GIG REVIEW: Skids + Jonny Robson @ The Grove, Newcastle, Friday 10 October 2025
It’s Friday night and The Grove, a smashing little venue in Newcastle’s East End, is packed – always a good sight in these tough times for live music.
I’d wager that most of the capacity crowd of 300 won’t see 50 again, but they’re here to see one of the most important bands of their youth, Skids.
It matters not that only frontman Richard Jobson is an original member, as they’re here for a very special gig, celebrating 45 years of the band’s best-known album, The Absolute Game.
Released in September 1980, it reached No. 9, the most commercially successful record of Skids’ career. It was a bitter-sweet time, however, as once the tour to promote the album was over, guitarist Stuart Adamson and drummer Mike Baillie left.
Skids lasted one more album before splitting in 1981, and Adamson sadly died in 2001, but his spirit lives on in the songs, and Jobson always pays tribute to his former bandmate.
His were big shoes to fill when Skids reunited, and until a couple of years ago this was done by Adamson’s ex-Big Country bandmate Bruce Watson and his son Jamie.
When they left to focus on their work with Big Country, Skids recruited young guitarist Connor Whyte, who handles these classic songs in a way I’m sure the man himself would approve of. That’s no mean feat, especially as Jobson was once quoted as saying the album “was all about Stuart’s guitar playing”.
The current line-up is completed by Peter Byrchmore (Goldblade/Membranes) on bass and Nick Hernandez on drums, and they make a formidable rhythm section, giving the songs more oomph than they ever had.
Tonight is all about The Absolute Game, with nine of its 10 tracks given an airing, with The Devils Decade the odd one out. They start not with album opener and lead single Circus Games, but with album track Happy To Be With You.
It’s not an obvious choice, but one of my favourite Skids songs, Out Of Town, is next, and if there was any disappointment about the relatively low-key opener, it’s swept away by this classic.
Jobson is remarkably energetic for a man of his age, bounding around the stage, though he seems to have retired his high-kicking ‘dance’.
When he remarks between songs that he turned 65 on Monday, he’s greeted with a shout from the crowd; not ‘happy birthday’ but ‘you old cunt’. “Just what I expect from the Geordies,” he grins.
Newcastle is a city Skids have visited several times since reforming in 2017, and always get a warm welcome. Tonight’s no exception, and the crowd are fully engaged by the time they up the ante with the album’s three singles: Circus Games, Goodbye Civilian and A Woman In Winter.
Album tracks One Decree, Arena and The Children Saw The Shame are greeted with affection, and a special mention is due to Hurry On Boys, which sounds immense in the hands of this incarnation of the band.
With homage duly paid to The Absolute Game, Skids end the night by throwing a few more fan favourites into the set; The Saints Are Coming is reclaimed from U2/Green Day, Masquerade and Into The Valley prompt big singalongs, and Jobbo doesn’t even complain about playing TV Stars, “the worst song ever written”.
The end is high, and they finish their 70-minute set with another hit single, Working For The Yankee Dollar, which has surely never sounded heavier.
Don’t get the idea that Skids are just living on past glories, however; they’ve released three fine albums of new material (including excellent covers set Songs From A Haunted Ballroom) since they reformed, as well as various live sets featuring the classics.
They were never just another punk band. Stuart Adamson made sure of that, and his legacy is in safe hands with Jobson and the 2025 version of Skids. If this 45th anniversary tour comes to a venue near you, do go, it’s a treat.
A mention needs to be made, too, for tonight’s opening act, Jonny Robson, the frontman of Bishop Auckland street-punk favourites Gimp Fist. He played a 45-minute acoustic set, centred round half a dozen of his band’s best-loved songs.
First In Line, War On The Streets, Skinhead Not Bonehead, Top Dog, (Marching) On And On and Here I Stand slipped down a treat with those who know the Gimps’ work.
But it was the less-obvious choices which stood out for me; Fall Apart from 2022’s Isolation album, and two new songs, Hands That Built Ships and One Of A Kind, which I look forward to hearing on a future album. He also tossed in a couple well-chosen covers, Leatherface’s Not Superstitious and The Clash’s Janie Jones.
All this made for a tremendous night out, and another feather in the cap of family-run promoters JS Promotions, who are responsible for putting on tonight’s show, as well as many other punk and alternative gigs in the North East and further afield.
