Poster for Secret Gig by Ride/Mac's 1000th Gig

Poster for Secret Gig by Ride/Mac's 1000th Gig

To celebrate reaching 1000 gigs put on at the Jericho Tavern, venue promoter and Arthur Turners Lovechild? front man Mac De Hoopla invited Ride to tread the boards of the venue that birthed a million Oxford bands one more time before they went stratospheric. They already were stratospheric, to be honest. It was 1991, and since signing to Creation the year before, Ride had released four EPs, their debut album Nowhere, and the follow up, Going Blank Again, was in production. Convincing them to come back to their roots to play an 'intimate' gig in the beer soaked indie cubby hole above the Tavern probably took some charm. And to make sure this was attended only by the city's hardcore live music fans, Ride's name appeared nowhere in the publicity. Word of mouth about this 'secret gig' went viral before the term was invented and the gig had sold out before the posters were even drawn up in Mac's hallmark Sharpie on A3 style. This was also the first gig by Arthur Turners Lovechild? who were second on the bill and were described in the write up in Curfew the following month as 'Billy Bragg gone metal'. We didn't let a small thing like the gig already being sold out stop us slapping these posters all over the regular fly-posting spots around the city, if only to have our band's name debuted for all to see. The question mark (a nod to the secrecy of the headliners) became incorporated into the styling of the name of Arthur Turners Lovechild? from then on.

Tuesday 17 December 1991