Glasgow Apollo: 'Bryan Ferry's backing singers stole our clothes!'

The gig in question took place on September 30, 1982, forty-one years ago. A quick check on the internet suggests that the support act was The Young Ones. Lynnette's memory of that night has never quite faded. And it is one of thousands that keep the Apollo flame burning.

Rock of ages: the Glasgow Apollo was opened fifty years ago

On the subject of Bryan Ferry, one fan, Ken Anderson, told the Glasgow Apollo website, which is associated with the Facebook page, that he first saw Roxy Music back in April 1973, a few months before Green's Playhouse was rechristened as the Apollo Centre.

Ken's front-row ticket for that concert cost him just 85p. "The decaying Green's Playhouse was the ideal venue for Roxy Music's glamour", he writes.

The day Rod Stewart's footwear raised Jock Stein's eyebrows

A few years later, he saw Ferry in a solo concert at the Apollo, and managed to meet the singer, and guitarist Chris Spedding, at the stage door after the afternoon soundcheck. "At the time", he writes, "my proudest possession was a photo of Bryan Ferry standing beside me - Bryan looking cool in black leather coat & shades, me in my Glasgow Academy school uniform. Wish I'd kept the photo".

The Facebook page is crowded with pictures of ticket stubs and other souvenirs, among them a badge bought by a fan of the American band, Poco, in 1976. Every picture prompts a shoal of memories. Responding to a Rory Gallagher ticket stub (£3) from December 1978, one fan writes: "What a night. Remember it well. Walked home because I'd missed my last bus".

Elsewhere, Apollo regulars have spoken of their indelible memories of concerts. One recalled seeing the American singer-songwriter Harry Chapin in 1977 or 1978, "singing Mail Order Annie from the edge of the stage, unaccompanied and without the aid of a microphone. We were in the main balcony and we heard every word he sang".

1969: Deep Purple's rehearsal for 'Concerto for Group and Orchestra', composed by the group's organist, Jon Lord (Image: PA Archive)

One man, from Blairgowrie, has said that his first memory of the Apollo was in March 1976, to see Deep Purple, minus guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. "The upholstery was grotty and the whole place looked to be in need of a good clean and a lick of paint", he recalled.

"It was only when the show started that I realised why the Apollo was so well received as a rock haven. What an atmosphere!"

Often, there were youthful escapades involved in actually getting into the Renfield Street venue. As Derek Forbes, formerly the bass player with Simple Minds, once said, "Me and Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill used to go to gigs at the Apollo.

"One of us would go in and go to the upstairs toilet and put the ticket into a cigarette packet and throw it out of the window. Six of us could get in that way".

One fan and his friend went looking for the gents' during a gig by the legendary American musician, Frank Zappa. They got lost backstage but happened to come across the man himself. The friend asked him where the toilet was. "Zappa just said, 'I don't know ... I'm a stranger here myself'."

Yet another fan remembered a couple passionately making out in seats on the left-hand aisle in the stalls, during a concert by the prog-rock band Yes. A few hundred souls nearby could not help but watch them rather than the band.

Bruce Dickinson, singer with Iron Maiden (Image: Unknown)

Ally McCoist once said: "I was at a Devo gig with my mates and we'd been giving it plenty. We were in the stalls and we were the last to leave.

"They were clearing the stage and someone threw a Devo jacket off it and me and my mates were rolling about underneath, scrapping to see who'd get it". 

Every Apollo gig, whether it was hard rock, pop, folk, jazz or punk, occasioned memories that make fascinating reading today.

The Who, pictured at their recent Sandringham show (Image: Lee Blanchflower (Blanc Creative))

The venue's epic heyday was in the Seventies but even in the Eighties it was capable of attracting such major acts as the Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden, Dire Straits, ex-Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne, The Who, Status Quo, Simple Minds, and Echo and the Bunnymen.

It seems to be the case that many audience members, whatever the decade, were in their teens and were about to experience concerts for the first time. The rowdy, rugged Apollo, with its colourful collective atmosphere, its down-at-heel reputation, its top-notch range of nightly attractions, and its location in a city as distinctive as Glasgow, came across to so many youthful fans as a place of wonder.

As Andy Muir, who lives in Sydney and, along with Scott McArthur, runs the Facebook page and website, put it a few months ago: "Perhaps as our experiences at the Apollo/Green's exist now solely as memories, unattainable and frozen fragments in time and our minds. As it gets further away, the pull of our youth only grows stronger, and we want to hold onto the past more closely. It really could be a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder".