Live In Leeds - 25 YEARS OF JFK - A list of promotions by John Keenan

This young chap didn't know what he was letting himself in for when he embarked on a course that would carry him through the next 27 years.

On February 18th 1977 he promoted a show at the Grand Theatre, Leeds and one thing
led to another.

He never did learn...

This is an attempt to chronicle 27 years of promoting in the Leeds area, running through from 1977 to present day. Commencing with the gigs at Leeds Polytechnic and the formation of the ‘F’ club leading on to the Futurama Festivals and, eventually, 12 years of The Duchess, concluding with my current residency at the New Roscoe.

Initially I hope to outline the basic gigs in venue / date / acts format and then to flesh them out with my experiences of the events including any pictures or mementos I can find.

Some of the early gigs are a bit sketchy and I only have a few records to go on, having lost loads of ephemera in a cellar flood. If anyone has photographs, memories or background information on any of the early shows please email me JFK@LiveInLeeds.com or write to
John Keenan, c/o The New Roscoe, Bristol Street, Leeds LS7 1DH
If I use anything I will credit you on this site.

The first show I ever promoted, in 1965 aged 16, was at Southport Art College where I tentatively held the post of Social Secretary. It was a renegade Arts Ball at an old dancehall The Moulin Rouge, Ainsdale. The Principal had banned us from putting on an event due to an incident involving the caretaker who told a few tales against the students to save his skin. The main act was John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton, support ably provided by top Liverpool band The Mojos (with Lewis Collins and Aynsley Dunbar…Aynsley joined Mayall shortly after when Mick Fleetwood left the Bluesbreakers...Lewis took up acting and joined The Professionals). First on was my neighbour Max Lunt’s band (can’t recall the name). The event lost money, £20, so I offered to work it off in the cloakroom of the Moulin Rouge, where I had many a happy time being cosseted by the ladies and gleaning glimpses of the glamorous glitterati of Liverpool...footballers, bands and entertainers. I suppose that’s where I developed my taste for being a backroom boy in the wonderfully varied world of show business, a position I seem to have occupied for most of my adult life.

By the way, the second band I was involved in promoting was Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and the third…Pink Floyd!

In 1977, married with two children, working freelance at YTV and fed up with the lack of good acts coming to Leeds, I made inroads into the rock business. I phoned an agency, looking for acts such as Iggy Pop and Lou Reed and I got…Alan Price.

Agents like to start you off with something you have to work at, with a naive confidence I thought I’d start at the top…I booked the Leeds Grand Theatre. The support provided, which I had to take, was Lamplight, a proficient harmony rock band containing, I believe, Alan Price’s cousin. In order to spice it up a bit, I gave the opening spot to a friend of mine from our teenage years in Formby, Tymon Dogg. Under the name Timon he had recorded with the Beatles and The Moody Blues, but in between he had lived in squats with Joe Strummer, Sid Vicious and Ari Up, he taught Joe Strummer to play guitar and was a major mover in that London punk scene (You can now find him in Joe Strummer’s Mescaleros). It was classic to see the faces of the theatre audience, dressed up to the nines, confronted by this folk-punk busker accompanying himself on manic fiddle with his sardonic ditty 'Dog Dirt On Your Shoes (It's The Latest Fashion, The Latest thing To Do)'. The Yorkshire Post sent an aged journalist (who, I was reliably informed, had spent most of his time in the backstage bar) to review the show, he commenced his piece with a comment that ‘Mr Price had entered from the wrong side of the stage’…it was downhill from thereon.

I thought that having worked for the Grand Theatre in the late Sixties I would be given a favourable rate…nothing of it! Not only did I pay full whack, but the Theatre Manager also handed me a bill for £25 for programme sellers. I informed him I hadn’t asked for any, as it was a one-off concert there were no programmes. Then he brought the contract out of the office and pointed to a clause, which read ‘Programme sellers - £25’. My defence...because there was nothing to sell and nobody purveying anything I had thought the clause would not apply...didn’t wash. As he was in possession of all the box-office money I wasn't in a position to argue. I’ve never trusted contracts…or council employees since.

Needless to say, the Grand Theatre is one venue I haven't promoted a second time.

THIS SITE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY JOHN KEENAN
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFO YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD CONTACT:
JFK@LiveInLeeds.com