Secret Affair – in concert at The University of Bristol – February 11, 1980 – Live and Loud.com
Secret Affair in concert. Recorded on February 11, 1980 at the University of Bristol. Secret Affair were formed in 1978. The original line-up consisted of Ian Page (vocals, keyboards, trumpet), Dave Cairns (guitar), Seb Shelton (drums), Dennis Smith (bass). Page and Cairns had already worked together in the New Hearts and released two singles (Just Another Teenage Anthem and Plain Jane on CBS records in 1977 and 1978 respectively) without success. The New Hearts toured with The Jam but were eventually dropped. Page and Cairns licked their wounds, wrote songs and made plans for the Secret Affair. Shelton (ex-Young Bucks) and Smith were recruited via ads in the music press. During early gigs again supporting The Jam, Secret Affair found a direction in the mod revival which was already under way. They threw away the punk, new wave influences and embraced an updated Tamla Motown beat. If The Jam were accepted by the new mods, they were still essentially a punk band, Secret Affair were loved and adored. They became the spearhead band of the mod revival and surfed its success. The downside was that despite a strong discography and talented songwriters in Page and Cairns, Secret Affair faded and died with the mod revival after only three albums and a fistful of classic singles.
And here’s a clip from Nostalgia Central with a bit more information:
At the height of Secret Affair’s mod popularity, Ian Page was often lauded as the spokesman for his generation. In an interview with the NME at the time he said;
“The size of the movement is now in its thousands, and it’s growing all the time. We’ve just sold 33,000 copies of Let Your Heart Dance and it’s number 29 in your chart. We have the ability to change things. That’s what the ‘action’ is in Time For Action. You have the power to do something simply by being yourself.”
“I started off calling this mod thing ‘Glory Boys’ which took away all the idea of it being a revival, but we lost that battle.”
“Flower Power? It won’t come back. I don’t think we’re in for a sequence of revivals, just as I don’t think mod is a revival. But I have no doubt that someone will try to do it. It would be better than punk because it was all anti-violence. But I still hate it because it’s apathetic”
Secret Affair headlined the ‘March Of The Mods’ Tour in the summer of 1979, teaming up with the Purple Hearts and Back To Zero to tour around the UK.
For a reminder of Secret Affair during their formative years, crank up this concert from 1980 and forget about the outside world.
