In pictures: Moondogs on the roof - Roundhouse - Celebrating 50 Years

IN PICTURES: MOONDOGS ON THE ROOF

3 October 1982

As music began to take on greater significance in my life, I started going to gigs, and the industrial and rather shabby atmosphere of the Roundhouse was the perfect backdrop for the pre-punk music of The Pirates, Eddie and the Hot Rods and Graham Parker. Then in 1976 everything changed with Patti Smith’s seismic performance of Horses (the poster in the Roundhouse bar is a facsimile of the one I bought that night). This was followed a year later by The Ramones, supported by Talking Heads and a couple of weeks later Blondie.

A few years later in, having clambered a little further up the greasy pole of freelance photography, I was engaged by the New Musical Express to take some shots of the emerging Ulster band The Moondogs. While a young Sean O’Hagan conducted the interview I wandered around the building looking for a photogenic spot to take the photographs. Back then it was possible to climb over a wall to the side of the external stairs that took you into The Roundhouse and gain access to the disused railway yards behind. What was good enough for The Clash was fine for The Moondogs, and they went one better than their idols and got to pose on the roof!

Credit: Philip Grey, under the Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Credit: Philip Grey, under the Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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