By
Rob Jones
• A 6CD set collecting together four live shows from the reunited Skids including one from their acoustic tour plus their 2019 acoustic studio album, ‘Peaceful Times’
• Plus their nine track 2007 Radio Clyde session that includes a cover of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s ‘Vambo’.
• With each CD presented in a newly designed wallet and the booklet features a new interview with singer Richard Jobson, who says in the sleeve notes “we don’t want to do it if it’s not fun for us and not fun for the audience. I think you can hear that in these recordings. Everyone is having fun.”
The Skids were the leading Scottish punk band, playing their first gig at the Belleville Hotel in their home town of Dunfermline in August 1977 when Richard Jobson was just 16.
Original lead guitarist Stuart Adamson (who had left Skids to form Big Country in 1981) took his own life in 2001 and his place on guitar in the reunion was taken by his Big Country compatriot Bruce Watson and Watson’s son Jamie.
*The Skids reunited again in 2010 with an incredible set at The Alhambra, Dunfermline on Disc One, which is played with an energy that defied their age.
*Their 2017 show at The Roundhouse on Disc Two is another amazing performance from a band firing on all cylinders.
*The 2019 acoustic album ‘Peaceful Times’ on Disc Three showed that thundering punk classics worked well as acoustic numbers while also drawing attention to the quality of the lyrics.
*The above album was followed by an acoustic tour by Jobson and the Watsons from which their gig in Gateshead and that is included on Disc Four.
*On Disc Five, The Skids’ 2021 Lockdown show performed in Livingston opens with a storming version of ‘Charade’ and finishes with powerful, passionate renditions of ‘Circus Games’, ‘Masquerade’ and ‘Into The Valley’ with no let up in between. “Oxygen for Mr Jobson, and a defibrillator” he quips at the end.
*U2 and Green Day had a worldwide hit with their cover of The Skids anthem ‘The Saints Are Coming’ in 2006 with proceeds going to victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. On the back of this hit Richard Jobson reformed The Skids the following year and played an incendiary radio session for Radio Clyde that is released for the first time as Disc Six of this box set.
What more can one say and I have been fortunate enough to witness The Skids on stage both in 1980 and in more recent times on a few occasions. I can say without a shadow of doubt after many years of gig going the experience of catching this band on stage is up there as one of the most memorable of moments once can savour.
Here are the listed highlights here:
Disc One: Skids Live: Alhambra, Dunfermline, 6/3/2010 1. Animation 2. Of One Skin 3. Melancholy Soldiers 4. Thanatos 5. The Saints Are Coming 6. Scared To Dance 7. Hurry On Boys 8. Working For The Yankee Dollar 9. Out Of Town 10. A Woman In Winter 11. Charade 12. Charles 13. The Olympian 14. Masquerade 15. Into The Valley
Disc Two: Skids Live: The Roundhouse, London, 16/6/2017 1. Animation 2. Of One Skin 3. Melancholy Soldiers 4. Thanatos 5. Dulce Et Decorum Est (Pro Patria Mori) 6. Working For The Yankee Dollar 7. The Saints Are Coming 8. Scared To Dance 9. Charles 10. The Olympian 11. Out Of Town 12. Hurry On Boys 13. A Woman In Winter 14. Circus Games 15. Masquerade 16. Into The Valley 17. Charade 18. TV Stars 19. A World On Fire 20. Of One Skin (Reprise)
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Disc Three: Skids – Peaceful Times (Studio Recordings) 2019 1. Into The Valley 2. A World On Fire 3. Kings Of New World Order 4. The Saints Are Coming 5. Animation 6. Hurry On Boys 7. Blood And Soil 8. Fields 9. Kreuzberg ’79 10. Desert Dust
Disc Four: Skids Live (Acoustic Tour): The Sage 2, Gateshead, 10/09/2019 1. Kings Of The New World Order 2. World On Fire 3. Working For The Yankee Dollar 4. Fields 5. Desert Dust 6. The Saints Are Coming 7. Blood And Soil 8. Castles In Spain 9. Charles 10. A Women In Winter 11. Into The Valley
Disc Five: Skids Live: Lockdown Live, Livingston, 9/3/2021 1. Charade 2. Of One Skin 3. Kings Of The New World Order 4. The Saints Are Coming 5. Working For The Yankee Dollar 6. Hurry On Boys 7. A Woman In Winter 8. Circus Games 9. Masquerade 10. Into The Valley
Disc Six: Skids – Radio Clyde Session, 1/7/2007 1. Melancholy Soldiers 2. The Saints Are Coming 3. Working For The Yankee Dollar 4. Charles 5. Out Of Town 6. Masquerade 7. Into The Valley 8. Vambo 9. TV Stars
