MARQUEE – 1982
On nights like this you begin to wonder just how much blood any one band has to sweat before they crack a fickle market like rock’n’roll. The brothers Scrimshaw (sounds like something out of Dickens), Mike and Glenn, have been knocking around for some 15 years, playing the midlands’ cabaret circuit to rake in the coppers and then moonlighting at the odd metal venue, their first love: in other words, they’ve paid their dues.
Limelight have been in existence for four years and toured with both Saxon and Chevy but the record industry seems indifferent to their obvious musical accomplishment. Must be going out of fashion or something.
Despite an abysmal sound and light system limelight opened powerfully and careered through a carefully-paced set. Mike scrimshaw plays his twin-necked bass like a rhythm guitar and sings with a clear, piercing vocal delivery – and this, I suppose, is what has given rise to the rush comparisons. Brother Glenn gives a remarkably placid performance until the final number “going home”, when he goes through a Jekyll/Hyde transformation and starts attacking his guitar like it was a vicious enemy. The comparative effects of these late Hendrix histrionics makes them all the more potent.
That Limelight have yet to make it big seems both a tragedy and a mystery. The guest list of invited A&R people was long and comprehensive but none of them bothered to turn up. Music biz apathy will be the death of this band. There’s something wrong there and very little you or I can do to put the situation right”
