Looking Back [5] The Fall
But not personally as this is a ticket from our archives, and I didn’t go to the show (I found it in a scrapbook I got hold of some years later). From 1981, 39 years ago tonight!
The Fall were supported by The Past Seven Days (them again) and Disease. Amazingly it was a free gig funded by South Yorkshire County Council. In those days the council tried to help by supporting low priced or free musics events in the city, at a time of serious unemployment. As you can see this was one of the free ones, I do not know how you got tickets! The show was held at the Polytechnics Union venue, the Phoenix Building, on Pond Street
If you can add anything about the show do get in touch. Simon R.
Tickets for this gig by The Fall and the other free gigs subsidised by SYCC during September 1981, could be obtained from a temporary ticket booth (Portakabin). From memory this was situated on Pond Street in front of the Polytechnic. I sat in there on at least one occasion supplying tickets (maximum of 4?) to anyone who presented a UB40 unemployment benefit form. I’d been hanging around at promoter and Sheffield scenester Marcus Featherby’s flat in summer 1981, making the odd gig poster for him, and it was through that connection that I found myself in the ticket hut. I believe the Council had taken the initiative to provide what were some pretty cool free gigs in the hope the city would be spared any unrest or rioting similar to that in Toxteth and Brixton earlier in the year.