This was taken just before a Sisters gig in 1985. I'd seen them before and thought they were dull live, but this gig was to prove eventful...

Although I liked the Sisters on record, I'd been terminally underwhelmed by them live, and I was mainly going because it would be wrong to miss a big goth band playing Portsmouth. I got there and it was as dull as I expected- they were playing Led Zeppelin on the intro tape, a very bad sign as far as I was concerned, and then a huge cloud of smoke issued forth and suffocated the front three rows. We could just barely make out a hat and a guitar poking through the smoke, and then the drum machine started up.

Which was about all we could hear for most of the gig- the sound was so bad we couldn't actually work out one song from another, they were all "drum machine with low-pitched honking noise". This didn't surprise me- I'd spent the last Sisters gig at the back sharing a beer with the Skeletal Family guitarist (the Skeletals had blown the Sisters off stage, which wasn't difficult-sadly, they weren't supporting this tour). So I went to the back again and sat on a pile of coats- only to be told "Oi! You're sitting on my bootleg!". I'm still looking for that one- if anyone's got a copy of the Sisters from Porrtsmouth Guildhall in 1985 with the sound of me sitting on it, I'd be eternally grateful for a copy.

After the gig, we went up to Grannies, the local alternative club- the March Violets were playing a gig there after the Sisters, but sadly it was after Simon D. had left the band and they were a pale imitation of how they'd been last time. Cue much talk about the sad decline of goth

However, there was a distraction- the Sisters had gone on there too and were surrounded by a horde of adoring fans.

Naturally, being young, drunk and annoying I decided to go up to them and tell them how crap they were live.

Understandably they didn't take too kindly to this, and soon we were embroiled in a drunken argument. Their stance was "We play for ourselves". My reply was "In that case don't expect an audience." Only a lot less coherent. The argument ended when Wayne Hussey, who was the main one I was arguing with, bit me.

Cue extreme horror on my part.

For ages afterwards, I was terrified I'd turn into a Were-Hussey- that at full moon I'd suddenly sprout sunglasses and a hat and wander around dark nightclubs chatting up pillars. Fortunately I got the inoculations in time...