Peter Nicholson interview: more than a Gigs Live Music Club regular

It seems fitting in some ways that the first interview for the book is with someone I know well and who has been a friend for years – Peter Nicholson, generally referred to as 'Pete Nick'. Pete and I were in the same class at Bolton College of Art & Design in the late 1970s and early 1980s. That said, after the 1990s we lost touch; Pete moved to work in London and only came back up north a few years ago.

Peter Nicholson with pictures, posters, reviews and more from Gigs Live Music Club and from other performances.

Pete (probably) has the unlikely honour of playing at the Gigs Live Music Club in more different bands than anyone else – including Sister Rose, The Bar Stewards, Medusa, Exhibit A and The Grand Marniers of Zanzibar – as well as performing billed simply as himself, when performing in a duo with Colin Hesketh.

It has to be noted that Pete also served on the Gigs Live Music Club committee, helping to select which bands played. I'm sure there's no connection.

What makes him more of a hero is that after nominating his own band to perform, then performing, he kicked the ball into the back of the net by reviewing that performance in a local newspaper.

I’m pretty confident that Pete was also the only person to have mooned the audience at the Gigs Live Music Club. For some reason, someone started shouting “show us your bum!” – and this caught on with the regulars, who would shout it out for many of the (no doubt puzzled) performers. But Pete was the only one to do it.

Pete has saved a lot of posters, photos and reviews from his own and other gigs, which will make a great addition to the book and help fill in some historical gaps.

He was also working as a volunteer on the night Joy Division performed (helping out on the bar), and told me he'd been asked to get warm lager for Ian Curtis, and had to warm some cans on the radiator. Pete was in the hall for the performance of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart,’ but left later when the fighting broke out.

The interview was an entertaining hour, with lots of insights into the 1980s music scene in North Manchester. By necessity, only a fraction of the interview will make it into the book, but I'm recording all of the interviews and aim to release them as a podcast or video series online, around the same time the book is published.