For Belfast the first punk gigs were (weirdly) all in east Belfast where Rudi and the defects hail from (and smelly van the man too)..weirdly as there are zero venues and people don't usually travel in to it..anyways first gigs were at the Glenmachan Hotel (a lot of shellshock rock was filmed here..lots of fights every night..fun huh! bands who played here were Rudi, Idiots, protex etc etc, ) and The Girton Lodge Hotel (Rudi only..the other bands were too scared to play it!)..both SLF and Outcasts played their first gigs within weeks of each other at the long closed down Paddy lambe's lounge at ballyhackamore (all three of these venues are long defunct)...first venue outside Belfast was the legendary Trident (Bangor - natch Rudi were the first band to play here! also played by ruefrex, outcasts  - when they still did stuff like Johnny Is A wanker, ruefrex, SLF - still in punk showband mode etc etc..)

Oh and the first band to play the Harp bar was pretty boy Floyd and the gems!! (they played half the week as candy doing pop covers/the other half as PBF doing punk covers..mind you their keyboard player later ended up helping us out and they were good mates when we lived in London..some went on to play with Gary Holton's and later bram Tchaikovsy..their drummer played on Costello's shipbuilding too..

Oh and north coast had kelly portrush ( again Rudi were first punk band to play there! and Spuds which was the domain of local hippies the flying squad who became the Xdreamysts..(but who were friendly blokes..)..all this in one tiny pisshole of a country..wow!..have a cool Yule

Brian Young (Rudi) 24/12/2001