Quote from: Slim on May 28, 2019, 10:33:44 amNice! I was at those two, as well. Would be strong contenders for my best two Rush gigs ever, but the Stafford nights later the same year edge it.
And as of this evening, it's 40 years since those two as well.
That was a very memorable weekend. The first time I heard
Freewill and
Spirit of Radio in their pre-released forms. On the Sunday morning I rose and took a train from Stafford to Huddersfield - actually a replacement bus service for most (or possibly all) of the way. There, I met my parents at the railway station. They'd driven from Hartlepool with a load of my stuff, including my treasured (if awful) acoustic guitar and my radio cassette. They helped me to carry it into my room at a big student house in Kaffir Road, and I began life as a student, away from home for the first time.
The moment the echo of the final chord of La Villa Strangiato died 40 years ago tomorrow night, it started to sink in that I would not be going back home the next day. Until then the excitement of going to the gigs had relegated everything else to the back of my mind.
So I've always thought of those two Rush gigs at Stafford as being sort of ceremonial; a sort of elaborate fanfare for a rite of passage, heralding the end of boyhood and a new life.
