Hüsker Dü concert reviews and tour history

I have a bunch of black and white photographs of this that I really should get around to scanning and sharing before I die at least.

I was right up front, mid stage, when they came on, and for the whole set.

Grant Hart for some reason picked me out when they came on stage (my long hair maybe, plus being where I was) and knelt down and shared a spliff a little with me and chatted before they played. At the end of the show he invited me and my friend and bandmate Alan onto the stage as he packed up his drums and we chatted.

As for the music, I recall it being full on and intense, and really enjoying it and sweating like crazy, and also taking pictures. I have a few nice ones, Bob Mould up close particularly. I also took some at Rock City in Nottingham a few weeks later, where Grant tapped me on the shoulder in the crowd, I turned round, and there were all three of them. He was looking for some 'smoke'. "This isn't my town", I said.

At the Marquee one funny moment was when Bob dropped his plectrum so I picked it up and gave it to him. Once he got a free second he patted me on the head. Probably was sweaty and nasty.

Cool gig, cool band, cool guys.

It seems they played the same venue in May 84 with Black Flag. I was just down the road and almost went to that too. I phoned a friend, he didn't want to come, I went home (a long way, and I had to be up the next day, so). If I'd have gone to that I guess that would have been my first exposure to Husker Du, and not Metal Circus, which I guess I probably bought later in 84.

I visited the concert. It was great. In Hamburg, Hüsker Dü were known as a punk band. That's why 90 percent of the 600 visitors were punks. Because there were frequent clashes between Punkt and Skins at that time, all visitors were subjected to a body search. The punks couldn't dance pogo to the indie rock. At the end of the concert, a punk jumped onto the stage and shouted into one of the microphones his disappointment with the music. Personally, I wasn't a punk at the time and was totally thrilled by the music.

I had the flu, the band had the flu and the “Chinese flu” Mould did soundcheck wearing stocking cap and overcoat Soul Asylum opened and wore me out! They were killer, and closed their set with Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Barstool Blues”!!