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    Big Country

    reforming for live gigs with Mike Peters from The Alarm (hmmmm).

    To me this is newsworthy.

    Not sure whether Peters can deliver Adamsons vocals with that same mournful (albeit limited) voice that made Chance such a great song - i always found Peters to be a bit shouty (and limited).

    Not sure how i feel about this overall.

    I think that Steeltown is an absolute belter of an album.

    #2
    Big Country

    I do love me some Big Country. So this is interesting. I assume they are only touring the UK?

    (Will somebody trot out that famed Big Country pun by the way?)

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      #3
      Big Country

      Stuart Adamson remains the only pop star I have ever taken to dressing like* and then walked in to a barbers with a photo of him and said "Can you do me hair like that?"

      All of which means that even now I'd be a better replacement for him than Mike fucking Peters.

      * plaid shirt with sleeves razored off, red mesh vest underneath, blue neckerchief & sweatband on my wrist (actually an old Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow one turned inside out but it was red, gold and green so looked very "cool"). Actually, thinking about it, did he really dress like that at all ?

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        #4
        Big Country

        Matej wrote:
        (Will somebody trot out that famed Big Country pun by the way?)
        "Stuart Adamson was a Big Country member. And we do remember."

        Written by a member of this board, by the way.

        Comment


          #5
          Big Country

          I was always very fond of the title track from The Crossing album, it was a bit windswept and overwrought but very good fun. Certainly that and Chance would be my top two BC songs.

          Comment


            #6
            Big Country

            Like Harry, I also went through a brief but intense Big Country phase: tartan shirt, mesh vest left over from my even briefer JoBoxers phase, fluffy hairdo with 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' ribbon in the tail, desperate desire to be Scottish.

            I even 'ran away' from home when I'd just turned 16 (by which overly dramatic description I just mean I foolhardily buggered off on my own without anywhere to stay or any way of getting back) to Birmingham NEC to see them play.

            My main memory of that night is trying to blag a lift back to Wales in the car park afterwards, and interrupting Ian Astbury of support band The Cult who was trying to shag a groupie in the gap between two coaches. He wasn't very happy to be asked "Er, sorry but do you know if any of these buses are going to Cardiff?"

            Me and James Dean Bradfield bonded over a confessed love for Big Country once when I hitched a ride in the Manics' tour bus in Warrington in 1993, when "Where The Rose Is Sown" came on the stereo. I think he made me swear never to write about it, though.

            I kind of abandoned BC pretty quickly. I barely even followed them through the second album, even though I could tell objectively that the songs were decent enough. I'd already moved on to other things. (Mainly The Smiths.) But anyway...

            1. "Where The Rose Is Sown"
            2. "Wonderland"
            3. "Chance" (single version)
            4. "In A Big Country"
            5. "Tracks Of My Tears" (live at Ibrox)

            Comment


              #7
              Big Country

              I'm another fan, predictably enough. Still love 'The Crossing'. It's actually a *great* album - there's barely a bad track on it! The second one was a huge disappointment, but after such solid quality was almost bound to be. The highest point was the very first few bars of delayed guitar on the first track, 'Flame Of The West'. I saw them at Guldford Civic Hall (again predictably) and they put on a pretty damn good show.

              It's just such a shame that Adamson turned into such an Americanised rockist arse in (what were sadly) his later years. The drugs were a separate thing, I'd like to think, but I wouldn't like to make statements about that stuff. I just remember seeing a brief (late) TV interview where he professed his love for all things rock and basically implied his hatred for all things electronic or danceable. I forget the details. I may have to look it up.

              Anyway... Big Country were a top band and didn't deserve the ridicule they mystifyingly later got.

              Comment


                #8
                Big Country

                Wow, I wish I had a DeLorean that I could take back to the mid-80s and engineer a meeting between the Big Country-era Harry and SR Adamson look-a-likes.

                This reunion is rubbish, isn't it?

                Comment


                  #9
                  Big Country

                  Big Country were one of the first bands I saw live when I was in school. It was the first gig I went to where there was a lot of jumping up and down in the audience, and I remember marveling at that. I think I watched the crowd more than the band. I still love "In a Big Country" - it's a great karaoke song if you reach that point of drunkenness where you just want to belt out something euphoric.

                  Adamson's death was sad, he never struck me as a particularly happy guy. According to this he had fallen off the wagon in a fairly spectacular fashion.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Big Country

                    Bored: yep.

                    They (Big Country) were fucking everywhere in the eighties, supporting some good bands, and finishing on the wrong end of headlining a couple of others (Lotus Eaters, and The Associates, to name two).

                    Stuart Adamson's name went a long way, and indeed Mike Peters went nowhere, so...

                    I dunno. I think its a six pinter.

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                      #11
                      Big Country

                      What? Stuart Adamson is dead?

                      Really?

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                        #12
                        Big Country

                        oh shit. I am so out of touch with what ver kid are up to tehse days...

                        sorry to him and his.

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                          #13
                          Big Country

                          I guess Big Country cop the abuse because they seem to be seen as symbolising the curdling of the carefree, sparky pop of Postcard-era Young Scotland into the much more bombastic Scotch tubthumping and sentimentality of yer Runrigs and Del Amitris. They seem to sit uneasily between the two, and always have.

