Poor WW2… Jack and Jim are torn between their new love of Star Wars and their old flame, World War II

There’s no doubt, that for many boys, their former interest in real-life Warfare – started to take a back-seat after seeing Star Wars. Much in the way I expect previous generations before them had switched from playing cowboys and indians to soldiers. I wonder if many girls had the same experience? What did they lose interest in after seeing Star Wars? At least when you got a kick out of baddies Darth Vader and The Empire, it wasn’t as iffy as liking the German Wehrmacht’s cool uniforms and hardware. In Star Wars, it was pretend. No one was harmed in real life.

 

Angus or Ozzy?

My own strongest memory of this type of conflict and sense of loss – and even personal disloyalty! – came when I was around 14 or 15 years old. I’d been an AC/DC fan for a couple of years, being a fairly unsophisticated young music fan and they really rocked my socks off. So heavy! Heavy compared to my previous musical faves, ABBA, The Police and then Adam and the Antz. Especially heavy was the Back in Black album. My brother-in-law, Pat even brought me to see them before he was my brother in law around 1982. I was only 13 or 14 and it turned out that my first ever live music experience – apart from marching bands and school talent shows – would be AC/DC supported by Y&T – who I also really liked – in Dublin’s RDS venue. Quite a first experience! As you can imagine, it was mind-blowing for a youngster.

But what happened then, was that I heard Ozzy Osbourne‘s ‘Talk of the Devil‘ double-live-album. They were all covers of Black Sabbath songs and it was the heaviest, squealiest, most-amazing-guitar-playingist and raucous metal I’d ever heard. Every musician on it was top-class; and the songs and lyrics were streets ahead of the usual ‘I Want You Baby‘, ‘Rock Me All Night‘ and ‘Let’s get Smashed‘ type heavy rock songs. Suddenly AC/DC seemed a bit dull in comparison. I tried and tried, and made myself listen to their earlier, 1970s Bon Scott albums but they just seemed too soft and plodding. I felt guilty about it and found it very difficult to move on. Thankfully AC/DC’s Back in Black was still awesome – and still is today – otherwise I might have given up on them completely.

 

talk of the devil album ozzy osbourne

Above: 1982: The heaviest Heavy Metal album of all time (at the time). It must have made my mum and dad nervous. What a lovely Xmas present it was!

 

 

Star Wars’ Turn to Take the Back Seat

I was in a heavy-rock band for a few years, from my mid teens to very early 20s, singing and playing second lead/rhythm electric guitar – though most of our performamces were in the garage! Star Wars had taken a back-seat. So, by the time the movie Return of the Jedi was released in 1983, I think my interest had declined terminally and I never even went to see it!

My musical tastes broadened and matured a lot after those days, but funnily enough, I’ve spent the last 2 months in 2015, aged 47, listening to virtually nothing but Iron Maiden, especially their works of the last decade or so. What’s funnier still is that I kind of liked them as a young headbanger but kind of didn’t. What seemed like their tedious self-indulgence and pretentiousness then, in the 80s; now seems more like art, from a band with an absolutely unique voice. They’ve stuck to what they believe in musically and lyrically. They have conviction – and I admire that.

So readers: What conflicts did you you experience as a young fan?

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** Stay Groovy, all you 1970s kids! **

– John White