Skids: The Saints Are Coming: Live And Acoustic 2007-2021, 6CD Box Set

• A 6CD set collecting together four live shows from the reunited Skids including one from their acoustic tour plus their 2019 acoustic studio album, ‘Peaceful Times’

• Plus their nine track 2007 Radio Clyde session that includes a cover of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s ‘Vambo’.

• With each CD presented in a newly designed wallet and the booklet features a new interview with singer Richard Jobson, who says in the sleeve notes “we don’t want to do it if it’s not fun for us and not fun for the audience. I think you can hear that in these recordings. Everyone is having fun.”

Skids were the leading Scottish punk band, playing their first gig at the Belleville Hotel in their home town of Dunfermline in August 1977 when Richard Jobson was just 16.

After U2 and Green Day had a worldwide hit with their cover of ‘The Saints Are Coming’ in 2006 with proceeds going to victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Richard Jobson reformed Skids the following year and played an incendiary radio session for Radio Clyde that is released for the first time as Disc six of this box set. Original lead guitarist Stuart Adamson (who had left Skids to form Big Country in 1981) took his own life in 2001, his place on guitar in the reunion was taken by his Big Country compatriot Bruce Watson and Watson’s son Jamie.

Skids reunited again in 2010 with an incredible set at The Alhambra, Dunfermline on disc 1, which is played with an energy that defied their age. Their 2017 show at The Roundhouse on disc 2 is another amazing performance from a band firing on all cylinders. The 2019 acoustic album ‘Peaceful Times’ on disc 3 showed that thundering punk classics worked well as acoustic numbers drawing attention to the quality of the lyrics. The album was followed by an acoustic tour by Jobson and the Watsons from which their gig in Gateshead is included on disc 4.

On disc 5, Skids’ 2021 Lockdown show performed in Livingston opens with a storming version of ‘Charade’ and finishes with powerful, passionate renditions of ‘Circus Games’, ‘Masquerade’ and ‘Into The Valley’ with no let up in between. “Oxygen for Mr Jobson, and a defibrillator” he quips at the end.

Track Listing:

DISC ONE

Skids Live: Alhambra, Dunfermline, 6/3/2010
1 Animation
2 Of One Skin
3 Melancholy Soldiers
4 Thanatos
5 The Saints Are Coming
6 Scared To Dance
7 Hurry On Boys
8 Working For The Yankee Dollar
9 Out Of Town
10 A Woman In Winter
11 Charade
12 Charles
13 The Olympian
14 Masquerade
15 Into The Valley

DISC TWO

Skids Live: The Roundhouse, London, 16/6/2017
1 Animation
2 Of One Skin
3 Melancholy Soldiers
4 Thanatos
5 Dulce Et Decorum Est (Pro Patria Mori)
6 Working For The Yankee Dollar
7 The Saints Are Coming
8 Scared To Dance
9 Charles
10 The Olympian
11 Out Of Town
12 Hurry On Boys
13 A Woman In Winter
14 Circus Games
15 Masquerade
16 Into The Valley 17 Charade
18 TV Stars
19 A World On Fire
20 Of One Skin (Reprise)

DISC THREE

Skids - Peaceful Times (Studio Recordings) 2019
1 Into The Valley
2 A World On Fire
3 Kings Of New World Order
4 The Saints Are Coming
5 Animation
6 Hurry On Boys
7 Blood And Soil
8 Fields
9 Kreuzberg ’79
10 Desert Dust

DISC FOUR

Skids Live (Acoustic Tour): The Sage 2, Gateshead, 10/09/2019
1 Kings Of The New World Order
2 World On Fire
3 Working For The Yankee Dollar
4 Fields
5 Desert Dust
6 The Saints Are Coming
7 Blood And Soil
8 Castles In Spain
9 Charles
10 A Women In Winter
11 Into The Valley

DISC FIVE

Skids Live: Lockdown Live, Livingston, 9/3/2021
1 Charade
2 Of One Skin
3 Kings Of The New World Order
4 The Saints Are Coming
5 Working For The Yankee Dollar
6 Hurry On Boys
7 A Woman In Winter
8 Circus Games
9 Masquerade
10 Into The Valley

DISC SIX

Skids - Radio Clyde Session, 1/7/2007
1 Melancholy Soldiers
2 The Saints Are Coming
3 Working For The Yankee Dollar
4 Charles
5 Out Of Town
6 Masquerade
7 Into The Valley
8 Vambo
9 TV Stars