                          But back as a young'un, I was, for a couple of years, a fairly big fan, and there's enough there even now to make a top 5

                          1 Chance
                          2 Just a Shadow
                          3 Wonderland
                          4 In a Big Country
                          5 Where the Rose is Sown

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Big Country

                            Mike fucking Peters was on the pitch at the Stade de Farce prior to kick-off yesterday droning out some acoustic number to hawk some upcoming Alarm gigs in South Wales.

                            It was a chilling portent of the misery to come over the next two hours.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Big Country

                              Some bands get the singers they deserve. Funny this is running concurrently with the Orange Juice thread - these jokers made a career out of ripping off the 30-second bagpipish build-up to the climax of 'Simply Thrilled Honey'.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Big Country

                                I'm no Alarm fan but feel I should point out Mike Peters has been very ill. Looks perky enough now.

                                The SA barber story offers joke opportunities along the lines of the old Tony Curtis / Yul Brynner joke but I can't be arsed.

                                Edit, his cancer is in remission.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Big Country

                                  I think I can do a top ten off the top of my head:

                                  1. Steeltown
                                  2. Wonderland
                                  3. Flame of the West
                                  4. Prairie Rose (orig. by Roxy Music)
                                  5. Look Away
                                  6. Song of the South
                                  7. What Are You Working For
                                  8. Long Way Home
                                  9. Loserville
                                  10. Alone

                                  eh... I could probably keep going, to be honest.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Big Country

                                    Steeltown stills divides opinion amongst people.

                                    Some say a disappointment, others like me think it was their high point.

                                    Quite a depressing album theme wise - but that title track, along with Flame Of The West are the peaks of their career for me.

                                    is it true that they were on the original line up for Live Aid but Midge Ure beleived that they had split up and crossed them off the list of bands to approach? They were on the final group sing-along though

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Big Country

                                      Still listen to them, they were never a particularly cool band but live they were damn good especially when I saw them as there were few fair weather fans. But Mike Peters?

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Big Country

                                        Antepli Ejderha wrote:
                                        Still listen to them, they were never a particularly cool band but live they were damn good especially when I saw them as there were few fair weather fans. But Mike Peters?
                                        hmmm. i know....

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Big Country

                                          The Armoury Show were better than Big Country.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Big Country

                                            Big Country were my favourite band in the 1980s to the extent that they were thr influence for my own late 80s band. Which was a little out of date by that point.

                                            They were a great live band and the first gig I went to (Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1989), and I saw them four times in total.

                                            I won't be seeing them this time round. Especially not with Mike Peters (who the only thing he really has in common with Big Country is that they've both had videos where they featured a drumkit on the side of a mountain)

                                            Excerpts of their soundtrack for Restless Natives are very reminiscent of the Post-rock movement.

                                            evilC wrote:
                                            I just remember seeing a brief (late) TV interview where he professed his love for all things rock and basically implied his hatred for all things electronic or danceable. I forget the details. I may have to look it up.
                                            Really? This is a cared & shared early B-side of Big Country, and very out of place with anything else they ever did.

                                            E10 Rifle wrote:
                                            I guess Big Country cop the abuse because they seem to be seen as symbolising the curdling of the carefree, sparky pop of Postcard-era Young Scotland into the much more bombastic Scotch tubthumping and sentimentality of yer Runrigs and Del Amitris. They seem to sit uneasily between the two, and always have.
                                            I think also they didn't 'adapt' as well as the other bands that started in the early 80s. The Crossing, The Seer, and especially Steeltown were products of their time musically, and in places Steeltown lyrically reflected the loss of industry in Scotland (especially the title track). But after The Seer, they disappeared for almost three years (mainly down to Adamson's problems), and when they returned, instead of reinventing themselves as some of their early 80s contemporaries had done, the production of Peace In Our Time (forced on them by the record label) was more polished and slick than anything before, and didn't fit it with the rest of the music in 1989, and they never really recovered.

                                            Top 10

                                            1. Where The Rose Was Sown
                                            2. Fields Of Fire
                                            3. Paranoid
                                            4. Girl With Grey Eyes
                                            5. The Sailor
                                            6. Chance
                                            7. Look Away
                                            8. The Teacher
                                            9. Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys)
                                            10 Close Action

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Big Country

                                              Melbourne Arab wrote:
                                              The Armoury Show were better than Big Country.
                                              There was a short time when I would have agrred with you. I briefly worshipped them. However, they never added up to the sum of their parts.

                                              The 7" version of 'We Can Be Brave Again' was utterly fantastic and deserved to be a top 10 hit. 'Castles In Spain' was slightly too quirky to be a hit, I think, but the two tracks on the B-side of the 12" - 'Innocents Abroad' and 'Is It A Wonder' - are two of my favourite B-sides ever. Easily better than the A-side and thus probably some of the best tracks they made. Dunno why they didn't even make the album!

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Big Country

                                                1. Porrohman
                                                2. In A Big Country
                                                3. Just A Shadow
                                                4. Remembrance Day
                                                5. Where The Rose Is Sown
                                                6. The Storm
                                                7. I Walk The Hill
                                                8. Wonderland
                                                9. Flame Of The West
                                                10. Fields of Fire

                                                I only really listen to the first 3 albums. I've got the others and they're ok, but nothing specials.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Big Country

                                                  Good to hear them on Alan's Mid Morning Matters the other week.

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