The Saints Are Coming (Live and Acoustic 2007 - 2021) (notes)

"I'm a forward looking person. I rarely look back and it's not something I ever thought I'd do," Richard Jobson, founder of The Skids says of reforming the band in 2007 with a reconfigured line up comprising drummer Mike Baillie, bassist Bill Simpson and guitarists Bruce Watson and Jamie Watson. "But I did and every time we start to think about playing a gig again, the starting point is as it was that first time: Will it be fun? Because we don't want to do it if it's not fun for us and not fun for the audience. I think you can hear that in these recordings. Everyone is having fun."

They sure are. Whether it's 2007 and the comeback Skids' first radio session for Radio Clyde to tie in with their 30th anniversary or their 40th anniversary festivities at London's Royal Festival Hall or get togethers during Lockdown 2021, the sheer delight of coming together to perform such songs as 'Into The Valley', 'Working For The Yankee Dollar' or 'The Saints Are Coming' is palpable.

"When I get on that stage I give it everything," Jobson says. "Then when I come off it I have nothing left. I am shattered."

The seeds for the reunion were sown when in 2006, U2 with Green Day covered The Skids' 1978 single 'The Saints Are Coming', a song Jobson had written as a 15 year old but had consigned to history long ago, to release as a single with all monies going to the Music Rising Campaign, set up to raise funds to help return music to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "When I heard their recording of it I was taken aback by the sheer power and force of the song and the relevance of the lyrics," he reflects. "When the song hit Number 1 all round the world I was suddenly centre of attention again, being contacted by the press for interviews about the band. I was doing more press then than I had when we were originally going. The interest was huge."

The Skids of course had formed back in 1977 in Dunfermline, helmed by Jobson with Stuart Adamson on guitar, William Simpson on bass and Thomas Kellichan on drums. John Peel was an early champion as were The Clash whom they supported at a local gig. A rush of unimpeachable singles on Virgin engaged with both the underground and mainstream; the aforesaid 'The Saints Are Coming' and Top 10 hit 'Into The Valley' taken from their 1979 David Batchelor produced debut album Scared To Dance; Top 20 non album hit 'Masquerade' and 'Working For The Yankee Dollar', another Top 20 hit and taken from their second LP, the Bill Nelson produced Days In Europa. Their third album, 1980's The Absolute Game, their first with Mike Baillie on drums and also featuring Russell Webb on bass, was their most commercially successful, hitting the Top 10 and spawning the single 'Circus Games' but Adamson left soon after its release to form Big Country and 1981's Joy, largely written by Jobson and Webb became the group's swansong when they split in 1982.

Jobson went on to record an album with The Armoury Show, his group featuring Webb and former Magazine members John McGeoch and John Doyle, then he moved into poetry, broadcasting and film and was working on 2006's modern ghost story A Woman In Winter, the follow up to 2003's 16 Years Of Alcohol and 2004's The Purifiers when U2 and Green Day's version of 'The Saints Are Coming' was issued. His brother who was then working with Amy Winehouse suggested he get the band back together. "He said, 'why not do a gig to celebrate all the achievements you did in the past?"" explains Jobson. "I couldn't see how we were going to do that but I got Bruce [Watson] and his son Jamie [Watson] involved. Bruce was a massive Skids fan, he used to hang around the band when he was a kid and it grew from there."

Bruce Watson had previously played guitar in Big Country alongside the former Skids guitarist Stuart Adamson and once he and Jamie Watson were on board Jobson reached out to Mike Baillie, who was working as a sommelier at a top restaurant. "We persuaded him to give it a go and then we called Bill Simpson, he had retired and was just sitting around in his pyjamas and slippers watching TV all day so he got on board too."

Rehearsals surprised everyone. The five clicking immediately. “We gave it a go and I have to say we sounded damned good," he remembers.

On July 1 they made their broadcast debut for DJ Billy Sloan on Radio Clyde.
"We hadn't done a session since the early 80s, but we were confident," he says. "I had a great band and I love being a front man and communicating so we were casual, there were no nerves, but don't mistake that for arrogance. Of course, there is a bit of pressure to get it right as it's live but then I don't think we've ever done a song and got it completely right since we've got back together but that's part of it if you just want us to replicate the recordings don't come to see us play, stay at home and put the record on."

