A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
Galaxie 500 on tour with The Sundays in February 1990
Thirty six years ago this week Galaxie 500 were on a tour of the UK supporting The Sundays that started in Newcastle on the 1st February and then worked a number of cities around the country with the tour scheduled to end on the 11th February at The Town and Country Club in London.
The Newcastle show was reviewed in The Melody Maker by Everett True:
So are Galaxie 500 connected in some way with a laid back, drug-induced psychedelia? Bah! Galaxie 500 are a humming drum which beats out poetry, a bass that plunks out perfection, a guitar which flies molten across unfathomable depths. But to describe them so transparently is to beckon ridicule.
Everett True - Melody Maker (10th February 1990)
I’ve left more reviews in that clipping because the one at top left ought to make me feel a bit better about what transpires further down the page! It doesn’t!
On the 3rd of Feb they were at the Leadmill in Sheffield and some pics from that show were shared with me last year:
On the 6th they were at Leicester University - you can see the whole of their set here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_RDoNcjbYQ
On the 7th they were at The Bierkeller in Bristol and Stephen sent me the photos he took of that show a few years ago:
On the 10th they arrived at the Trent Poly in Nottingham and played their set and then, three songs into The Sundays set Harriet Wheeler’s voice packed up and the show was over and, in the wake of this, the following night’s sold out show in London was cancelled.
On the night of the 11th February 1990 Ken and I arrived at The Town and Country club to find pieces of A4 paper sellotaped to the doors informing is that the show was cancelled. Rough Trade, the band’s label, hastily arranged a headline show for Galaxie 500 at the nearby Camden Falcon. Unfortunately we never found out about this until the following weeks NME mentioned it. We stood outside the Town & Country scouring a Time Out for alternative entertainment, could find nothing of interest and drove back to the Mean Fiddler (driving past the Falcon in the process) to see Northern Irish singer-songwriter Andy White.
The Sundays rescheduled for later in the month but sadly Galaxie 500 where no longer available to provide support.
A few year’s later someone (sorry, I’ve forgotten who) sent me this audience recording of the show… as if to rub in the time I didn’t see Galaxie 500.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtTgFDnGHZY
Additional rubbing in was provided by Naomi in the Temperature’s Rising oral history book:
I think one of my fondest memories of being in the band was when we were opening for the Sundays in England and Harriet [Wheeler] lost her voice and cancelled the London show at the last minute. Rough Trade scrambled to get a gig for us in London that night and came up with a pub; I think it was called The Falcon. It was packed and instead of the big stages that we had been playing with the Sundays we were back to being in our usual atmosphere of a tiny sweaty rock club. It was a really relaxed and completely fun gig-- it just felt like we were cut loose from music business responsibilities and could just play music! I guess the music going well was always at the center of my best memories
Naomi Yang Temperature's Rising (2010)
Dean called the show “absolutely one of the highlights of our time together” - thanks, you’re not helping!
Instead we played a semisecret last minute show at the Falcon, a little pub in Camden. The stage smelled of piss, and I was tipsy just the right amount. Kramer joined us onstage for half the set. It was much more fun to play to a small crowd of our fans, Galaxie 500 fans, than to a thousand Sundays fans.
Dean Wareham - Black Postcards (2008)
The Sundays show was rescheduled for a couple of weeks later, but Galaxie 500 were back in the US by then. I went along of course and The Sundays were fine - support was from The Band of Holy Joy, I have no memory at all of them, in fact I thought it was the Boo Radleys who had supported - I guess I must have seen them supporting someone else.
I recorded the show on my Walkman and I’ve just popped it on YouTube, Before the first number Harriet apologises for the postponement and a fan shouts in reply “it don’t fucking matter”… maybe not to him!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSgQPILuSso
So, thirty six years on I guess I’ve got over this? Missing a gig that was one of Naomi’s “fondest memories” and an “absolute… highlight” of Dean’s time with the band?! No I bloody haven’t!
Enjoy the show… I’m afraid I still find it hard to listen to!