I feel old 
20 years ago, one was regarded as being quite normal, well as normal as one can be at 14. It all changed on Easter Sunday ’89. Snow was falling and the trip to Birmingham seemed to take ages, even though it was only an hour away. Got to the venue with John & Lorraine a good hour before the Mondays were due on, looked round for t-shirts, unfortunately they didnae have any fookin small sized, so I ended up buying the concert t-shirt which swamped me. Memories are getting worse, even for me, but I can clearly remember being as excited as I was at the previous years Scottish Cup Final in which Celtic completed the double in their centenery season. We were sat up on the first row of seats on the right hand of the stage quite a bit back, but that didnae worry us, the Mondays passed by in somewhat of a haze, only clear memories I have were them doing Do It Better, which still remains my favourite Mondays track and the big ensemble at the end where they did what seemed to be a 15 minute version of Wrote For Luck. Exit the Mondays and then what seemed an age till New Order finally took the stage. Can remember Touched opened the set and looking round the arena to see the place going mental, particularly down the front of the stage and wishing we were down there, in fact, other than the MENA some 9 years later, that was the only time we were not down the front at a gig and even at that gig, me and John left a pregnant Lorraine on her own after the first couple of songs to join in the madness. They then did a couple of Technique songs which got everyone dancing, we knew the album word for word as the album had been on the record player on constant rotation for a good 2 months before the gig. Vanishing Point was majestic, being so excited I was shouting out guesses for the next song and was amazed to hear my prediction of 1963 come true. These were the days when you genuinely had no idea what set-list they’d play, we got more stuff from Technique which was great live, no matter what the doubters on here will tell you. Ceremony was immense. The last half of the set was what we would all associate with the staple of their gigs from here on in, the holy trinity of True Faith, Bizarre Love Triangle and Temptation, but we were also treated to the proper full length version of The Perfect Kiss as the final song, I can remember being a bit annoyed that I didnae hear Blue Monday, but to be fair, I’d hear plenty of that in the following years. All in all, some fucking first gig! Slight downside was the sound at the gig – which translates onto the bootleg that floats about, but take nothing away from a cracking night. The Neworder obsession really began that night, so ye’s can all blame John & Lorraine! Happy Days!
I remember it being a warm sunny spring day.
Saw those We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Going To Use It chicks at the gig.