Myself and Marcos Poncioni-Ferreira, aka Kito, who was student from Brazil, formed Verdict.  He lived at the infamous 64 Lawrie Park Road.  We formed from the remnants of the Mosquitoes, who didn’t want to move away from "Real Music" into something more gutsy and punky.  We got a few numbers together and auditioned for drummers.  We ended up with Sacha de Jong, a Dutch woman, who had just left a French band, the Lous, who had toured with the Clash.  Gigs came and demos were made, but there was a lot of friction in the band.  Sacha’s band mate from the Lous, Raphael Devins, also joined on sax.  We started playing a lot of Rock against Racism local, London gigs and were invited to play at the Brockwell Park rally in 1979.  Initially playing in a marquee on the fringes of the event, we were phoned the night before and asked if we would play the main stage, as the Selector had pulled out.  Erm, yes, was the quick answer to that.  It was a Sunday and the event kicked off at 12.am.  We were to go on first, the graveyard shift, but what the hell, what an opportunity.  The march didn’t arrive in the park till later on and also there were big equipment problems, so we were kept waiting till 14pm when we finally hit the stage.   We had spent two hours talking to Misty in Roots and Stiff Little Fingers in the dressing rooms, which were in the changing rooms of the Brockwell outdoor lido.  I was absolutely shitting myself as we walked up the ramp onto stage and totally froze.  Sacha had to physically uncoil my fingers from the safety rail leading up the ramp.  Obviously we had had no sound check.  The roadies had set up my amp and when I plugged in my guitar and played a D major chord the whole stage shook and my stomach took another flight into the deep. A twenty K sound system. We played really well, to about 20,000 people, and were paid £50 and crates of wine and pils lager.  Got very drunk after the gig!!

I got spotted in Safeway’s the next day, by one of the check out girls who recognised me from the gig.  Fame at last I thought.  Yet again I thought we were going to hit the big time, but Kito left after continually arguing with the girls in the band.  Sacha and Raf went back to live in Paris and Kito moved on to form Blue Rondo a la Turk and then Matt Bianco.

I went to Paris to play with Verdict, who had recruited Lance, another bass player and we did some storming gigs at the Club Campagne Premiere.  We got totally ripped off by management there and, when phoned by Chrissie Hynde to do a support gig at the Marquee, slunk back to England.  Lance left after that, before the Marquee gig, and we had to ask Kito to come back and do the show.  Luckily he put aside any enmity and did the show.  I thought we were pretty good that night, but the audience, just looked at us.  No applause, nothing. Apparently there was applause but I just don’t remember it.  Another potential great night turned to dust in our hands. At least I got to play at the Marquee.

That was the end of Verdict.  The girls went back to France again and Kito continued with his new and successful bands.

The tracks here are some demos we did recorded at the wonderful Spaceward studios in Cambridge.