But that’s not the end… Dates had just been announced for a part two tour in January and February 1982. These really are golden times being a Stranglers fan! Two albums and two tours in the same year and another tour in a few months. Don’t forget, it had also only been 18 months since WWTW tour–golden times indeed… is, as I said, my favourite in London where I’ve seen The Stranglers. The floor slopes down towards the stage so everyone, even a short arse like me, can get a decent view. Go and make my way inside and watch Taxi Girl for the last time. It’s a great atmosphere tonight which builds up waiting for the MIB. The venue

Get the train to Newcastle, the Railcard is proving it’s worth again. There’s snow on the hills and it’s really cold. Get to the venue and see a couple of faces we’ve seen a few times, Mark Senior from Sheffield and Greg Herman from Wolverhampton. We’ve also seen Gary Bainbridge a few times. Greg is pretty quiet but Mark is the life and soul, a very lively character. He’s a big fan of Taxi Girl and gets to know them, even travelling to some gigs with them. We meet Mark and Greg at the venue. Greg has started to help out S.I.S on the merchandise a few times. He is another one, like Gary Bainbridge, who went to follow The Stranglers on tour and ended up working for S.I.S.

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It’s a great atmosphere tonight, the Odeon is a great venue and the gig ends with quite a few on the stage. By then, Dave Greenfield’s glorious baroque playing was all over the charts. Before his death from Covid in May last year, the keyboard wizard had spent 45 years in the Stranglers, appearing on 23 top 40 singles and 17 top 40 albums as they established themselves as one of Britain’s most enduring bands. Next month, some of his final recordings will appear on the band’s 18th album, Dark Matters, which Burnel calls “our first genuinely grownup album”. The album contains untypical, beautifully raw ruminations on depression, ageing and mortality. Most of it was put together after Greenfield’s death, a process that singer-guitarist Baz Warne, a genial and open Wearsider, found cathartic. “We opened up a huge well of emotion,” says the 57-year-old. Much of Dark Matters was put together remotely. “Finding these fragments that Dave had left us felt exciting,” Warne explains. “We got permission from his widow, which was important, then we realised we needed to pour it out.” We missed this gig. For some reason we couldn’t go tonight so that’s the first missed gig on the tour… La folie is the sixth studio album by English new wave band the Stranglers. It was released on 9 November 1981, through the EMI record label Liberty.

The Stranglers – Tomorrow Was The Hereafter". Discogs. 31 August 1980 . Retrieved 14 December 2021. Cornwell, Hugh; Drury, Jim (2001). The Stranglers Song By Song. Sanctuary Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-86074-362-5. The City Hall is a big venue with upstairs seating that comes all down the sides so myself and Dean perch ourselves in the balcony at the front just above JJ. It’s a great view, yet another good show and another lively crowd. As Hugh starts Nubiles, JJ looks up to us and mimes along to the cabaret start–very bizarre! I can only assume there was a pretty girl behind us!!Brilliant gig tonight, really enjoyable helped by unobtrusive bouncers. The night ends with a train to Bristol and another night in the waiting room… a b Cornwell, Hugh (2001). The Stranglers: Song by Song. London: Sanctuary. ISBN 978-1-86074-362-7. La folie was preceded by the release of the album's first single, " Let Me Introduce You to the Family", released on 7 November 1981 [3] and reaching No. 42 in the UK Singles Chart. [15] La folie was released two days later. [3] Warne watched all this from afar at home in Sunderland. He was a childhood fan who was “Bonnie Baz” in Wearside punks Toy Dolls before joining the Stranglers in 2000. It has not always been easy. “The week after joining, I was singing to troops in Kosovo, a war zone,” he says. “I had hair and a waistline before I joined the Stranglers.” Not that there haven’t been highs, such as “an unforgettable day at Glastonbury in 2010, when we played to 80,000 people – apparently more than U2.” There is some good and interesting stuff here, but really La Folie is only for completists (like me!).