin to absolute joy at hearing 'In A Big Country' on the radio for the first time.  We were in my old Datsun 120Y coupe, driving to rehearsal down The Causeway, approaching Staines Bridge.  I haven't experienced such delight since.  The excitement when it came on - and the silence that descended while we listened - was just fantastic.)

 

I can recall Stuart saying he'd bought a watch for £2.99 and kept showing it to us.  'Two, ninety nine!'. 

 

Also Kenny Dalglish (and family) was at the gig and on the same flight home.  He saw us in our Country shirts and got a bit animated; I couldn't understand a word he said.

 

Worryingly (I suppose), the drinking thing was evident with Stuart at the airport on the way back.  He was knocking back shorts at 7.00am in the morning.  :(

 

Edited by NancyJohnson
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skankdelvar Grand Master

skankdelvar

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When I started this over on the RIP thread I didn't know that Stuart's daughter Kirsten has today (11/4/22) released a cover of her dad's song Peace In Our Time. This is in support of the charity War Child which "works directly with children who are living through conflicts, offering them safe spaces and delivering life-changing services and support".

 

Vocal performers include Karen Matheson (Capercaillie), Dean Owens, Jill Jackson, Dave Burn, Lisa Rigby, Dan Raza, Emily Smith, Paul Gilbody and Jason McNiff.

 

 

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Beedster Grand Master

Beedster

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4 hours ago, skankdelvar said:

 

Indeed so. They matured beyond the bagpipe guitar thing and knocked out some amazing songs. For a brief time they were spoken of in the same breath as U2 and IMO they were the better band. Nicely enough, the Edge paid great tribute to his friend Adamson and donated a guitar to a fundraiser for Adamson's family.
 

The band U2 could have been, BC always seemed a little more honest and authentic, despite the bagpipe guitars. And opening of Into The Valley is one of the great guitar moments. RIP Stuart 🙏

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Bassassin Grand Master

Bassassin

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2 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

In 1983, when I were just a mere slip of a lad, me and my good lady saw Big Country, The Alarm and Yip Yip Coyote at the Lyceum. 

 

I was at that gig - first time I saw BC, if I remember at that point they'd only released the Harvest Home & Fields Of Fire singles.

 

I was a massive, massive Adamson fan - he was a unique guitarist and an incredibly gifted songwriter, and probably still my single biggest influence as a composer. It's one of my great regrets that I never saw The Skids, but I saw BC many times between '83 and '96. Got to meet him briefly in 1994 (they did an acoustic set in Edinburgh HMV to promote an album release) and he seemed such a pleasant, genuine soul, appearing flattered (and a bit surprised!) when I mentioned how much I rated him as a guitarist & writer.

 

A month or two ago I came across this on YouTube, completely by accident. BBC Radio recording of their gig at Hammersmith Palais in 1983 - the second BC gig I went to. Had no idea it existed!

 

 

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ezbass Grand Master

ezbass

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I saw the current version (at least it was then) of Big Country last year. It now takes two people to cover what Stuart used to do, a testament to his talent. I remember being shocked when I heard that he’d killed himself, as I also did with Chris Cornell. Hearing them now, often makes me sad. 

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Shaggy Mentor

Shaggy

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The Skids - What a band; saw them live in Liverpool Uni circa 1979.   Have to say I wasn’t quite such a fan of BC, although a really unique sound, and what a golden era of Scottish music that was: Simple Minds, The Associates (with the fabulous and equally tragic Billy McKenzie), Orange Juice, Altered Images, the Blue Nile, etc etc

 

The good die young ☹️

 

Listen and enjoy:

 

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Barking Spiders Veteran

Barking Spiders

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I've never been a fan of BC but my elder sister's copies of Scared to Dance and Days in Europa were main my intro to punk/new wave, albeit in hindsight as I was only 9 when they came out. And I still enjoy listening to them, esp as SA's guitar playing got me into taking it up. Another very sad suicide not long after that of another great of the Scottish music scene, Billy Mackenzie.

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police squad Veteran

police squad

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20 hours ago, Velarian said:

I saw them at Reading festival in 1983. The Stranglers were headlining and BC were on just before them. They blew the Stranglers away IMHO and I’m a Stranglers fan!

 

I saw them again a good few years later in a side tent at the Heineken festival in Leeds and I can honestly say it was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. The band were really enjoying themselves and they just kept going, encore after encore. Brilliant. 

I was at that festival. IIRC Stuart stopped the set to try and stop people throwing bottles of p!ss

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