Apollo Memories: The Venue - The Legend - The Story: The Venue - The Story - The Legend

by Martin Kielty (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $39.38

  From 1927 until 1985 the Glasgow Apollo was a landmark in Glasgow's architecture and culture. Opened as Green's Playhouse, it shone through the golden age of cinema and ballroom until, for its last 12 years of life, it was the rock venue to play in Scotland, Britain and even Europe. Everyone who was anyone took to the infamously high stage and performed to an audience regarded as the most discerning music fans in the world. From AC/DC to Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash to the Style Council, the Apollo was synonymous with good, loud music and electric energy. Built as a showpiece palace in the great era of live entertainment, it was a giant and elaborate building capable of seating up to 4,500 people. It was renowned before the Apollo years as a unique experience, and the rock'n'roll years only added to its fame. But with its architectural glory days behind it, the building was in rapid decline in its closing decade; and while a new generation of thrill seekers brought new life to the great auditorium, the plaster, bricks and mortar rotted to dangerous degrees, earning the venue the nickname 'The Appalling'. As a landmark it's remembered for the huge Playhouse lettering, the family slogan 'It's Good - It's Green's' on the custom-made carpet, and the bouncing balcony which appeared to move up to six feet as rock fans moved to the beat of their favourite bands. This is the full story of those rock years before the Apollo closed for good. Rick Parfitt of Status Quo recalls they partied so hard they needed oxygen at the side of the stage as they played, while Francis Rossi maintains: 'The Apollo was the best venue anywhere in the world'. Bob Geldof summed it all up: 'The only thing that should happen to the Apollo is that it be torn down by rock fans, brick by brick, while a rock band plays Scotland the Brave at 50,000 watts. Fuck bingo - long live rock.'

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $4.22

  Today, when many are asking if it's time to end the 400-year-old union and look increasingly to a united Europe, this books prompts a greater understanding of the warts-and-all origins of Scotland's ancestral legacy. Did the Scots really cower in the shadow of their powerful, aggressive English neighbour? This book reveals a very different picture. Scottish armies repeatedly invaded English-held territory, defying generations of Anglo-Norman kings, and it took many centuries to finally decide the fluid Border frontier. The author spells out the financial and military factors that helped to ensure Scotland's independence from the time of the Romans in Britain through Saxon, Norse and Norman invasions, the ravages of Edward Longshanks and the savagery of Henry VIII's rough wooing . How did the English people react to the Union of Crowns? Were the Scots incorporated against their will? This book explodes the myth that the crowns of England and Scotland were united in some sort of constitutional coincidence. It uncovers associations between many Scots and the English court and its secret service - lifting the lid on a murky underworld of collaborators, spies and assassins. Did the French love the Scots as much as they hated the English? The author reveals the implications of the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France, and the legacy of England's foreign wars. The mutually sacrificial and loveless marriage of England and Scotland, arranged by Protestant pragmatists, secured independence for both countries which might otherwise have become Catholic dominions of France or Spain. Who gained most from Britain's independence? Britain was just a small corner in a huge power struggle raging throughout Europe. The author reveals the ruthless, secular and political nature of religions that tortured and massacred men, women and children in their hundreds of thousands. Divided they might have fallen or been pushed into obscurity, but united the two countries stood as Europe's foremost independent Protestant state, the seat of democratic government and the foundation stone of much social and legal reform.