Border Telegraph | News | Brotherhood hit the wrong note

Wednesday, 19th November, 2008

Published: Wednesday, 12th April, 2006 09:51

Brotherhood hit the wrong note

By Border Telegraph Newsroom

A NIGHT of 70s Eurovision nostalgia turned into a Brotherhood of Sham at the Volunteer Hall last Saturday.

Around 150 fans, some from as far away as Elgin, travelled to Galashiels to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Save All Your Kisses For Me winning the Eurovision Song Contest.

And they were promised a party night to remember.

But the Brotherhood of Man gig turned into an almighty gaff as the band fought with the promoter over money, and eventually stormed off stage midway through their second set.

Former fan Alison Fairley from Edinburgh told the Peeblesshire News: “It was awful. My husband had surprised me with the tickets, and we came down expecting a great night.

“Brotherhood of Man just didn’t want to be here, and some folk just got up and left. There were others who were booing.

“I expected it to be a brilliant night with it being the 30th anniversary, but I was bitterly disappointed”

Another local fan, who didn’t want to be named, said: “They played for just over half-an-hour, then took a break for half-an-hour. Folk were bored with waiting when they came on the second time and started to heckle them a bit. They only played a couple of songs during the second set and then left.

“It was a long boring night – so much for a party atmosphere.”

Brotherhood of Man sold over 1 million copies of their Eurovision winning Save All Your Kisses For Me in 1976.

And went on to have another two number ones, Figaro and Angelo, before disappearing from the charts in the late 1970s.

But a recent 70s revival has seen the original line-up of Lee Sheridan, Nicky Stevens, Martin Lee and Sandra Stevens playing to sell-out audiences again across the country.

The Galashiels gig was part of the band’s 70s Story tour, which also sees them cover hits by the Osmonds, the Jackson Five and David Cassidy.

Singer Lee Sheridan admitted the Volunteer Hall performance wasn’t their best, but he wasn’t accepting any blame. He explained: “Before we flew up to Scotland we found out our fee hadn’t cleared. We still flew up to Edinburgh and travelled down to Galashiels as we didn’t want to disappoint our fans.

“There were a few problems, and we did have a run in with the promoter. We’ve had a few feed back emails from fans since the gig – some complaining but a few others quite positive. We did play the entire first half of the show, but we did cut short the second half of the show.

“We love coming to Scotland, and we feel bad about what happened in Galashiels.”

The Border Telegraph was unable to contact the promoter, KMEvents.

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