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I put them on my turntable today for a bit of a change, and remembered how much I liked them. Yet, it feels like they are hardly mentioned by anyone when talking about great old bands.
Anyone else on here a fan?
Yes - saw them a few times (too) many years ago - last time was in Phoenix Park racecourse in Dublin and the line up that day was:-
Steel Pulse, Eurythmics, Big Country, Simple Minds & U2
Stuart Adamson was another to leave us too soon.
Still a fantastic and distinctive sound - again, not something I think to play that often.
Yeh, often listen to them.
Also a fan of Restless Natives with them on the sound track, loved that film when it came out.
Yes, they were a wonderful band
Probably I am part of their problem ,liked their sound but aside from the first album and restless natives soundtrack I did'nt buy any of their stuff. Went to see them once very early on.
A bit of a fan here and saw them once I Edinburgh back in the day.
H (age 15) was listening to Big Country yesterday as part of a mix - along with Harry Nilsson ?! - and I was telling him they were the sound of my youth.
Saw them live in Glasgow with 300,000 others at a free concert for the homeless.
Yep. Was a big fan of The Skids back in the day and loved SA guitar sound so followed him on to Big Country. Bought the first few albums and saw them live a couple of times, until music kind of fell off my radar (replaced by beer and girlfriends).
Stuart Adamson seems to have had a few demons and, as above, sadly gone too soon.
Liked them back in the day and my son got into them more recently. They are still touring with one original member and make an OK night out. The current lead singer does a decent job of the songs without being an awkward pastiche of Mr Adamson.
Let's not forget how bloody epic The Skids were.
[CoolStory]
Met them once at a Timmy Mallet roadshow when I was about 14 years old. I'd won some competition or other and was sat on the top deck of an open top bus with them in Heaton Park.
/[CoolStory]
Years later a mate was in to them and had a T Shirt where the creases in it would obscure the O and the R.
Yup, I spent many hours working out the various guitar parts to Wonderland. Their use of delay was similar to U2 but I much prefered the Big Country guitar sounds. 330 milliseconds or there abouts for Bruce Watson's part IIRC. It was all a long time ago.
My favourite:
I live in Dunfermline,
a mate was telling me that as they walked in the door of the alhambra theatre, one of the fans asked stuart how he made his guitar sound like bagpipes.
stuart replied "i use this" and handed the guy his one of a kind custom made pedal.
he then continued inside the building.
they had to send someone to look for the guy, as they only had one pedal, and they needed it for the show.
thankfully, the guy was in a wheelchair, which made him a lot easier to find.
but he did get to keep the pedal, after the show.
I still have some BG pop up on my playlists, but I agree with OP, you don’t seem to hear them mentioned much.
my big country guitars 🙂 though they don't sound like bag pipes, I had an oversized big country tshirt that was a bit "foldy" so it usually said "big ****"
“Their use of delay was similar to U2 but I much prefered the Big Country guitar sounds.”
Fun fact: I once read that Edge from U2 actually learnt much of his approach to guitar from Bruce Watson. Hence the similarity.
That really does say SG2000 on the truss rod cover. A guitar I'd like to play some day.
Saw them at University in ‘86 or ‘87. They were doing some warm up gigs so playing small venues. Was mildly interested in them but couldn’t miss the chance of seeing a band of their stature in the Student Union. Epic gig and got me more into them.
Brilliant band.
some stuff hasn’t aged that well.. but tracks like inwards, elidon, steel town, the seer are just epic.
i always thought they were an intelligent band, very underrated…
Saw them a few years ago at Keswick Mountain Festival. Great band.
They are doing 40th anniversary tours of each album, so 2024 is Steeltown (plus all the usual favourites). Some gigs in the next few weeks if anyone is nearby:
Yep, liked them back in the day. Saw them live when they supported Queen at Knebworth in 86. Absolutely brilliant set.
The remains of the band are on a 40th anniversary tour at the moment.
Wasn’t a lot of the guitar sound down to using an e-bow?
Think so .
Emulating bagpipes
If Scotland ever achieves independence then Restless Natives should be the national anthem.
Its also a great film
First saw them play Strathclyde Uni in about 82 or 83. At that point they only knew about 8 songs so had to play some of them a second time as an encore.
Saw them play many times after that, including a few times with Mike Peters doing vocals, who was actually pretty good. The live DVD they recorded in Edinburgh with him is well worth watching.
Saw them a few times at their peak. On Teesside their Coatham Bowl gig is regarded as one of the best gigs by anyone in the 80s, absolutely took the roof off. I saw them at The Tube in Newcastle too, proper night out: Undertones, Big Country and U2 in the TV studios then 6 up dash down the A1 in a mates Austin Maxi to the main U2 gig at Leeds Uni refectory and back up to the Kirklevington Country Club for last orders.
One of the first albums I bought was The Crossing. A true sound of my early teens & a gateway album for me into a whole world of music.
Going to see them in Southampton on Friday night.
Got to see the original line up once in London in the 90s.
Much prefer the crossing to Steel town though.
I liked them back in the day and I still have The Crossing & Steeltown on vinyl that I bought at the time (with birthday and xmas vouchers from my family) , both of which get played on occasion.
Being a bit too young for the punk thing, this was the nearest thing I could get to that was a bit rowdy and was stepping stone into broader 'alternative' music genres.
I think there were a lot of bands around then that had a very strong image and we were all split into various tribes. Big Country, despite having some good tunes (my younger brother was well into them) had a very mainstream image so i think they suffered a bit from straggling between "alternative" and "pop". Plus, like Simple Minds, they had to fall in behind U2 in the "big sparkling anthem" stakes.
As someone who was a fan then slipped away from Big Country I watched this recently and thought I wish I was there.
As mentioned a couple of times above, they are currently touring for the 40th anniversary of Steeltown, with Bruce Watson and Mark Brzezicki of the original band. I saw them a couple of weeks ago and they were very good. Recommended!
Much prefer the crossing to Steel town though.
Bruce Watson, in a recent interview, said about how harsh the sound is on Steeltown and if it was recorded again it could sound very different. They couldn't get the sound they were aiming for. There are some excellent songs on the album though. He also mentioned that his father was a striking miner while the album was being recorded and released, which I thought was an interesting counterpoint for someone appearing on TOTP!
Saw them play many times after that, including a few times with Mike Peters doing vocals, who was actually pretty good
I saw them on one of those tours and they were very good. I always think that Mike Peters is only interested in promoting himself, though, which he didn't really do on stage when I saw them, but the band ultimately split up because of Peters and his wife, according to Tony Butler, the original bass player
They were a superb live act. Saw them in 86 I think at St Austell Coliseum. The place went wild
I was fortunate enough to meet Stuart Adamson whilst working at HMV around the mid 90s in Derby. We had a few people at the time pop in, Hugh Cornwell and Bruce Dickinson amongst others but he was the best. He came to the store and did a set for fans to promote his music. I'll admit I wasn't a big fan then but got him to sign my brother's vinyl copy of The Seer which I brought in with me. He came across as such an approachable warm hearted man, I was saddened to learn he later took his own life.
Great sound.
One of the first bands I ever saw live and kept going to see them and buying their albums right till the end. “Oh no; where did the feeling go?” Steeltown is my favourite BC album as it tracks industrial Scotland at the time of WW1 perfectly.