The recording, released here in full for the first time, is notable for its intimate atmosphere and the inclusion of versions of 'Charles', from their 1978 debut EP, and a cover of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band's 'Vambo. "One of the first albums I bought was [1973's second album] Next by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band," says Jobson. “I was a huge fan of him as a front man, him and Iggy Pop were my two heroes, and 'Vambo' isn't like a Skids song at all, it's a bit prog rock but we felt free enough to do it on the show."
Two gigs followed at the Glen Pavilion in Dunfermline on the 4th and 5th of July to celebrate their 30th anniversary. "We loved doing 'Vambo' so much we did it in Dunfermline and it was a disaster as no one knew what it was," he laughs. Then on the 7th July, they appeared at T In The Park. "I didn't think anyone would be interested but the crowd went on for what seemed like miles. And then we had a taste for playing live again, not in terms of remuneration, it was never about the money, but just being back out there and revelling in the passion and the physicality and the power of the band. And the humility, us up there taking the absolute piss out of ourselves and the audience."

On March 6, 2010 they returned to Dunfermline to play a show to conclude a week of events celebrating the works, past and present of Jobson, as part of The Fifer Festival and it is this performance that is captured on live at Dunfermline Alhambra, originally released as Live Volume 1 via the band's No Bad Records in May 2021. "The shows were jammed packed. It was amazing" Jobson recalls.

One of the main differences with the band at such shows, other than the fact Adamson, who died in 2001, isn't present, is that The Skids now have two guitarists in their line up, something they briefly introduced during the original group's latter days.

"The last gig we did with Stuart at Hammersmith Odeon on the Absolute Game tour, we had two guitars, him and then me playing rhythm. I hated playing guitar on stage, I like being free to move about, I wouldn't dare call it dancing, but looking back, if we had got another guitarist in to help Stuart we might not have gone our separate ways," Jobson says. "But in reality we had forged different musical paths so we probably would have. So having Bruce and Jamie in the band now, it gives it the power I envisaged for the first time ever live and having that power behind me, we can back then and I truly think we sound better now than we did then, it's very muscular."

Their show on June 16, 2017 at London's The Roundhouse, which was part of The Skids 40th Anniversary Tour certainly sounds muscular. Captured on Live In London, it was originally given to fans at the gig as they left the venue.

"Playing the Roundhouse was a big deal," says Jobson. "It was somewhere we never played first time round yet I saw so many gigs there in the 70s when it was this rat infested dump. I don't care if I play to 10 people or 1000 people, I just get on stage and do my thing but I remember standing up there and it was absolutely mobbed and I was quite taken aback. It was our first gig in London for 40 years but I thought it was important to do a new song in the set and I know the audience thought it was strange. I get that. It happened when we toured Days In Europa. We were naive and said we weren't doing anything from Scared To Dance only songs from the new album and people were shocked, they'd come to hear 'Into The Valley', 'Charles', 'The Saints Are Coming', that's just how it is. Fans want the songs that are rooted in their own story. I am aware of that."

The new song 'A World On Fire' - would appear on January 2018's Burning Cities. "It was that thing of not wanting to look over my shoulder the whole time," he says of the reason for making the album. "I wanted The Skids to go forward. We worked with [producer, Killing Joke bassist] Youth on it and he encouraged us, he said, Just have a go. See where it takes you. He switched into my Iggy Pop thing and we wrote these tough forceful songs." The album hit the Top 30 and made Number 2 in the vinyl chart. "We were kept off the top spot by Leo Sayer. You've got to laugh," he says.

Peaceful Times, an acoustic album, was issued in June, 2019. "I didn't think it was possible to do Skids songs acoustically," Jobson admits. "The songs were written to be played with electric guitars. But Bruce and I played a few songs acoustically at a charity event in Dunfermline and it worked. Most people, when they think about The Skids, they think about Stuart's wonderful guitar playing and the anthemic choruses of the songs but exploring them acoustically gives the lyrics an opportunity to breathe and the songs' meanings are pushed to the forefront and acoustically the songs have a new energy, there's a triumph, a rage, a camaraderie and a positivity, the very essence of the band."

Indeed, unplugged, the songs bristle with an emotional intensity and quiet authority. There's a vulnerability and tenderness on show and an underlying melancholy.

