Everyone remembers where they were the day John Lennon got killed. I’d been commissioned to go to a nightclub called Rotters (which was as it sounds) to see XTC. It was a relief to get away from the banalities on the television, but it was a bit of a weird night.
I wish I could remember which Beatles song the band chose to play, and what they might have said about it.
(The gig was on 9th December so technically, in the UK, “the day of John Lennon's death” as we are ahead of New York time.)
Life begins at the bop
XTC
Rotters, Liverpool
Melody Maker, December 20, 1980
LIVERPOOL. The day of John Lennon's death. How could you think about anything else? Any group would have become insignificant, even one as successful as XTC.
Still, at least going out gets you away from the "tributes" on the TV, provides a way to take the mind off events.
I arrived just in time for the one-minute silence instigated by the DJ. Very inconvenient. Also very embarrassing - and pointless.
Who needs silence for something you've been thinking about all day? In spite of the imaginative reporting in the local press, there was no sound of sobbing fans.
How many XTC fans cared anyway? For them, it was a great evening. The place was full, the group played well, there were lots of encores (including one Beatles song), and everyone had a good time. It was almost possible to forget for a short while.
Plenty of fan-type behaviour tonight, a lively atmosphere. The group's arrival was greeted vociferously, though they'll never look like heroes. Ordinary men in colourless clothes, yet acclaimed. But then the audience are equally ordinary: the fan-in-the-street, not the hip.
They greet each song with enthusiasm, bouncing to each bouncy song. Then a change in pace for the slow acoustic opening of "Respectable Street".
One line and it's over to the audience, who do bravely until the end of the verse where they falter and laugh, and the band pick up the threads and bounce onwards.
The song's typical of the best of XTC - the combination of gruffness and bounciness; the abrasive edge and almost jokingly tough lead vocals contrasting with the poppy backing vocals. It's this mixture that gives XTC their character - avoiding the obvious. They're often bouncy, always dynamic, but never trite.
The old songs like "This is Pop", and "Life Begins At The Hop" (and even the classic "Statue of Liberty" as the final encore) seem well-integrated amongst the newer material. There are no concessions — each song is there because it has its place and not just because it's expected.
Only at the end comes "Give 'em what they want" time, with an almost unrecognisable version (I'm glad to say) of "Making Plans For Nigel", followed quickly by "Living Through Another Cuba", "Generals And Majors", and several encores.
And they managed to play a whole set before they mentioned John Lennon.
I've been told the Beatles cover was Rain. A friend has just shown me this interview with XTC guitarist Dave Gregory. He says: "No, we didn't make any mention of it at all, all we did was we tagged onto the end of "Towers Of London" a bit of the Beatles song "Rain", and just played the last couple of choruses of "Rain" because it was in the same key and of a similar rhythm. We didn't rehearse it very well, but that was the only gesture we made."
http://chalkhills.org/articles/Nicholls1995.html
Absolutely loved XTC. They actually played well to my sensibilities, how I perceived the behavior of people around me at Tower Records and in the general bay area populace. Songs had bits of genius I thought. As for Lennon's death, I immediatly suspicioned the government but with no internet in those days no way to really get information on all the angles to look at-- So powerlessness just folded into the sadness. There was a radio three minute moment of silence for John that week. I was working , so the whole record store went silent and it just killed me.