Twelve miles east of Rhyl in Holywell in the late seventies rose a punk band called The Grids, featuring Andrew ‘Tunkie’ Tunnicliffe (guitar) (who later played in Vicious Circle, Mercenary Skank), Gaz ‘Top’ Jones (bass) (then known as Gary Gutter and later played in Tuphelo Torpedoes), Paul ‘Doggy’ Evans (vocals), Dave ‘Moggy’ Williams (vocals), Ian ‘Sten’ Stenhouse (rhythm guitar), Timmy ‘Bean’ Davies (drums). (pic courtesy of Steve LowDownKids)
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(taken from ‘This Patch of Land’)
Holywell’s finest punk band The Grids supported the Cockney Rejects at The Dixieland Pier Showbar in Colwyn Bay after getting a last minute call from promoter Louis Parker. The scheduled support was Kidz Next Door but their singer was arrested after the previous night’s gig in Birmingham so The Grids were drafted in as replacements. It was a gig where a lot of people got in for free when a gang of skinheads kicked the main doors in. Steve Rastin was at the event, ‘The Cockney Rejects had a fanatical travelling support so the audience was a sea of claret and blue scarves [West Ham United fans] so that it was almost as if The Grids were the out-of-towners. In the end they went down OK, not least because Doggy was wearing a pair of leather strides that split PJ Proby-style down the arse seam so that every time he turned his back to the audience his bum was on display. He was also wearing a rather fetching electric blue Captain Sensible-style mohair sweater as well.
‘All seemed to have gone well, I blagged my way backstage to have a drink with the band in the dressing room when the door suddenly and literally crashed in under the combined weight of the Rejects’ road crew who unceremoniously turfed everybody out. I was incensed and also very drunk, and stomped off into the toilets yelling “The bastards” or something similar and suddenly became aware that most of the voices around me had a distinct East End accent and that I was very much the centre of attention.’ Rastin managed to escape alive, claiming “the bastards” was a referral to the bouncers and not the cockneys.