Rousting Tuesday out of bed this morning with a concert from The Alarm, recorded in Zurich on August 24, 1984 by RTS-Switzerland.
For those of you who missed them the first time around:
In 1977, a punk band was formed in Rhyl, Wales, billed as The Toilets. It contained lead singer Mike Peters (alias Eddie Bop), Glyn Crossley (alias Steve Shock), Richard “O’Malley” Jones (alias Bo Larks) and drummer Nigel Buckle (alias Des Troy). In 1978 the band renamed themselves Quasimodo and played note-for-note covers of The Who’s Live at Leeds with guitarist Dave Sharp. This group also included Karl Wallinger on keyboards.[4] Later the group named themselves Seventeen, with both Mike Peters and Nigel Buckle alongside Eddie MacDonald (who had been Mike Peters’ next-door-but-one neighbour in Edward Henry Street, Rhyl). Seventeen began as a three-piece but were joined by guitarist David Kitchingman (who changed his name to Dave Sharp) and became a power pop mod band that released the single (“Don’t Let Go”/”Bank Holiday Weekend”) in March 1980 and toured with the Stray Cats later that year. They played their last concert under the name of Alarm Alarm in January 1981 at the Half Moon, Herne Hill, London.
The band soon reformed under the new name of The Alarm (with Nigel Buckle changing his surname to ‘Twist’), and played their first gig at The Victoria Hotel, Prestatyn, North Wales on 6 June 1981, opening with “Shout to the Devil”, which later appeared on the album Declaration.
They moved from North Wales to London in September 1981, and the band recorded a one-off 7″ single. 1,000 copies were pressed that month, featuring “Unsafe Building” on the “electric” side and “Up For Murder” on the “acoustic” side. The single was noticed by Mick Mercer, who featured it as his single of the month in his ZigZag magazine. The band played a show with The Fall in December 1981, where a journalist from Sounds noticed them. This journalist attended the band’s next show at Upstairs at Ronnie’s in London’s West End. Also at this show was a representative of Wasted Talent, who arranged a meeting between the band and Ian Wilson, U2’s agent. Wilson arranged another show in order to assess the band’s quality, was impressed, and soon became their manager. To celebrate, The Alarm played with U2 at the Lyceum Ballroom on 22 December 1981.
In 1982, the band began to record demos for various record labels, but had little success. At this point, they were playing with three acoustic guitarists. The band were eventually offered a deal by I.R.S. Records. This forced them to make a decision on who was to play which musical instrument, and it was decided that Peters would concentrate on singing, with Sharp on guitar and Macdonald playing bass.
The band toured extensively through the United States and Europe through the 1980s into 1991. They gained much popularity in 1983 when they were the opening act for U2, a band to whom they often were compared musically. On 13 March 1988, the Alarm performed at The Fillmore in San Francisco with The 77s and House of Freaks.
1989’s Change was an homage to the group’s native Wales, and was accompanied by an alternate Welsh-language version Newid. Produced by Tony Visconti, Change spawned the group’s biggest Modern Rock hit in America, “Sold Me Down the River”, which also put them in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Top 50 for the first and only time. “Devolution Working Man Blues” and “Love Don’t Come Easy” also earned radio airplay, and the track “A New South Wales” had an appearance by the Welsh Symphony Orchestra and the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir. Although it was popular in Wales, it did not sell as well as the group’s earlier works, and internal band dissension, exacerbated by deaths in both Peters’ and Twist’s families, made 1991’s Raw the original Alarm’s final effort.
Peters died on 29 April 2025 after a battle with cancer.
Okay. So now that you’re filled in (thanks to Wikipedia), all that’s left is press Play and get rolling.
