*Update* The Live at The Target playlist is at the bottom of this post, and updated weekly.
At the Target Club Reading late October 1980 our good friend Gareth Astley from Astleys Audio in Wallingford brought down the latest acquisition. A handheld portable video camera. These were just becoming available to the public for the first time. 39 years later we record stuff on our phones of much higher quality. But in October 1980 this was cutting edge . This is the footage Gareth captured on that night. It is flawed in terms of sound and picture quality, we had no idea about the amount of lighting needed, I believe the sound was recorded through the tiny microphone on the camera itself. 50 W straight head Marshalls flat out.
This is two years before ‘Take a Walk’ was even written. It features the original lineup, and despite the quality of the picture, the sound and certainly some of the playing, it captures what the original Predatur was all about. It captures the spirit of the late 70s and early 80s, the aftermath of the punk movement, live music and listening to vinyl albums was our lives. Pre-MTV, pre-Internet, pre-CD - a very different world. But most importantly, the single most important thing it captures is footage of our dear friend John Benham. It is for this reason we have decided to release the entire gig virtually unedited track by track week by week.
You don’t have to like it you don’t have to watch it, you certainly don’t need to judge it harshly, it is of its time , it’s a moment captured in time we are so, so lucky to have. I am really proud of what we achieved then as a band. I’m really intensely proud of the performance, what a fantastic honour to be in a band with these amazing people. So to those of you that weren’t there at the time, or even born watching this clip going ‘what the fuck?’ and those of you that are lucky enough to still be around that remember those times, respect ✊ enjoy.
Track one. Dangerous Girl. Early self penned song. We seem to have made up a completely new intro, Where we clearly don’t know exactly what we’re doing. I also seem to sing the first verse twice which may mean that I couldn’t remember the second verse or hadn’t written it yet as the song was too new. The first minute and a half is spent tuning up. These were the days before guitar tuners where available. And although we almost in tune with each other we had no idea that your E string should be tuned to a particular frequency, E below middle C on the piano, so checking my guitar tuning against the video The other night it looks like my A string is tuned to F - and you thought Queens of the Stone Age were the first band to tune a full two tones down from concert pitch😂 Late October 1980 Target club Reading. Camera Gareth Astley. PA Tiger hire. Thanks to Steve Jones from Our Vitamin C for the hours he spent trying to restore this footage to some sort viewable standard.
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