Jobson with Bruce and Jamie Watson then underwent a 10 date tour at the beginning of September under the heading "An Evening With Richard Jobson... "Songs and Stories", with the Sage 2 performance issued as Official Bootleg - Skids Live-Acoustic Tour 2019, sold through the band's website that year. "It felt good, really special," he says. "I really enjoyed it and in a weird way it then gave me the confidence to let the electric tours breathe a bit more, to bring an intimacy to them as well."

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Jobson continued to work. Songs From A Haunted Ballroom, an album of punk covers featuring songs by bands that had influenced the original group coming to play in Dunfermline's Kinema Ballroom arrived in June 2020, then October 2021 saw Skids Live Volume 2 Lockdown Live.
"We were so frustrated that we couldn't play and every time we nearly got to play, the show would get cancelled because we went into lockdown again so we did a couple of live stream acoustic concerts which were brilliant fun and then we got asked to do an electric one," he says. "By then doubt had crept in, the pandemic caused real psychological damage, not just to musicians but everyone, and there was a sense, Can we still do this? Is there a validity to it? On top of that we also just really missed each other and once we started playing, it just felt so good to be back together. We knew we were going to continue."
As for this boxset you have in your hands now, Jobson says, "I'm really excited about it. It's a brilliant testimony to the band." It is. Enjoy!

Lois Wilson

DISC ONE: ALHAMBRA, DUNFERMLINE, 6/3/2010
1. ANIMATION
2. OF ONE SKIN
3. MELANCHOLY SOLDIERS
4. THANATOS
5. THE SAINTS ARE COMING
6. SCARED TO DANCE
7. HURRY ON BOYS
8. WORKING FOR THE YANKEE DOLLAR
9. OUT OF TOWN
10. A WOMAN IN WINTER
11. CHARADE
12. CHARLES
13. THE OLYMPIAN
14. MASQUERADE
15. INTO THE VALLEY
DISC TWO: THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON, 16/6/2017
1. ANIMATION
2. OF ONE SKIN
3. MELANCHOLY SOLDIERS
4. THANATOS
5. DULCE ET DECORUM EST (PRO PATRIA MORI)
6. WORKING FOR THE YANKEE DOLLAR
7. THE SAINTS ARE COMING
8. SCARED TO DANCE
9. CHARLES
10. THE OLYMPIAN
11. OUT OF TOWN
12. HURRY ON BOYS
13. A WOMAN IN WINTER
14. CIRCUS GAMES
15. MASQUERADE
16. INTO THE VALLEY
17. CHARADE
18. T.V. STARS
19. A WORLD ON FIRE 20. OF ONE SKIN (REPRISE)
DISC THREE: PEACEFUL TIMES (STUDIO RECORDINGS) 2019
1. INTO THE VALLEY
2. A WORLD ON FIRE
3. KINGS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER
4. THE SAINTS ARE COMING
5. ANIMATION
6. HURRY ON BOYS
7. BLOOD AND SOIL
8. FIELDS
9. KREUZBERG '79
10. DESERT DUST
DISC FOUR: (ACOUSTIC TOUR): THE SAGE 2, GATESHEAD, 10/09/2019
1. KINGS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER
2. WORLD ON FIRE
3. WORKING FOR THE YANKEE DOLLAR 4. FIELDS
5. DESERT DUST
6. THE SAINTS ARE COMING
7. BLOOD AND SOIL
8. CASTLES IN SPAIN
9. CHARLES
10. A WOMEN IN WINTER
11. INTO THE VALLEY
DISC FIVE: LOCKDOWN LIVE, LIVINGSTON, 9/3/2021
1. CHARADE
2. OF ONE SKIN
3. KINGS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER
4. THE SAINTS ARE COMING
5. WORKING FOR THE YANKEE DOLLAR
6. HURRY ON BOYS
7. A WOMAN IN WINTER
8. CIRCUS GAMES
9. MASQUERADE
10. INTO THE VALLEY.
DISC SIX: RADIO CLYDE SESSION, 1/7/2007
1. MELANCHOLY SOLDIERS
2. THE SAINTS ARE COMING
3. WORKING FOR THE YANKEE DOLLAR
4. CHARLES
5. OUT OF TOWN
6. MASQUERADE
7. INTO THE VALLEY
8. VAMBO
9. TV STARS