Even when they hastily reassembled as Simple Minds, their first key musical development – the acquisition of a synthesiser – came about when Burchill saw keyboardist Mick MacNeil playing the futuristic instrument in a wedding band. In those days, school friends Kerr, guitarist Charlie Burchill and drummer Brian McGee further lumbered themselves with punk pseudonyms – Kerr was “Pripton Weird” and Burchill was “Charlie Argue” – and they managed to split up on the day they released their only single. But few among the millions of mainstream record buyers and footie lads that punched the air to Simple Minds in their stadium pomp will have had any idea that the band were once a makeup-wearing, experimental, art-rock electronic group who made six tremendous pioneering albums, or that their stadium-conquering favourites once emerged from the ashes of a Glaswegian punk band called Johnny & the Self Abusers.
The sight and sound of Simple Minds at Live Aid – Jim Kerr’s shirt billowing as they abseiled to world domination on the back of 1985 smash Don’t You Forget About Me – is the epitome of so much about the 80s, from the cannon-fire drum sound to the singer’s desire to reach the fans at the back of the stadium.
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