PREFAB SPROUT Liverpool Polytechnic 7th December 1983
I promised a friend that one day I would dig out a SPROAT gig from back in the day… Well I have finally got around to it. I genuinely never gave much interest to the name PREFAB SPROUT, I just assumed they just scribbled words down on scraps of paper & put them into a big hat, threw the contents into the air, & used the first two words that arose from the confetti on the floor. I have just read in wikipedia (so it must be right).. That the band name was possibly the result of Paddy McAloon mishearing the lyrics to Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood’s “(I’m Going To) Jackson” which has the line.. “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout”.. I like to think that is true, though I suspect that the origin of their name was pre(fab) the Maxwell Tape adverts…
I did know that “Lions In My Own Garden: Exit Someone” the single that Peel played to death, released a year previously, related to LIMOGES, the French college town that Paddy’s, then girlfriend had gone off to study.. I quite liked Paddy’s sometimes unfathomable lyrics, even though I thought most of them came via the process, I thought he named the band. I do remember wandering into a sound-check & just hearing “Bo… Bo Bee.. Bo Bee… Bo” coming from the stage & thought that was different, though the thought may have manifested itself as a loud snigger… I was quickly ushered away “Ms Smith can’t abide people hearing her sound-check”… I was compelled to advise the feeling was mutual, which did get a smile out of Martin McAloon, who came across as probably one of the nicest people in the world.
Here sees THE SPROATS on the Liverpool leg of the Kitchenware Tour
- Here On The Eerie
- Cue Fanfare
- Green Issac
- Constant Blue
- Diana
- I Couldn’t Bear To Be Special
- Don’t Sing
- Cherry Tree
- Hallelujah
- Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
- I Never Play Basketball Now
