Good Friend – FIRST CONCERT EVER

In this First Concert Ever segment, Adam Carroll, from the pop punk band, Good Friend, talks about the story of his first experience with live music. You can check out the story, after the break.

From a very young age I was a Punk. My friend group in my small, cold, Northern Irish town, were all punks. Our group was close-knit. We would spend every night hanging out on the streets like most kids do listening to music or talking. Usually about sex, school, TV, music, skateboarding… and eventually conversation would always sway to which band we would love to come to our country.

Not many bands did. The Troubles were still fresh in everyone’s memory. But on 23rd September 2003 (5 years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed), my friends and I went to the Ulster Hall in Belfast and saw our first ever band. We saw Rancid. I was 15.

I rented a 20-seater bus for the one hour journey which included a driver using a fake ID. I remember there being such a tense atmosphere before the show. For a 15-year-old back then the Belfast Punk Scene was definitely an intimidating place to an outsider.

My friend Jim and I ended up bumping into Tim Armstrong before the show. Management rudely told us to go away, but Tim hung back and signed things for us. Jim having nothing else on him but a Toblerone packet for him to sign.

The show was electric. They blasted the classics and everything off of the then-new album, Indestructible. Tim screwed up the intro to “Ruby Soho” but he laughed it off and it didn’t matter. There was moshing and dancing and I’m pretty certain everyone left that venue with new friends, sore feet, and a life-long love affair with punk rock to look forward to.

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