I was absolutely buzzed for the arrival of this day. My late brother, David, was the person that got me into Suzi Quatro. He was a horny 14 year old boy at the time and I was a super impressionable 4 year old girl.
This photo right here is one of my most cherished photos from my childhood. I was a rather wild kid. “Wild” insomuch as I liked antagonising my mum and hanging out with my older brothers who would get pissed off with me for being a damanding and embarrassing wee kid – an age difference of 9.5 and 10.5 years respectively to my brothers David and Quince (real name Gary) was a measure of consternation for them but for me it meant I got to hang out with “older and cooler” kids. If they allowed me to, which they invariably didn’t. Mum would have to intervene – and she would usually side with me, and that would piss both David and Gary off. Sidenote: In those years he was still Gary, but that would soon change … for most everyone else who knew him. Mum and me held on to calling him Gary for more years than he was comfortable with. I only FINALLY started calling him Quince when we started working together in the mid 90s. I was the newbie there and everyone at work knew him as Quince, so I finally had to toe the line – he’d have strung me up by that point if I was calling him Gary at work. Lol.
The photo shows me with my new toy guitar, top off (as usual back then when I was much younger and wasn’t self-conscious of my looks or in fact that in a few short years I’d have ‘lumps’ on my chest) in shorts – tanned as fuck. No one cared about sunblock and skin cancer back in those days. Blonde as fuck too. You can tell how much time I spent outdoors given how bleached my hair is and how tanned my skin looks. Wild, feral Aussie kid right there! It also shows me in my ‘Suzi Q’ days. A time when she was HUGE and I wanted nothing more than to grow up and be just like her, playing a massive guitar (her bass always looked HUGE), ride around on a motorbike and wear leather and just be cool as fuck!
Tuesday night at the Royal Concert Hall was my very first Suzi Quatro gig. I had never felt such a nostalgia hit when attending a concert. It never felt like that for me going to Simple Minds gigs as they were never in my ‘childhood.’ They were there in the periphery of my teens but I felt no real affinity to them. The only pang of nostalgia I would get was from the early days of my fandom with THAT SONG – and that very quickly died away for all the reasons you can imagine – I won’t bore you with the details here. I really was brimming with excitement. Glasgow just so happened to have had its warmest day of the year so far – a postively ‘taps aff’ 19 degrees. Absolutely nae chance of me taking my top off these days! Lol. With that said, I did enjoy the concert in a t-shirt, which was novel at this time of year in Glasgow. Lol. (Okay, we were indoors, shhh!)
When I arrived I wanted to check out the merch stall. I wanted a souvenir. On her Instagram it had said there would be a tour program available. I thought that would make a nice memento. But the price was £22 – yikes! Okay…what else could I get that would serve the purpose. I saw that lanyards were available at £10. That’ll do nicely! Then I notice signs saying “Please Note: we cannot currently take card payments as our system is down. Cash only payments, ideally with exact amounts.” Okay, so I was going to have to go to a cashpoint. There was time. The Sainsbury’s Local on Killermont Street had a cashpoint. Done! Back to the merch queue. All the merch staff were Aussies. Hey hey! The guy that served me said “Which would you like? There are two lanyards to choose from. One is in the style of her first concert in Australia and the other is more-up-to-date. They’ve all been signed too.” He showed me the first one and I could see that it said “Hordern Pavillion” and a date and it had a picture of Suzi as she was then and I went “Oh, yes. I like this one. It seems kind of apt.” Then I said it him that I’d been a fan for 50 years and it was my first time seeing her. “I hope you enjoy the show” he said.
I did. I loved every second of it.
Yes, I was way at the back of the Concert Hall, but it was still the best seat in the house. The RCH really is a great venue. I forgot just how fantastic it is. I hadn’t been there since Trevor Horn’s Reimagines the 80s in July 2019 and I had forgotten just what a lovely venue it is and how good the acoustics are. Literally every seat is a good seat. Even way back. Way back in the RCH is such a different experience to way back at the Hydro.
My ticket had said doors open 6.30pm for a start at 7.30pm. Was there to be a support? I hadn’t seen any details of a support. People were still milling in at 7.30pm when the music playing over the PA stopped and the lights dimmed. Band members walked onto the stage, then lastly Suzi herself. No support then?! Okay!
She opened with ‘The Wild One’ and I was immediately transported back to being that 4 year old tomboy in the photo above. There were songs performed that I didn’t know but it didn’t matter. I was there for the whole experience.
She covered her whole career. From the earliest tunes right up to the latest tracks from her most recent album (only released a couple of weeks ago), Freedom. There were tracks that she had done as colabs performaed as well – ‘Stumblin In,’ (performed as a duet with her guitarist), a track from Quatro, Scott and Powell called ‘Slow Down,’ as well as a track written and performed with KT Tunstall (not at the gig but when originally released), ‘Shine a Light.’ She also performed some covers, namely ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising.’ As a reason for her choice on the latter she said “Well, they [Creedence Clearwater Revival] did Suzi Q, so it’s only fair I steal one of theirs.” That gave an extra hit of nostalgia knowing how much Mum loved CCR.
The show was broken up into two sets. The first an hour long, the second around 75 minutes long. I saw a couple of reviews yesterday. One by The Herald – a Scottish newspaper – which was quite complimentary to the show. The other by The Guardian was rather scathing. Tore pieces off what happened in the second set of the show, likening her to Alan Patridge for delivering “a PowerPoint in the middle of a rock gig.” Look, the woman is 75 and has had an amazing career. Let her celebrate it. I loved it myself. Perhaps if it had been my 10th time seeing her or something, it might have felt tedious but it didn’t. The Guardian piece also made allusions to people leaving before the concert was over. I see people do this all the time at gigs. It’s never a slight on the performers, it’s merely people wanting to beat the crowds and get a head start when heading home. That’s it! Stop making it seem like people were fed up and couldn’t wait to leave. Both reviews were also rather scathing of the final song, an encore, Quatro’s tribute to Elvis Presley called ‘Singing with Angels.’ I’ll concede they had a point – The Herald’s was worded more gently for sure. The Guardian put the knife in by contrast. It wasn’t necessary.
Before the Elvis tribute, there was a trio of stonking golden oldies – ‘Can the Can,’ ‘Devil Gate Drive’ and ‘If You Can’t Give Me Love’, along with one final cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Sweet Little Rock & Roller.’
Apart from a couple of dicks behind me that insisted on waffling on over the odd song (thanks, bitches!), it was a great night. A had a stellar time. Suzi was the consumate entertainer, from go to woah. I loved it!
I was meant to be seeing The Zebecks tonight but I am foregoing it. I’m too knackered and I have too much study to do. There are not many weeks of uni left and I really need to knuckle back down so I can complete my DipHE and good a decent mark (a pass mark!). Next up will be Ist Ist at Oran Mor next Friday. Yes! Ist Ist AGAIN. Lol.
