U2

U2 11 O'Clock Tick Tock Tour came to Bristol on 28 May 1980. However, Bristol's bus drivers go on strike on this day, leaving U2 with a small audience of approximately fifty people.

The intended support band, Fashion, also do not show. Two local bands replace Fashion as support - The Stingrays and The Electric Guitars.

Chris from The Stingrays remembers feeling decidedly underwhelmed by their performance:

“They'd been on the front cover of NME that week. They'd been spotted as the next big thing and they assumed there was gonna be a big crowd. And we were there as support and they were trying to get the show going and we didn't want to go on in front of ten people – I tried to delay matters...in fact although it got a bit better there wasn't that many people there that night...personally I wasn't that impressed. My feeling was, not many people in the crowd were either. You didn't think you were looking at a group that was gonna be the biggest group in the world within about a year.”

Chris from the Stingrays, interviewed by Edson Burton, 2009

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